A wasted opportunity to commit to renewable energy

America, at least under George Bush, takes an unabashedly self-interested view of climate change, or of any change that might require taking action and bearing some discomfort – even though in the long term it would improve even its own living standards enormously. At the Earth summit the US stood firm against a European target for generating energy from renewable sources such as the sun, sea and wind. Instead, it allied with oil-exporting nations and Japan, insisting that nuclear, and fossil fuels, were the way forward.

They are not. And the willful blindness of the Americans in the face of incontrovertible evidence that reliance on fossil fuels will wreak untold damage on the planet – as well as creating uncomfortable political alliances, for oil is the only reason the US has to be friendly with such repressive regimes as that of Saudi Arabia – is deeply frustrating to nearly all the other nations of the world.

For it is mainly American intransigence that has left us with the empty rhetoric of the summit's final statement, talking of an "urgent need" to increase energy produced from sustainable sources. Margaret Beckett, the Secretary of State for the Environment, lauded this as "truly remarkable" yesterday, but what is more remarkable is that a conference called to help planet Earth instead consumed a mountain of its natural resources and wasted many thousands of hours of its leading policy-makers' valuable time.

Renewable energy, in fact, would bring huge benefits to the US: it would cut its reliance on foreign oil and thereby allow it more freedom to act on the international stage. The target proposed by South America and Europe – of around 10 per cent of energy production – was feasible with an intensive technological effort. Pursuing that goal would have boosted the American economy, which badly needs it and has the know-how to accomplish that goal.

Instead, the Americans have chosen the short-term route. And a summit meant to make us all richer will leave us all poorer. We can only hope that someday American politics will produce a government committed to its people's and the world's long-term survival.