In their article, V&M note that “every stage of the coal business is hard on the environment.” They contend that to check the progress of global warming, scientists estimate that emissions need to be halved by 2050. “For countries that care the most about global warming,” they argue, “a global halving of emissions means making much deeper cuts of their own so that developing countries that put a lower priority on the problem have room to grow.”

As the Kyoto Protocol, an international and legally binding agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, nears expiration in 2012, global leaders can only confront or postpone grim choices. The Bush administration did not send delegates to Kyoto, and Obama supported clean coal technology as part of his campaign. In December, international climate talks in Copenhagen, hosted by The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), will provide an opportunity for him to distinguish himself from his predecessor.

As the world’s largest consumer of coal after China, the U.S. has yet to reflect seriously on how to cut emissions –and this in the era when the European Union is already phasing out inefficient light bulbs. Yet, as Victor and Morse point out, coal is “abundant, cheap, and indispensible.” It’s not clear what Obama meant when he said, in June “”For what everyone here believes, even as views differ on many important issues, is that the status quo is no longer acceptable.” We’ll have to wait and see.