U.S. President Barack Obama is set to take his boldest step to halt the rise of the oceans and stop the warming of the planet. But it won't be enough unless the rest of the world follows.
Trimming carbon emissions from U.S. power plants by 25 percent in the coming decades, as Obama is said to be proposing, would be more than overwhelmed by increases in China and India, where coal-fired power plants are springing up and new cars are rolling out of showrooms.
And while making electricity creates 40 percent of the greenhouse gases in the U.S., cutting it as Obama proposes will not come close to meeting the global reduction scientists say is necessary to reverse warming. For one thing, the amount of the U.S. cuts would be replaced more than three times over by projected increases in China alone.