[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Why the World Needs the US to Act Now on Climate Change

Thu Apr 9 16:02:26 MDT 2009

by Sophie Ragsdale, The Nation

AlterNet (March 17 2009)

There are two clocks ticking for the god-fearing climate-conscious among
us. The first counts down to Copenhagen, where on December 7
representatives from 192 countries will hammer out a successor to the
Kyoto Protocol: a post-2012 global climate deal aimed at curbing
greenhouse gases. The second hurtles us toward disaster, a
"mankind-threatening juggernaut", the point at which atmospheric carbon
dioxide exceeds a concentration of 450 parts per million. To the extent
that global warming is contingent on carbon emissions, the tipping point
will be determined at the UN Framework Conference for Climate Change
(UNFCCC) in Copenhagen, the last stop on the Bali Roadmap toward what
UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer has called "the most complex
international agreement that history has ever seen".

In less than ten months, the Danish capital will host as many as 15,000
ministers and officials whose challenge is to collaborate a shared
vision for long-term cooperative climate action. Specifically, they will
determine burden-sharing agreements based on "common but differentiated
responsibilities", and developed countries must pledge ambitious
emissions reduction targets. The alternative business-as-usual approach,
which is to do nothing, will shoot carbon dioxide levels up to 900 ppm
by 2100, causing worldwide temperatures to increase nearly seven degrees
Fahrenheit and sea levels to rise anywhere from three to seven feet,
nearly tripling predictions made in the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change's (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report.

In fact, temperatures are accelerating at such a clip that the IPCC's
2007 report, a gathering and distillation of thousands of peer reviews
submitted by hundreds of the world's top climate experts, was outdated
upon presentation. Since then, scientists have abandoned the language of
numbers and data analysis in favor of urgent calls for immediate action.
There are, of course, a few odd deniers, such as William Happer,
professor of physics at Princeton University, who announced last week at
an Environment and Public Works Committee hearing that we are actually
in a "carbon dioxide famine" and that increased levels "will be good for
mankind". For the most part, however, the consensus is that if
temperatures continue to rise as they are, we will not escape hell and
high water within the next decade. And where policy is concerned, Obama
is considered our last best chance to get it right. "We have only four
years left for Obama to set an example to the rest of the world", said
James Hansen of the NASA Institute. "America must take the lead".

Obama has made it clear that slowing the climate clock is a top priority
for his administration. Beginning with his environment and energy
cabinet picks, the "Green Dream Team", it's fair to say, as
Representative Lloyd Doggett did at a Ways and Means committee hearing,
that "this president is committed to changing the White House into a
greenhouse". And it's no surprise that after eight years of Bush
obstructionism, Obama's willingness to engage on warming and energy
matters is being seen as a "sea change" by the international community.
But if he really wants to make good on his claim to a new dawn of
American leadership, the United States must at least bring the framework
of a federal carbon-caps legislation to the Copenhagen table. On the
other hand, putting together meaningful legislation will be difficult,
especially when the de facto leader of the Republican party, Rush
Limbaugh, is encouraging the spread of ideas that climate change is a
conspiracy cooked up by the Chinese, the "ChiComs", to destroy the US
economy.

Remarkably though, Democrats are not backing down. Speaker of the House
Nancy Pelosi emphasized last week that building a new economy around
green jobs is the "flagship issue" for the Democratic Congress. "This
isn't 'dig a hole, fill a hole'", she said. "It's about doing it in a
new, greener way". Also last week, House Energy & Commerce Committee
chair Henry Waxman stood by his Memorial Day deadline for climate change
legislation and told reporters that his committee has already begun
writing a bill, which he expects will set a national standard for
renewable energy and a cap-and-trade program. And Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid confirmed that he has been sold on Waxman's far-reaching
megabill strategy to combine climate and energy legislation into one
package. Finally, the New York Times reports that Senator Barbara Boxer
is researching the use of a budget reconciliation process as a way to
safeguard the bill from a Republican filibuster. These efforts are
reassuring but not enough. The road to Copenhagen must come on two
tracks. While Democrats should continue to push hard for a strong
domestic climate bill, it's equally important that the United States
join forces with its polluting bedfellow, China, to mobilize an
effective global response to the unique challenges of the twentieth century.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took a critical first step in this
direction by shining a light on the need for bilateral US-China efforts
to overhaul our global economy from one that's coal-driven to one that's
low-carbon and energy efficient. Clinton's highly publicized trip to
Beijing last month meant to signal once and for all that the United
States is serious about climate change. But it will take more than
signals to keep the ice caps from melting. As the president of the Pew
Center on Global Climate Change, Eileen Claussen, explained, shifting to
a climate-friendly economy "is not an issue of just sitting down to work
out a position in the global framework. We must consider how the US and
China can cooperate, so we can both benefit and really show movement.
Because if we show bilateral movement, the rest of the world will
follow." In order to guide the process, the Pew Center and the Asia
Society Center released a joint project, a "Roadmap for US-China
Cooperation on Energy and Climate Change". It is a concrete program for
sustained high-level engagement and on-the-ground action focused on
reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Because, the truth is, Claussen said,
"There's no possibility of addressing the problem if the US and China
don't do a lot relatively quickly, which is evident in the numbers alone".

Todd Stern eloquently summarized the US position in the lead-up to
Copenhagen when he accepted the position of Hillary Clinton's special
envoy for climate change:

"As the largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases, we can only expect
to lead abroad if we are prepared to act decisively at home. Yet we can
only meet the climate challenge with a response that is genuinely global."

Surely the clocks are ticking louder and faster than ever, but if the
United States takes swift and aggressive action on climate change, at
home and abroad, we might make it in time.

_____

Sophie Ragsdale is a freelance writer. She currently lives in Brooklyn,
New York.

http://www.alternet.org/story/131858/

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