It looks like Romney’s mockery of Obama’s 2008 pledge of climate action had one positive impact.

At the 2012 Democratic National Convention, President Obama said tonight to a large national TV audience:

And yes, my plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet – because climate change is not a hoax.  More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke.  They’re a threat to our children’s future.  And in this election, you can do something about it.

Worth filling up a couple of shot glasses, I’d say — though repeating the denier “hoax” frame is not the way to debunk it.

Here’s what leads up to it:

You can choose the path where we control more of our own energy.  After thirty years of inaction, we raised fuel standards so that by the middle of the next decade, cars and trucks will go twice as far on a gallon of gas.   We’ve doubled our use of renewable energy, and thousands of Americans have jobs today building wind turbines and long-lasting batteries.  In the last year alone, we cut oil imports by one million barrels a day – more than any administration in recent history.  And today, the United States of America is less dependent on foreign oil than at any time in nearly two decades.

Now you have a choice – between a strategy that reverses this progress, or one that builds on it. We’ve opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration in the last three years, and we’ll open more. But unlike my opponent, I will not let oil companies write this country’s energy plan, or endanger our coastlines, or collect another $4 billion in corporate welfare from our taxpayers.

We’re offering a better path – a future where we keep investing in wind and solar and clean coal; where farmers and scientists harness new biofuels to power our cars and trucks; where construction workers build homes and factories that waste less energy; where we develop a hundred year supply of natural gas that’s right beneath our feet.  If you choose this path, we can cut our oil imports in half by 2020 and support more than 600,000 new jobs in natural gas alone.

Yes, that’s an “all of the above” energy policy. So down one drink and put the other down the drain.

Beats mockery, though. Comments?

UPDATE: Good speech with a great finish. I’d still give Bill Clinton props for the best speech of both conventions. Gov. Jennifer Granholm had the best line of the night:

In Romney’s world, the cars get the elevator; the workers get the shaft.

JR: Invisible Obama, I must confess that all these years I was eating lunch at home between blog posts I had no idea you were sitting right next to me. But Clint Eastwood opened my eyes — and ears — and for that I’m grateful.

IO:

JR: I’m sorry. You’re right.  You’re very busy. You have a big speech tonight and President Clinton is a tough act to follow so let’s get right to this. First, what did you think of Clint’s decision to interview you at the RNC?

IO:

JR: Quoting Magnum Force, that’s funny. I’ll post the video:

And what did you think of Mitt Romney’s mockery of your pledge to “slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet”?

IO:

JR: Well, I can’t print that….  Just kidding. Yes, it’s true Romney’s policies would speed the rise of the oceans and slow the healing the planet. Yes, he apparently believes that rising seas lift all yachts. But your clear understanding of the problem raises the question: Why have you and your administration been treating climate change like Voldemort — “The Threat-That-Must-Not-Be-Named.”

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by Ros Donald, via The Carbon Brief

Last week Australia and the European Commission  announced they would begin linking emissions trading schemes (ETS) in two years’ time.

An emissions trading scheme sets a cap on carbon emissions, requiring polluters to hold a permit for each tonne of carbon dioxide they emit. The level of the cap dictates how many permits are available.

Under the European ETS, each EU member state sets a national cap for carbon emissions, which is then converted into allowances for polluters. At the end of every year, polluting industries must say how much carbon dioxide they have emitted. If they’ve used more than their allocation, they have to buy permits from those that have spare, and the market sets the price of those permits.

David Parnell, director of the Centre for Environmental Economics at the University of Western Australia,  explains that under the EU ETS:

“[I]t’s not actually the price that causes the overall cuts in emissions. The cap determines the level of emissions, and the required cuts in emissions cause the price. That is, permits have a value because they allow you to avoid making cuts in emissions.”

The current Australian system works in a different way, with the government setting the price of carbon dioxide allowances. This may be why the scheme is commonly referred to in Australia as a carbon tax, even though it isn’t really a tax, but a capped emissions trading scheme. The government decided that a fixed carbon price would reduce uncertainty in the scheme’s early years, but Australia plans to move to a full blown emissions trading market over the next few years.

What’s going to happen?

Last week, Australia and the European Commission announced there would be a full two-way link between their emissions trading systems by July 2018. Businesses will be able to use carbon units from either the Australian or the European emissions trading systems interchangeably.

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