White House hits back on climate critics
That’s the banner headline at the Politico, which reports:
“It would be a mistake to conclude that the international community’s failure to reach a final treaty in Copenhagen is due to a lack of domestic legislation in the United States,” said a senior White House official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity.
The United States, said officials, plans to propose a near-term emissions reduction target as part of a “meaningful submission” the country will present at the talks.
The BBC’s story is even more specific on the proposed target (though I think a little off):
The US will announce a target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions before next month’s UN climate summit, according to a White House official.
The target is expected to be in line with figures contained in legislation before the Senate — a reduction of about 17-20% from 2005 levels by 2020.
While this is being hailed as big news, I don’t think it’s terribly surprising, since it’s pretty obvious that the Senate target will be in the ballpark of a 17% reduction +/- 3%. It’s certainly not going to be a lot higher nor would I expect it to be a lot lower. The House Bill does include allowances allocated for ending international deforestation equivalent to a full 10% of U.S. emissions (see “Tackling Climate Change by Saving Forests“), so I wouldn’t be surprised if Obama put that on the table, too.
Yes, the U.S. target is quite wimpy and inadequate compared to the other big players (see “Climate negotiating positions of top emitters“), but it is the best the American political system can do right now — given that conservatives led by the Bush administration blocked any action by the U.S. for a decade, including reneging on a 2000 campaign promise to cap utility CO2 emissions. We simply have a bigger hill (of our own making) to climb back down.
U.S. negotiators are holding out hope that a bipartisan effort by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) will give them some momentum heading into the climate talks. The trio of senators is expected to release a framework laying out broad principles of their bipartisan proposal before the conference.
Aides and experts suggested that the White House could introduce a provisional target that would be subject to congressional approval.
I take this White House announcement to be another clear message that, yes, they will be insisting on an economy-wide cap-and-trade bill in the Senate (see Carol Browner strongly backs economywide, bipartisan cap-and-trade bill: “Slicing and dicing isn’t going to work. It’s time to finally have comprehensive energy legislation in this country”).
But environmental advocates say the targets alone will not be enough to get a deal without presidential assurances that the legislation will eventually become law….
“They’re looking for that assurance from the president himself that this is going to get done,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Administration officials said Obama would decide over the next few days whether he would travel to the conference. More than 60 world leaders plan to appear at the conference. Obama will be in the region during the talks to receive his Nobel peace prices in Oslo on Dec. 10.
He ought to go, and I expect he will.
The United States, said officials, plans to propose a near-term emissions reduction target as part of a “meaningful submission” the country will present at the talks.
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Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
He ought to do a lot more than just go.
He ought to lead the way on this issue.
He ought to acknowledge that the USA is only 4% of the world’s population, but that we contribute 25% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions – and that number doesn’t even include all the emissions our companies outsource to be belched out in other countries. He ought to take responsibility for those emissions.
He ought to also acknowledge the damage we’re doing to the world’s most vulnerable nations with each day we continue to delay drastically cutting our GHG emissions.
And he ought to use his worldwide popularity and the media spotlight he enjoys to do the job reaching and teaching his audience the facts about global warming, generating the sense of urgency this issue demands.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda.
As the saying on the basketball court goes – “If ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ were raisins and nuts we’d all be eating Waldorf salads.”
“Wimpy and inadequate” is the apt description of United States action so far, which only looks good under Obama compared to the eight years of Bush, but the best we can do? Hardly. Not even close.
We need a Winston Churchill on this issue, and we needed him yesterday.
Expecting anyone else but President Obama to fill those shoes ignores who he is and where we currently are on the timeline.
It’s time for greatness and historic achievements. Doing the best under the circumstances no longer cuts it.
lets go Obama. Do the biz.
“Yes, the U.S. target is quite wimpy and inadequate… but it is the best the American political system can do right now…”
If people really understood the situation, we would be targeting zero emissions tomorrow, not 17-20% reductions by 2020.
This reminds me of the scene in “Top Gun” where Iceman is fighting in a one-v-many furball and Maverick is stuck on the carrier with a broken catapult. The catapult officer says it will take ten minutes to fix and Stinger (presumably, the CAG) says, “Bull**** ten minutes! This thing will be over in tow minutes! Get on it!”.
If he were talking about our response to climate change, he might be saying, “Bull*** ten years! This thing will be over in two years! Get on it!”.
What happened to John McCain? Why isn’t he helping to lead the climate change fight in the Senate? What’s up with his disappearance from this issue?
Joe–you’ve go the numbers at hand. What will those targets mean in 1990 terms? And how much of a ceiling will they put on what everyone else will do?
Is the sense that the U.S. is finally going to do something going to be enough to get others to do a lot? Or is it going to poison their domestic politics (say, in Australia, or Canada, or Europe, or Japan?) These are the questions I can’t figure out, but they seem important to me.
[JR: Slightly below 1990 levels. I'm assuming the other countries will view that as satisfactory -- coupled with the other U.S. commitments and the 2030 and 2050 targets. The 2020 target is very important but not the be all and end all.]
Well, here’s hoping that this will happen. Personally, I am a pessimist until I’m given a good reason to be optimistic. Please, Washington, give me a reason to be optimistic about the future. And I might add that it’s a sad state of affairs in American democracy that it takes the control of one party to get something like this passed.
Yup, it’s the American way. I think we need to spend a couple of billion on building up the image in the media that we are serious about setting a target. Bring in some Hollywood types, more PR experts, etc.
How about the Democrats get rid of the rule requiring 60 votes for cloture in the Senate? This is one of the irons in the spokes of the American democratic process that prevents anything from getting done. This rule is transparently undemocratic.