Guest blogger Bill Becker is executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project. He discusses a new PCAP report that details several ways President Obama can cut emissions using powers past Congress’s have already delegated to the Executive Branch.
Congress’s failure to act on global climate change was one of the reasons the diplomatic atmosphere was so chilly last year in Copenhagen.
Congress has chilled the atmosphere again, four months before the international community meets in Cancun to resume its marathon crawl to a global climate treaty. From Bonn, where nations were attending five days of pre-Cancun negotiations this week, the Associated Press reported the Senate’s failure to act on a climate bill has “deepened the distrust among poor countries about the intentions of the United States and other industrial countries” to cut their emissions.
The response from members of the Obama team has been: a) the president is not backing off his commitment to legislation or a 17 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions; and b) there is more than one way to skin this cat. Hints of executive action are in the wind.
Also in the wind is a renewed discussion about the role states can play in cutting our carbon emissions. For example, the World Resources Institute concludes that if states are “go-getters” with the policies they already have in place, they can make a significant contribution to the President’s 17 percent goal.
Now comes an even fresher report - this one from the Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP) – that details several ways President Obama also can be a “go getter”, using powers past Congress’s have already delegated to the Executive Branch.
PCAP offers five ideas for presidential action, with details on how to implement them before Cancun:
1. In full partnership with state, tribal and local government leaders, create a national roadmap to the clean energy economy. Great Britain has a detailed roadmap with specific milestones for achieving a low-carbon economy by 2020. The United States does not.
Rather than preempting the power of states to deal with climate change, as some climate bills in the Senate would do, the national roadmap should show how the federal government can help states be even better go-getters. Cities, too.
According to the Center for Climate Strategies, if all 50 states adopted a set of 23 energy and climate policies (policies the Center identified in working with more than 1,500 stakeholders), they could cut emissions 27% by 2020 compared to 1990 levels, about nine times deeper than the cuts the President has proposed. At the same time, those 23 policies would boost GDP by $134 billion, save consumers $5 billion and create 2.5 million new jobs. That’s the ideal case, of course, but it illustrates the potential.
Another recent report, from IHS Emerging Energy Research, calculates renewable energy generation in the U.S. will grow 250 percent in the next 15 years if the states that already have renewable energy portfolio standards fully implement them,
2. Declare a war on waste. The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy calculates that the U.S. economy wastes 87 percent of the energy it consumes. During his campaign, Obama cited a United Nation’s report that placed the United States 22nd in energy efficiency among the major economies. The Obama/Biden energy platform promised “an Obama Administration will strive to make America the most energy efficient country in the world”.
It’s time to make that goal official. Obama should challenge the United States””with the help of every citizen and sector””to become the world’s most energy-efficient industrial economy by 2035. According to economist Skip Laitner at ACEEE that goal can be achieved if the nation begins improving its efficiency 3.1 percent annually.
3. Reinvent national transportation policy. This is a goal mostly for Congress as it considers the surface transportation reauthorization bill next year. But Obama can give traction to real reform if he gets behind it.
Today, states are awarded more federal funding for building roads than for building mass-transit systems. The incentives should be reversed. Reducing America’s “vehicle miles traveled” should be at the top of federal transportation policy, alongside better vehicle fuel efficiency. Meantime, President Obama can fulfill another campaign promise by starting work on a national low-carbon fuel standard.
4. Stop subsidizing fossil fuels. The oil, coal and gas industries in the United States are like 50-year-old children still on the breast. They are mature and ridiculously wealthy; they shouldn’t need taxpayers to subsidize them.
In his 2011 budget, Obama proposed cutting fossil energy subsidies by $30 billion over 10 years, but that only scratches the surface of public subsidies for these industries. Likewise, Obama championed and won approval by the G-20 to phase out about $310 billion annually in fossil energy subsidies in other countries. New estimates from the International Energy Agency indicate, however, that subsidies of fossil energy consumption (not counting subsidies for production) were around $560 billion in 2008. Phasing out these subsidies over the next decade would achieve more than 30 percent of the cuts in carbon emissions necessary to keep rising atmospheric temperatures at no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the IEA says.
President Obama’s goals on fossil energy subsidies could be more aggressive. Meantime, he should phase out taxpayer subsidies over which the Administration has some control – for example, increasing the fossil industry cost-share for federal research and development and bringing U.S. royalty and lease rates up to the levels charged by other nations.
5. Make ecosystem restoration a central strategy in climate mitigation and adaptation. Over the last century, human activity has destroyed or degraded many of the ecosystems that provide flood control, storm surge suppression, ground water recharging, water purification, carbon sequestration and other services that will become even more critical because of climate change. Ecosystems provided these services for free. We replaced many of them with large engineered structures that cost fortunes to build and to maintain – if they’re maintained at all.
Today, we have more than 400 major federal dams and reservoirs in the United States, along with 500 miles of levees and dikes, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). In its most recent report on the state of infrastructure in America, it gave flood control structures a D- and estimated it will take $50 billion over five years to fix them.
In October, the President’s Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force will send Obama its recommendations for creating a national adaptation strategy. The task force should address the potential of ecosystem restoration to help communities mitigate and adapt to climate change.
These recommendations alone won’t save the world. Nor can President Obama. A national cap and price on carbon remains an essential game-changer. But executive action can provide a far better start than Congress has given us so far, particularly if it warms the negotiating climate in Cancun.
– Bill Becker. PCAP is a foundation-funded initiative based in Colorado. Since its inception in January 2007, the project has developed scores of recommendations on ways the President can move the United States toward a clean energy economy without waiting for Congress.
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Nice to hear from Bill Becker. These are excellent suggestions, but 3,4, and 5 are dependent on Congress to some degree, especially the Senate.
Do we really need to give up on the Senate? Oil soaked Senators like Barrasso and McConnell are even fighting offshore liability increases and subsidy rollbacks. Why haven’t the Democrats and the press counterattacked, and shown a willingness to go public on the need for climate legislation?
This is a rather obvious situation of rank corruption, and the people need to be awakened to it in a forceful way. Senate Republicans might as well be from Saudi Arabia or Nigeria, and it’s time we did something about this national disgrace.
Good article. But as always, when talking about Congress’s failure to act, it’s important not to let them off the hook. Mention filibuster reform as a surviving way forward:
“From Bonn, where nations were attending five days of pre-Cancun negotiations this week, the Associated Press reported the Senate’s failure to act on a climate bill has “deepened the distrust among poor countries about the intentions of the United States and other industrial countries” to cut their emissions. And while filibuster reform, still a viable possibility for Senate action, could use a helping hand from Obama, he also needs concrete progress to present in Cancun.“
Leadership Is Not The Same As Administration
Although I’m glad that the Obama Administration is still thinking about these things, and working on them, and that there are many of these things that can be done, nevertheless, I feel the need to say (once again) that there is a problem here that gives me a confused feeling and takes wind out of my sails, so to speak.
The reality, I think, is this: Until President Obama himself shows MUCH more passion, and steely intent, and verve and vitality, regarding MOVING the government, and corporations, and us, to address global warming and to make the necessary changes to our approach to energy, he (and we) will most likely find that most of the American public will not be able to muster — or make manifest — public passion for the matter.
Here we are, talking about all the great things that still can be done, and (as far as I can tell) we still haven’t seen much of any sign that President Obama will change his own approach — and ENERGIZE IT — to the problem.
As we know, Leadership is not the same thing as mere administration.
I used to think that the main problem, at one time, was that the public was not insisting on change enough. Obama asked “make me do it”, and the public didn’t rise to the challenge, at least not in terms of activity. (The polls say this and that, on paper, but they get rather boring after awhile.)
And, in an overall sense, the public should get much more activated and insistent. That is still a necessity overall — but not because President Obama wants it and needs it. It’s a necessity because we DO need to face and address climate change, Obama or not.
So, the real question (for the Administration) should be whether President Obama can expect the people to become activated and motivated BEFORE he becomes activated and motivated himself, or (instead) whether HE will have to become MUCH MORE activated and motivated before he can expect the public to regain some faith and get re-energized, and more energized than before.
In my view, at this point, the latter is almost certainly the case. President Obama needs to get activated and motivated on THIS issue. He needs to CHOOSE to do so. If his advisors say “no”, or caution him, they should be moved aside — to the fundraising committee or whatever. If Obama doesn’t demonstrate Genuine and Strong and Vital and Vigorous Leadership on the climate and energy issues — way more so than he has so far, which can barely be called leadership if you ask me — then by the time large chunks of the public express their passions, those passions will not be in favor of the President, in support of him, asking him to do more. Instead, by that time, they will be wanting new leadership.
It’s a sequencing thing — a “what came first, the chicken or the egg?” thing.
Obama has a great opportunity, but at this point it will take more verve and courage than ever. He will have to make a leap of faith, as genuine Leaders often must do. He can’t “cautiously administer” us to address the climate and energy problems. If he learned at Harvard Law School that such major societal changes can be gained via “cautious conservative administration”, or by leaders who wait for the public to speak up before they themselves speak up, he should throw that book away. The times, public anxiety, and the public’s temperament are simply not going to allow the slow (and seemingly ineffective) cautious political-administrative approach to work, even if it could possibly work in other circumstances. Time is passing. More and more people (it seems to me) are trying to decide if President Obama can be effective on the climate and energy issues — or if he can’t be. On climate and energy matters, he is not even in a place to win the bronze medal at this point — he’s in fourth place, so to speak — and there are only 50 yards left in the race, according to how much time public sentiment will allow him. So, it’s time to BOOST both speed and verve.
Sorry for going into all this — again. I’m doing it because there is an “odd” feeling created when people say “but look, there’s still a lot that can be done by the President and the government” when the President hasn’t even demonstrated that he IS deeply SERIOUS and willing to be effective on this issue, willing to Lead, willing to have faith that things WILL happen if he actually tries to MAKE them happen. If he’s not showing, through his actions, that he has real faith in himself and in those actions, then how can he expect others to have faith in him? That’s the question that he should be asking.
He should take advice from Nike: Just do it.
(Does this sort of advice and tough-love criticism disqualify someone from helping the Administration at some point? I hope not. I’m available, if they are interested.)
Be Well,
Jeff
Many Americans have the idea that to be truly wealthy, a person must be able to waste at whim. They think that the rich can waste whatever whenever they want with no consequence. They’ve probably got this idea from TV advertising and as a rejection of their parents who survived the depression by their wits and with frugality, so they waste as much as they can, as often as they can, and pretend they are rich like those people on TV.
TV preaches the gospel of consumption 24/7 and most of us have succumbed. Conservation is hardly mentioned any more.
Off topic, but just a heads up for anyone interested in the Arctic… An enormous chunk of the Petermann glacier in Greenland has broken loose:
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?subset=Arctic_r03c03.2010217.aqua
Sometimes I wonder if we ever consider that the very nature of our democracy works against this kind of action. Action which people believe will put them out of jobs or cost them money out of their own pocket.
A point in case. The EU is not actually a democracy. OK don’t all shout at once, yes the individual countries which make up the the EU are democracies who elect their leadership. They also elect their Euro MP’s (MEP’s).
However the real power in the EU is with the council of ministers and the commission. Both of these institutions are not elected, they are apponted. OK, today, the MEP’s can veto appointments, but they can’t appoint and EU citizens can’t vote for these appointees.
The EU Parliament does not formulate policy or create directives. In fact it cannot even veto directives unless the Council are sufficiently divided that the parliament need to vote on it.
So it is no surprise that these unelected and unaccountable officials in the EU have enacted the most powerful laws, to control emissions within the EU, seen anywhere in the world.
There is a message in there somewhere. I take it to mean that our politicians won’t do anything substansive about climate change becuase WE haven’t told them to do it. The EU, on the other hand, CAN do something about it because WE CAN’T tell them NOT to do it.
So instead of blaming Obama or the GOP Oil soaked representatives. We should step up and recognise who is to blame for this. And that is the majority of the voting public who refuse to make it an issue at election time.
Jeff, @3: I fully agree. The major problem that I see is that with only two viable parties to choose from in the electoral process, GOBP an Democrats, which look more and more like GOBP Lite, we voters are stuck between a rock and a hard place. I have often advocated the need for a third party option of “first and second choice” where a vote for a third party is not just a “throw away” vote. The GOP might even be supportive of this concept now as it would be an easy way for them to divest themselves of the Tea Party and still keep their votes. On the other hand it would be a good way for the GOP Lite to vote “green” without direct support to the Democrats which many are loathed to do. Perhaps the ~60 to 70% of the population that support green initiatives could get a voice.
Whatever way we do it, this current adversarial political atmosphere must be broken down and a viable third or fourth party would do that IMO. I see no way that a democratic society can function when 41% can just say “NO” and wait around for new elections and a different atmosphere and hope for different outcomes.
NeilT -
while I share your concern at the lack of public pressure on climate action in the US, your reading of EU decision-making is mistaken.
The council of ministers consists of elected ministers representing member governments. They have no latitude beyond their governments policies – even the introduction of limited majority voting has been bitterly fought over for many years.
The advance of the EU target from 20% by 2020 off 1990 to 30% is a case in point – Chris Huhne, (newly elected UK secretary of state for energy & climate change) met with French & German counterparts in June, having announced in advance his intention to try to overcome their objections & refusal (respectively) to making that change. In this he succeeded, and a joint article in leading papers in each country in July declared the result.
But theirs was not a council of ministers decision – just the agreement by the three major member countries to press for the change within the council – which gives it a very good chance of being adopted. If it is adopted, it will have impeccable democratic credentials.
I’d suggest that the problem in the US is a lack of public knowledge of our jeopardy – and that comes down to lack of public education – which in turn comes down to the lack of a public education campaign by the Whitehouse (being the only place with the clout and the prestige to get it done).
So I’d put it this way – if you intended to get a climate bill through the senate within 18 months of taking office as president, in which month would you start the vital public education campaign ?
My guess would be to do so quietly within the first six months, building it up steadily thereafter.
Given the relative scarcity of information flowing to the US pubic on the gravity of the climate threat, perhaps it is a little hard on that electorate to blame them for failing to give it higher priority in elections ?
Regards,
Lewis
@8, Lewis, you are assuming that all UK ministers are elected. That is not the case. Something which is not universally publicised. To whit Mandelson in the last government.
Also the Council does not create directives, just votes on them like an upper house. The Executive (Commission), is unelected.
The point is that the Council is not elected by the EU. Although it is generally elected members who sit on it, they make decisions which affect all EU members yet they were elected in National elections, not for a federal role.
To make an equivalent structure in the US you would have to:
Replace the white house with appointees
Replace the Senate with roating executive memebers of the State goverments
Relegate the Representatives to the role of Arbiter when the “senate” couldn’t get a big enough majority
Democratic? I don’t think so!
The end game is the same. The directly elected EU representatives have little or no say in the running of the EU.
Which is why they can pass such climate legislation so easily.
Sorry I wasn’t just castigating the US electorate alone. I was having a go at ALL electorate. The UK gave it 0% consideration in the last election. Even people who championed the whole clmiate issue were totally focused on getting Labour out so we could fix our economy.
Serious issues put on hold because immediate concers were of more interest.
How about this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-kirsch/new-poll-shows-americans_b_377142.html
A Question For Steve Kirsch (Could Someone At CAP Please Ask Him?)
In Steve Kirsch’s recent piece on The Huffington Post, titled “New Poll Shows Americans Prefer Fee-and-Dividend”, he writes that “fee-and-dividend is preferred by:” and then includes ExxonMobil in the list of those who presumably prefer fee-and-dividend.
This leads me to ask Steve …
* Are you saying that ExxonMobil recommends a fee-and-dividend approach, and supports one? Or, are you just saying that they would “prefer” a fee-and-dividend approach over a cap-and-trade approach but that they aren’t really recommending either approach?
* Could you (Steve) please identify some (hopefully written) references from ExxonMobil materials or from Rex Tillerson speeches, or whatever, that support and might help clarify your point? I try to follow ExxonMobil — their campaigns, annual reports, articles, and so forth — as much as I can on these matters, and I’d love to see and read their latest stated views.
* Steve, in your assessment, do you think that ExxonMobil genuinely wants and recommends a fee-and-dividend approach that would actually be effective in accomplishing the sizable reduction in GHG emissions that we need, along with the corresponding energy transition? Or, do you think that they might be supporting something with one hand while fighting it with the other hand, or perhaps supporting something that they think won’t pass, politically speaking?
The references would be very helpful. I’m skeptical that ExxonMobil would genuinely support, and recommend, an approach on the basis that the approach would actually be feasible and effective. I’m open and curious to hear more, but there is something about their name, on your list, that doesn’t seem to fit.
Could someone who knows Steve draw his attention to this, or (perhaps) could the CAP folks let us know the official, stated, current position of ExxonMobil regarding what approach they recommend, and why, and where we can read directly “from the horse’s mouth” what they say?
Thanks,
Jeff
“Senate Republicans might as well be from Saudi Arabia or Nigeria, and it’s time we did something about this national disgrace.” what a highly tweetable summary
Fee and dividend must be made so that the ‘dividend’ can ONLY be spent on effectively reducing carbon emissions. On energy efficiency, reduction in fossil energy uses, or renewable energy.
What is far more likely if no strings are attached is that people will just spend dividends on more crap from China, raising emissions. The point of cap and whatever is to reduce carbon emissions.
Here in California, there is a VERY strong incentive for the rich in A/C neighborhoods to go solar. They have a choice of sticking with PG&E at about 50 cents a kwh or getting cheaper electricity with solar at 20 cents.
Yet I can tell you from personal experience in solar, that even that very strong price incentive is no guarantee that they will switch to clean energy.
So I wouldn’t put too much faith in common sense nudges to produce the desired outcome.
@ susan kraemer
a lot of the plans depend on the influence of carbon fees over buyers’ decisions; if raising some prices while lowering others doesn’t work, we’re in trouble in generally. similarly if footprints — carbon or whatever — aren’t considered when setting import tariffs, that’ll probably make domestic producers angry. between those two your worry maybe becomes less likely.
http://www.streetsblog.org/2010/08/03/radar-survey-says-new-ppw-has-reversed-the-curse-of-speeding-traffic/#comment-275209
Shocker: Bike lane nearly eliminates road warrior lawlessness!
“In other words, installing the bike lane has eliminated 7 of every 10 speeding violations and 19 of every 20 gross speeding violations.
“If this isn’t revolutionary, I don’t know what is.”
How about this for executive action:
Nationalize the coal fired power plants, and convert them into carbon negative Biomass Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage power plants. Sue the fossil fuel corporations for trillions of dollars in real and punitive damages for destabilizing the climate system. Then seize the oil corporations and forcibly transform them into algae based biofuel production using CO2 from the converted
BECCS power plants.
From Wikipedia: BECCS:
Poor America, convinced that every alternative that could save us is too costly or impractical, by a paid fossil fuel funded astroturf propaganda campaign.
Global heating is a solvable problem. BECCS shows us that it is practical and possible to solve this problem. But the window of opportunity even for BECCS appears to be rapidly closing. Team Obama needs to realize this: the window of opportunity, even for carbon negative BECCS, to keep the entire system from destabilizing appears to be rapidly closing.
We cannot solve this problem so long as a small elite class apparently wants the Arctic sea ice to melt in the summer so that they can drill for oil and natural gas under our current Arctic sea ice.
From the Council on Foreign Relations website, Scott Borgerson:
Obama needs to nationalize the coal fired power plants and forcibly convert them to BECCS. He then needs to sponsor a massive civil suit against the fossil fuel industries including ExxonMobil, and collect both real and punitive damages from them amounting to many trillions of dollars. He should bankrupt the oil corporations, and collect punitive damages from the super rich families opposing effective action on climate change. The government would then be in a position to seize the oil corporations and forcibly transform them into a carbon neutral form such as production of cellulosic ethanol or algae based biofuels using some of the CO2 from the BECCS power plants.
It’s actually a good question: should he seize the coal fired power plants first, and irreversibly transform them into BECCS, knowing that this might be overturned by future court action, or should he sponsor a massive civil suit, first?
Decisions, decisions. It’s not easy leading the evil empire during Armageddon, I guess.
Perhaps the civil suit should come first. Successful prosecution, and awarding of many trillion dollars in damages, would effectively break the power of the fossil fuel corporations, and allow the government to legally seize these bankrupt enterprises and transform them.
On the other hand, he might lose the suit, or the suit might take many years to prosecute.
So, I favor seizing the coal fired power plants using his executive authority in a state of emergency, and irreversibly transforming them into BECCS power plants. Once these changes are made, the biomass plantations are planted, and systems of river transport of biomass and charcoal pellets are established, reversing these successful changes might be hard to do, against a background of ever increasing global catastrophes.
Pursuing the civil suit in parallel to cement his legal authority to justify actions already taken might be the way to go.
Even if he takes no drastic action, he is still much better than a Republican puppet of the fossil fuel industries, of course.
But the actions he seems to be seriously contemplating are quantitatively insufficient to stop what appears to be runaway global heating. He needs to stop pulling his punches, and hit our intransigent elites as hard as he can, while he still can, IMO.