Of all the issues Barack Obama will address during the next two years, none is more important to his legacy than global climate change. Guest blogger William Becker offers his insight.
Finishing the job in Afghanistan and Iraq, reforming immigration policy and bringing the economy back to health will be high on the President’s priority list, as they should be. He’s expected to pay special attention to economic recovery in his State of the Union speech tomorrow.
However, unmitigated climate change would almost certainly sabotage the achievements on which he has invested so much time and political capital. Consider these impacts if climate change goes unchecked:
Immigration: Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton estimates that, depending on the severity of climate disruption, as many as 7 million residents of Mexico may immigrate to the United States over the next seven decades because of reduced food production. In other words, the United States is not immune to the problem of climate refugees. There goes immigration reform.
Health Care: Last September, the leaders of 18 national medical organizations and scores of state health officials wrote to the White House and Congress, warning that because of global warming “more Americans will be exposed to conditions that can result in illness and death due to respiratory illness, heat- and heat-related stress and disease carried by insects. Children, the elderly, the poor and people with serious health conditions will be most adversely affected.” There goes Obama’s historic attempt to control health care costs.
Terrorism: Defense and intelligence experts predict that climate change will destabilize many of the world’s most volatile regions, producing new recruiting grounds for terrorists. “Well before glaciers melt or sea levels rise, global climate change will spur instability on a global scale, which will exacerbate many of the traditional national security challenges with which we are grappling today, including terrorism,” according to experts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. There go Obama’s efforts – and the enormous investment of American lives and treasure – to defeat terrorism.
A Healthy Economy: Just the hydrological impacts of climate change will result in net losses of $1.2 trillion to America’s GDP between 2010 and 2050, cost 7 million jobs and reduce real disposable personal income by $1.7 trillion, according to researchers at Sandia National Laboratory. We’re already bearing high collateral costs for fossil energy consumption. The National Research Council reports that burning fossil fuels for transportation and electricity resulted in hidden costs of $120 billion in 2005. There goes prosperity.
Energy Insecurity: We remain addicted to imported oil and vulnerable to the economic body blows inflicted by oil prices. Oil price shocks preceded and contributed to nearly all of our recessions since 1947. There goes economic stability.
Because climate change is progressing so rapidly toward tipping points and because it becomes more difficult and expensive to mitigate with each passing year, Obama may be the last U.S. president with the opportunity to head off its worst damages. Two or three decades from now, he is likely to be the leader history judges most responsible if people around the world are suffering from intense, diverse and irreversible stresses. If the world of 2030 is hard to imagine, look at all the extreme weather events and natural disasters in 2010 – the second-worst year on record – and multiply them by many times. Last year’s fires, floods, mudslides, blizzards and drought, some still underway in this new year, are evidence of what happens when weather variability and climate change combine.
The legacy issue – President Obama’s and ours – is the central theme of the report released today by the Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP) as the Obama begins the second half of his first term. The report is the last of four PCAP has issued since January 2007, with hundreds of recommendations to the 2008 presidential candidates and the Obama Administration on climate and energy policy.
The new report urges President Obama to become “the great convener”, bringing together America’s best minds to propose solutions to our worst problems. One product should be a detailed policy roadmap to a clean energy economy. The roadmap would include ideas on how all levels of government and civil society can collaborate to expedite our transition to post-carbon, opportunity-rich society.
The report also recommends that President Obama:
- Take the case for climate action directly to the American people and put federal climate scientists on center state to substantiate the reality and seriousness of climate change;
- Develop national plans to deal with fresh water shortages, the conservation of ocean and coastal resources, and climate adaptation (already the topic of a presidential task force);
- Champion the restructuring of farm policy when it comes before Congress in 2012. We need a 50-year strategy, evaluated every five years, to deal with a variety of agricultural and rural issues, including water conservation, soil restoration, and the balance between the production of energy, food and fiber;
- Push for reform of transportation policy when Congress considers reauthorizing it this year, advocating that federal funding give highest priority to reducing the nation’s vehicle miles traveled;
- Go all out on Capitol Hill to defend EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, as well as the other powers past Congresses have given to the Executive Branch to protect America’s environment and natural capital;
- Make more use of Executive Agreements to reach deals with other nations on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and developing clean energy technologies. Executive Agreements have the force of treaties but don’t require concurrence by two-thirds of the Senate;
- Aggressively use the power of federal procurement – civilian and military – to build markets for renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies. On the civilian side, the government’s principal purchasing agent, the General Services Administration, procures nearly $70 billion each year in goods and services. Obama issued an executive order in 2009 that sets “green” standards for federal purchasing. Now he must make sure that GSA and other agencies have sufficient staff and resources to carry out the order;
- Use his authority to establish a “national security surcharge” on imported oil to help offset the costs of defending foreign supplies and shipping lanes. An analysis by Daniel Weiss of the Center for American Progress found a surcharge of $5 per barrel would raise $22 billion annually and increase gasoline prices by only 5 cents a gallon;
- Put substantially more pressure on Congress and the G-20 to phase out fossil energy subsidies as rapidly as economic stability permits and shift those resources to clean energy technologies;
- Push Congress to establish a floor on the price of oil to encourage more investment in renewable energy, and to ban the export of U.S. coal to other nations. America’s coal industry is profiting today by helping other nations produce carbon pollution;
- Ask the Federal Communications Commission to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. It’s unlikely that civil discourse will return in the United States while ideologues on both political extremes use public airwaves to spread inflammatory, one-sided and often inaccurate statements without balance or rebuttal.
There’s another critical point to be made about the President Obama’s climate leadership over the next two years. He has been reluctant to get out ahead of Congress on global warming. But the bluster from climate deniers in Congress is just that: bluster. The Administration’s responsibility is to carry out the current law of the land. I’ll write more about that in my next post.
– Bill Becker is executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP) at Natural Capitalism Solutions in Boulder, Colorado. Before launching PCAP in 2007, he worked on energy efficiency and renewable energy programs for 15 years at the U.S. Department of Energy. Among his other roles, he serves on the international Climate Change Task Force created and chaired by former Soviet President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mikhail Gorbachev.
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Excellent points. Obama really has to start making the case on climate and drawing the contrast with the GOP ers nowto set the stage for painting them as heads-in-the-sand ideologues in next year’s campaign.
Thanks for bringing this up.
This is a good list of items. The one thing I would add is that the president can help educate and prepare Americans by publicly discussing global warming and energy. A better-educated populace will help.
Sadly, Ireland’s economic recovery will be taking a huge step backwards following the Government’s latest idea.
http://www.insideireland.ie/index.cfm/section/news/ext/climatechange005/category/896
with the doves: I completely agree on public education — a point I tried to make in the recommendation that Obama should take the case for climate action directly to the American people. It’s really not that hard to go over the heads of Congress when their heads are up their rears. We see too little real leadership from the people we elect to lead. They, including Obama on this issue, are inclined to follow the polls rather than take the risk to inform, motivate and rally voters to go places they may not want to go, but must in the interest of the country or world. Another point I try to make in the report is that our federal climate scientists, including John Holdren, should be put front and center in the public discussion about climate. President Obama should call a news conference in which a dozen of our top scientists from NASA, NOAA, NCAR, etc., get on stage and lay out the reality of climate disruption. Are we likely to see this? I’m not hopeful, but I’m keeping my cramped fingers crossed.
“With the doves” makes an excellent point. I would go a step further. The American public needs more than education; they need to see the President take action; they need to understand the vital need to stop global warming; and they need to see President Obama as the world’s leader and best climate hawk of them all !!
I’m with Philip Eisner (#4). Obama doesn’t act in a way that watching Americans would think he even cares much about climate destabilization.
Why should anyone else care if the man with access to the best science; access to the best scientists; and access to the bulliest pulpit there is…isn’t even ruffled?
A Democrat in the top power position is displaying indifference in public towards climate threats.
Hansen seems to be right again: “Obama does not get it.”
[JR: I tend to agree with this, now. I had thought he did get it, based on his appointments. But actions -- and silence -- speak loudly!]
A big part of the answer to our most intractable problems (Peak Oil, AGW, foreign wars, terrorism, foreign trade, the budget defict ) is homegrown, renewable energy.
The Congress (both parties) and Obama are indifferent to that. The worst kind of token gestures toward that end.
I agree Obama has to take responsibility for his failure on dealing with climate change… but we’ve been neglecting this for decades… so he shares the blame with many predecessors.
And I don’t think it fair to judge Obama as harshly for inaction as his immediate predecessor W, who actively blocked action.
I bet if you asked Obama why he is largely ignoring climate change, he’d say it’s the economy. He knows he can’t get money out of our #@%$#@ congress to jump start a new green economy.
That said, I have been disappointed in Obama for some time.
Great piece.
I have to agree with 4 & 6 Barry and Joe. I don’t think Obama really gets it.
He too loves his FF too much.
I am baffled by Obama.
We don’t really have any real evidence that he is going to take firm action on this or how serious he thinks the issue is. Since the elections things have gone real soft. Copenhagen was a complete circus.
What about the First Lady. Should we put pressure on her?
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It used to be that politicians would examine public opinion to measure mood and set direction.
Now, the smart politician will scrutinize the science behind inevitable changes ahead. To clearly see what is happening now, and note what will be unfolding soon means they need not be surprised. A scientifically well-informed president can see what is on the horizon.
He can choose his metaphor: Politics is surfing a growing wave of opportunity – or hitting the wall of surprise.
We chose him, now it is his choice to select guidance from emotions or science.
Washington has operated by following the political expediency playbook since politics began. Obama seems no different on this.
However the climate crisis is far different than any other problem mankind had thus far faced.
So it is up to those of us who ‘get it’ to find a way to instruct Obama so that his understanding comes from his heart.
A cerebral comprehension of the problem will not provide the kind of dramatic answers that are needed…. Half measures might be considered a start, but in the end, get you no further than does a 4 foot leap over an 8 foot chasm.
Holdren and Chu are just “greenwash”. Bitter disappointment.
It is apparent to me that Obama’s plan is to get re-elected before tackling climate change. And he needs to build a relationship with the Chinese and bring an international agreement with them forward before any type of political action can occur in Washington DC.
It would be good though to talk about the financial and security issues associated with importing a significant amount of our oil supply and how government support for energy which which makes us less susceptible to energy cost and supply shocks is important. (Personally, I think that we’ll be seeing high gas prices this summer and it would be more politically expedient to wait until that time to bring forward an energy/climate policy.)
I’d also think that Obama would do well by stating that policy must be grounded and driven by sound science. This is a statement of principle which is difficult to argue with. It sets the stage for drawing the lines concerning battles around EPA regulation, endangered species act, off shore drilling, etc.
Obama has clearly chosen. It is globalized corporatism that shall lead us down the path of corruption and ruin. He has traded the world’s future for his own family’s comfortable future. Death from ecological impoverishment will be labeled “Natural Disasters.”
Lists like these for a system of corrupted governance are like trying to strike a match while falling. All three branches of government are as corrupt as the day is long for hard working men and women. We seem to be living a foretold tragedy of arrogance, ignorance and greed (AIG). The power of centralized crony capitalism remains ascendant.
Good words Bill, however.
Excellent post, Bill. If people knew the true stakes, and odds, they’d pull together in a heartbeat to wrench themselves from fossil fuels and switch to other, more abundant and ultimately safer forms of energy. As you know, many have been working very hard to get the word out.
But selfish, diabolical fossil fuel forces have succeeded in keeping most of the citizenry too confused to ask–and most of the politicians too corrupted to tell. It’s a sad headlock we’re in, to say the least. Gosh, what a shame—200 thousand years of human evolution down the drain. And that doesn’t even take into account all of the future suffering…
One possible way out might be for climate hawks to rudely awaken our “dreaming” citizens, and complacent politicians, by combining proper messaging with a hard-to-ignore driving tactic from the 70’s: safely going the speed limit on major highways. This could really grab people’s attention fast if it were done in a coordinated, intelligent way.
Does look like it’s getting less likely
For nature to cover for our original
Sin.
RE # 13
Pythagoras you said:
“It is apparent to me that Obama’s plan is to get re-elected before tackling climate change. And he needs to build a relationship with the Chinese and bring an international agreement with them forward before any type of political action can occur in Washington DC.”
Amen. Amen. Amen.
That is what I have been saying since it was evident the House bill would go nowhere in the Senate. Was anyone really surprised by that outcome?
I believe the Obama Admin has been working overtime to craft a mutual understanding of the risks our two countries face and how we can cooperate to
avoid those risks.
China sees its fate rests with US and India cooperation. Say what you will about China’s form of government, its human rights attitude but it is neither blind nor stupid. Global warming can kill its future and the leaders know this.
It will take more time to bring the US and China together but, damn it, it will have to be President Obama, reelect, to do it.
If anyone thinks some other Dem is going to sneak up behind this incumbent President and win nomination and election, I suggest they seek help.
Pythagoras, you must be on the inside because that is what is underway. It may not look pretty but it is the only game we have left. Only downside might be the successor to President Hu. And, that is not something the White House can influence. We must hope this collaboration succeeds.
John McCormick