It is all but inconceivable that Obama can deliver the 67 votes in the Senate needed to ratify a global climate treaty — no matter what happens in the 12 months between PoznaÅ„ and Copenhagen. And the only thing worse than no global climate treaty in 2009 is a treaty that Obama can’t get ratified.

Yes, Democrats have expanded their majority in the Senate, edging closer and closer to the magical 60 votes needed to stop filibusters. But the conservatives in Congress are stuck in 1985 (1885?), unwilling or unable to acknowledge the now painfully obvious reality of global warming or the remarkable advances that have been made in clean technologies.

Conservative Senators lined up as a solid block against the Boxer-Lieberman-Warner climate bill (see “Is 450 ppm politically possible? Part 6: What the Boxer-Lieberman-Warner bill debate tells us“). Worse, the GOP seems to think that among all the losing issues they pushed in their historic drubbing at the polls, their “drill baby drill” message was actually a winner. As one post-election story put it

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Click here.

I thought it was a very good event. If you haven’t heard Tom Friedman, Governor Ed Rendell, or Carol Browner speak before, I highly recommend it.

Here is the Center for American Progress’s “A Strategy for Green Recovery.” The jobs analysis is here.

Some enviros are annoyed that PEBO chose a national security adviser (NSA), retired Marine Gen. James Jones, who has emphasized energy security concerns over global warming — see, for instance, this lame transition report on energy Jones just oversaw for the US Chamber of Commerce.

The Politico actually just interviewed me on this very subject, and I told them I wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep over it [and you all thought they wouldn't talk to me after this, but then again they mostly ignored what I said in their story, as evidenced by the headline "Jones gives hope to energy companies."]

Let’s be clear here: Of the national security team, the NSA is all but irrelevant on the key issues of climate and domestic energy policy. Only the Secretary of State (SOS) really matters — and here PEBO chose a grand slam home run for climate science advocates (CSAs).

[Note: With a new green and progressive administration starting to take the reins of power, I thought I'd begin (another) series, this one to share my experience in the executive branch. I spent five years at the Department of Energy in the 1990s -- two years as special assistant for policy and planning to the deputy secretary and three years as principal deputy assistant secretary (PDAS) in the office of energy efficiency and renewable energy (EERE) including six months as acting assistant secretary. BTW, the feds love acronyms.]

Back to the NSA and energy/climate policy. The coverage on this issue has not been informative. E&E News begins its irrelevantly headlined story, “Obama’s security adviser seeks offshore drilling, shale production” (subs. req’d):

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General James L. Jones, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.), whom President-elect Barack Obama today selected to be his national security adviser, currently runs a U.S. Chamber of Commerce energy policy front group. Jones is president and chief executive officer of the U.S. Chamber Institute for 21st Century Energy, whose stated mission is “to unify policymakers, regulators, business leaders, and the American public behind common sense energy strategy to help keep America secure, prosperous, and clean.” However, following the recommendations of Jones’ institute would be catastrophic for the security, prosperity, and health of the United States.

The Institute for 21st Century Energy’s vision of America’s energy future is blind to the realities of climate change, inexcusable for an organization founded in June 2007. All of its recommendations are based on the presumption that “global demand for energy will increase by more than 50 percent between now and 2030 and by as much as 30 percent here at home,” based on the business-as-usual scenario from International Energy Agency’s 2007 World Energy Outlook report. But this scenario of rampant energy demand is also one of catastrophic global warming pollution. The IEA report also indicated that energy-related carbon emissions would “increase by almost 60%” by 2030, leading to global disaster.

The institute deserves credit for having its first strategic priority be energy efficiency, but its other priorities and specific policy suggestions are wrongheaded and reflect the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s typical anti-regulatory, pro-pollution industry agenda. Jones’ Transition Plan calls for billions of dollars in subsidies for the nuclear and coal industry, a dramatic expansion in domestic oil and natural gas drilling into protected areas, and massive new energy industry tax breaks and loopholes.

Meanwhile, the plan argues that Congress should prevent regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under any existing state or federal law, and that “any new national climate change policy should be conditional on an international agreement that requires full international participation.” In short, the Institute’s climate change policy looks stunningly like that of the Bush administration: “Don’t just sit there, do nothing.”

Not only are these recommendations foolhardy to the extreme, they come in direct opposition to Obama’s stated policy objectives, which include a mandatory cap-and-trade program, development of renewable energy through quality jobs, and the enforcement of existing environmental laws. If America’s future is to be secure, the next national security adviser must understand that the policies he has spent the last eighteen months promoting are reckless. Hopefully, he will renounce the efforts of his current employer to push this nation deeper into the fossil-energy hole.

Fortunately for Jones, other former senior military officers have taken the task of constructing a rational 21st century energy policy seriously. On April 16, 2007, the military advisory board to the CNA Corporation, a non-profit think tank, released the study, “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change.” The panel, including former Army chief of staff Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan and retired Marine Corps General Anthony C. Zinni, former commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, properly encapsulated the security challenge of global warming:

Climate change can act as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world, and it presents significant national security challenges for the United States. Accordingly, it is appropriate to start now to help mitigate the severity of some of these emergent challenges. The decision to act should be made soon in order to plan prudently for the nation’s security. The increasing risks from climate change should be addressed now because they will almost certainly get worse if we delay.

The live webstream is here. It starts at noon EST.

I can’t live blog it for obvious reasons.

The event will be also be posted for appointment viewing a few hours after it concludes (here).

Here is CAP’s “A Strategy for Green Recovery.” The jobs analysis is here.

Every few years, people need to be reminded that carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from fossil fuel combustion lasts a long, long, long time. How long?

A 2005 study by Geophysicist David Archer, “Fate of fossil fuel CO₂ in geologic time,” (subs. req’d.) concluded that a large fraction of the CO2 emitted by humans last well in excess of 1000 years:

The mean lifetime of anthropogenic CO₂ is dominated by the long tail, resulting in a range of 30–35 kyr.

That’s why we need to stop and reverse the growth of fossil fuel emissions immediately (see “Dr. Hansen to Dr. Merkel: Carbon is forever — so ban new traditional coal plants now“). That’s why we can’t have climate regulations that let companies keep burning coal while they buy rip-offsets.

In the interest of reminding people of this central fact of climate science, Nature online has published, “Carbon is forever.” Turns out Archer has a book out, The Long Thaw: How Humans Are Changing the Next 100,000 Years of Earth’s Climate, which has this useful figure:

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