Some have misinterpreted Congress’s removing cap-and-trade from the budget as a backing off of near-term climate action (see “George Stephanopoulos, Nate Silver, and Marc Ambinder all seem confused about global warming and budget politics“).

[UPDATE1: The Washington Post has two articles -- a front-page story ("Democrats Take Knife to Budget" and an editorial "Softening the Wish List" -- that are quite confused on this point. Both articles also don't get that Obama's middle class tax cut is fully paid for by the cap. The WP mistakenly thinks that removing the tax cut from the budget is a deficit-reducing measure congressional Democrats are imposing on Obama. That is just bad political and budgetary analysis, again as I explained here.

UPDATE2: At least one person in the media heard the same press conference I did. E&E News (subs. req'd) ] headlines their story: “Obama makes bold cap-and-trade prediction: ‘We’ll get it done’.“]

President Obama was asked about this in his prime time news conference tonight. He made clear that he remains committed to cap-and-trade and expects to see a bill on his desk (transcript here):

Q: Right now on Capitol Hill, Senate Democrats are writing a budget. And according to press accounts and their own statements, they’re not including the middle-class tax cut that you include in the stimulus, they’re talking about phasing that out, they’re not including the cap- and-trade that you have in your budget, and they’re not including other measures.

I know when you outlined your four priorities over the weekend, a number of these things were not in there. Will you sign a budget if it does not contain a middle-class tax cut, does not contain cap-and- trade?

[As an aside, people don't seem to get that the middle-class tax cut is entirely paid for by the cap, by the auctioning of CO2 permits. So that is another reason it's good that cap-and- trade is not in the budget: It means that the tax cut will have to be clearly tied to the cap from both a legislative and messaging perspective -- as it should be (see "CBO: Free cap and trade CO2 credits won't reduce consumer costs").]

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I’d love to hear your comments on the Tata Nano. Tata Motors launched commercial sales of the low-cost car Monday.

The 2-cylinder Nano gets 55 mpg (23.6 km/litre), which the company claims is “the highest for any petrol car in India” and hence has “the lowest CO2 emission amongst cars in India.”

That’s the “good news.” On the other hand, the stripped down version — yes, it is a bit odd to describe any version of a 9 foot by 5 foot by 5 foot car as not stripped down — which does not have heating or air conditioning, air bags, a stereo or, apparently, even a “cup holder in front console,” is only $2000.

And that means a lot more potential buyers.

Still, I’m not sure anybody United States — where the average vehicle gets 20 mpg! — can criticize India too much. That didn’t stop the New York Times editorial page a year ago when the car was first unveiled:

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This post will debunk 7 Myths About Green Jobs and the longer version, Green Jobs Myths. The internal inconsistencies and general illogic of these articles are staggering: Progressives will be quoting from them in defense of our positions for years to come (see debunking of Myth 6).

These two articles survey and critique the green jobs literature, including a Center for American Progress (CAP) report on Green Recovery. The authors write, “the CAP report is the product of left-leaning think tanks (sic) in Washington, D.C.” They note CAP is “headed by former Clinton Administration member John Podesta … who served as co-chair of the Obama transition team.”

So it is only fair to note that the myth articles were “produced with support from the Institute for Energy Research,” which itself “has received $307,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.” The President of IER is Robert Bradley “who previously served as Director of Public Policy Analysis at Enron, where he was a speechwriter for CEO Kenneth Lay,” who was “convicted on fraud and conspiracy charges on May 25, 2006.

‘Nuff said on that.

The green jobs imperative rests on three legs:

1. Action on global warming is inevitable, so countries that act first will reap a competitive advantage.
2. We import several hundred billion of dollars of oil each year, so replacing that oil with home-grown energy and home-made technology has multiple economic benefits, including job creation.
3. In the near future, the only jobs left will be green. That is because our current system of production is unsustainable — it will destroy a livable climate for the next 1,000 years.

President Obama understands all three of those points, as he has made clear in two recent speeches:

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The long-awaited sequel to An Inconvenient Truth — this time focusing on solutions — will be coming out in the fall. The Gore folk have sent out the following press release:

Today Vice President Gore announced that his next book, Our Choice, will be published by Rodale in the US and by other publishers internationally on November 3, 2009.

Picking up where An Inconvenient Truth left off, Our Choice utilizes Mr. Gore’s forty years of experience as a student, policymaker, author, filmmaker, entrepreneur and activist to comprehensively describe the real solutions to global warming. A co-recipient of the Nobel Peace prize in 2007 for his environmental work, Mr. Gore continues to make sense of the pressing issues we face and Our Choice will unquestionably inspire and rally those ready to fight for solutions that were deemed impossible only a short time ago.

Gore’s book is sure to be scrutinized and criticized for even the tiniest mistakes or, more likely, the tiniest non-mistakes (see Unstaining Al Gore’s good name 2: He is not “guilty of inaccuracies and overstatements” and is owed a correction and apology by the New York Times). And who can doubt that the right wing will attack Gore for every BTU he uses, including flying around the world trying to promote his blueprint (see “People Who Live in Greenhouses…. and “Gore greens his Tennessee home“)?

I was able to spend a fair amount of time with Gore at a climate solutions summit a year ago and can attest that he has an encyclopedic knowledge of clean energy (see “My Al Gore story“). Indeed, he has been adding to that knowledge by consulting with — and hearing detailed presentations from — some of the leading clean energy experts from industry, government, and the nonprofit sector.

This should be quite an aggressive blueprint since “Gore embraced 350 ppm target at PoznaÅ„.” And 350 ppm ain’t easy (see “The truth about stabilizing at 350 ppm“)!

Here are more details on what is sure to become the best-selling climate solutions book of all time:

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Lori Montgomery

As discussed in Friday’s Progress Report, the right wing has been pushing the meme that a carbon cap and trade system is identical to an energy tax:

After former House speaker Newt Gingrich told the Conservative Political Action Conference that cap and trade is a “code word” for an “energy tax,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called it a “light switch tax” and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said it was a “code for increasing taxes and killing American jobs.”

It now appears that Washington Post reporters have decided to follow the right-wing talking points on cap and trade:

“Republicans are howling about the proposal to expand health coverage and tax greenhouse gas emissions without their input, warning that it could irrevocably damage relations with the new president.” — Lori Montgomery, “President’s Budget Strategy Under Fire,” 3/18/09

“House Democrats have decided not to use the tactic for another Obama initiative: a proposal to tax greenhouse gas emissions, known as cap and trade.” — Lori Montgomery and Ceci Connolly, “GOP Pressed on Health Care,” 3/20/09

Although it is true that, like a carbon tax, the auction of global warming pollution allowances would be a tremendous revenue generator for the American people, a cap-and-trade system is not a carbon tax, which is why, on April 1, 2007, the Washington Post wrote:

As lawmakers on Capitol Hill push for a cap-and-trade system to rein in the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, an unlikely alternative has emerged from an ideologically diverse group of economists and industry leaders: a carbon tax.

In discussing wireless spectrum auctions, the Post does not call the sale a “tax.” In discussing oil lease sale auctions, the Post does not call the sale a “tax.” When the Treasury auctions T-bills, the Post does not call the sale a “tax.” Furthermore, in previous discussions of cap-and-trade systems, the Post does not call the sale of emissions allowances a “tax.”

In fact, just last week the Post’s Steven Mufson wrote “Opposing sides are striving to either frighten or woo voters with talk of whether climate legislation should be viewed as a big ill-timed tax or whether it will unlock new industries and technologies to make the economy more efficient and less dependent on foreign oil.”

It appears now that the Washington Post has chosen sides. The Wonk Room contacted the Washington Post on Friday about this change in policy but has not received a response.

Global warming is already having an impact on extreme weather disasters. In 2006 Peter H¶ppe, head of Munich Re’s Geo Risks department, co-chaired a workshop on the subject and told Nature: “Climate change may not be the dominant factor, but it has become clear that a relevant portion of damages can be attributed to global warming” (see Pielke in Nature: “Clearly, since 1970 climate change … has shaped the disaster loss record.”). And the science makes clear, the impact is only going to grow (see “Even U.S gov says human emissions are changing the climate“). Insurance companies now have to take note. This guest post on the subject, by Mark Meier, was first published by ScienceProgress.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners last week suddenly made the science of calculating the consequences of a rising sea level anything but academic. These state insurance regulators will now require insurance companies to submit annual “climate-risk” reports, which must include (among many other things) the risk of extreme weather events such as inexorably rising sea water. The decision follows a March 12 blast from the National Research Council complaining that state and local government officials were also guilty of ignoring climate change in their infrastructure decisions.

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has made its long-awaited “endangerment finding,” which will allow the agency, finally, to put a stop on greenhouse gases.

In Massachusetts [vs. EPA], the Supreme Court found that greenhouse gases (GHGs) are “pollutants” under the Clean Air Act; that EPA must determine whether GHGs emitted from new motor vehicles do or do not endanger public health or welfare, or supply a reason for not making this determination; and that, if EPA makes an “endangerment finding,” it must issue regulations.

Yes, this is a no-brainer given what happens if we don’t restrict greenhouse gas emissions (see “An introduction to global warming impacts: Hell and High Water “).

The Washington Post reported today:

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Dr. Jonathan Pershing became the new Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change under U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday.

Pershing will work under U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern, appointed by Clinton in January as Obama’s lead climate negotiator (see Secretary Clinton appoints special climate envoy Todd Stern warning, “the urgency of the global climate crisis must not be underestimated”).

I know Pershing well, and he is another solid pick, with a great depth of expertise on domestic and international climate issues. Here are excerpts from press release by the World Resources Institute (WRI), Pershing has been director of the Climate and Energy Program since 2003:

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