Zeno Swijtink
12-04-2007, 11:47 PM
https://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bay_environment/blog/
Historic Vote on Global Warming
TOM PELTON - Baltimore Sun
A U.S. Senate committee is scheduled for an historic vote on a global warming bill this week, perhaps as early as Wednesday. Environmental groups are planning a flurry of press conferences Tuesday to try to influence the vote.
/snip/
On the Federal level, the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Wednesday is expected to debate amendments to a bill proposed by Sens. Lieberman of Connecticut and Warner of Virginia that would create a "cap and trade" system designed to cut total U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions. These systems require industries to pay fees when they emit carbon dioxide or other greenhouses gases above a set limit, with the money going to reward cleaner businesses.
https://lieberman.senate.gov/issues/globalwarming.cfm
Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland is a co-sponsor of the bill. A group of Maryland environmental groups recently wrote a letter to Cardin (see below) urging him to strengthen the bill. They praise the proposal as a good first step, but they want to end the bill's free giveaway of pollution credits to power companies and amend the legislation to create a more aggressive target of an 80 percent cut by 2050.
"This is the first time ever a Senate commitee is voting on a global warming bill, and that's historic," said Brad Heavner, director of Environment Maryland. "There is some reasonable expectation that this will get to the floor, but the big question is will it get stronger or weaker?....We think it needs to be stronger."
As this blog reported last month, Europe tried a pollution credit trading system to curb carbon dioxide emissions after it passed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, and power companies worked the system to make billions in profits. Electricity customers paid higher bills, thinking they were contributing to a cooler planet. But their money just went into the pockets of the electric companies, which didn't end up actually cutting down on their carbon dioxide emissions.
On the other side of the political spectrum from these environmental groups, most Republicans on the committee are unlikely to vote in favor of the bill's current requirements, according to the online journal Grist.
"Right now, there's little reason to expect that any Republican on the committee other than John Warner (R-Va.) himself will vote for it. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) spoke critically of it at the first subcommittee hearing last week, and Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) took to the podium of the National Press Club two days later to pillory the bill.
Voinovich said: 'I have significant reservations about the bill. I have recently heard the concerns of a variety of constituents, including both industry and labor representatives, who are especially concerned that the bill presents an overly aggressive first phase of emissions reductions that will hit well before we can reasonably expect commercially available technologies to deal with the problem.'
Without the support of more Republicans, it's unclear if the measure will make it out of the full Senate -- not to mention survive a veto by President Bush, if he chose to use that power.
Meanwhile, the nonprofit Pew Center on Global Climate Change is releasing a report tomorrow on the impact of global warming on the Chesapeake Bay. Environment Maryland tomorrow morning is releasing a report on changes in local rainfall expected because of climate change.
***
https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/19/MNKCSSD3I.DTL
Historic bill in Senate to fight warming
California law a model for new measure
Zachary Coile, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Friday, October 19, 2007
(10-19) 04:00 PDT Washington - --
A bipartisan group of senators, borrowing heavily from California's efforts to fight climate change, fired the starting gun on what's expected to be a long global-warming debate in Congress with a proposal for limits on greenhouse gases affecting every major segment of the nation's economy.
Lawmakers, industry groups and environmentalists have waited months for the bill, which was introduced Thursday by Sen. John Warner, R-Va., and Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut.
The bill, expected to be the centerpiece of the Senate's efforts to address climate change, would cap emissions and gradually reduce them using a market-oriented cap-and-trade system in which allowances to emit greenhouse gases would be bought and sold.
"Today will be remembered as a turning point in the fight against global warming," said California Sen. Barbara Boxer, chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
The bill requires cuts in carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from electric utilities, transportation and manufacturing, accounting for about 75 percent of U.S emissions.
The bill would cap greenhouse gases at the 2005 emission level starting in 2012 and gradually reduce them to 1990 levels - a 15 percent reduction - by 2020. The measure requires deeper cuts over the long term: a 65 percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2050.
"The goal should be to keep the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere below 500 parts per million," Lieberman said. "That will avoid what (scientists) describe as a high risk of severe global warming impacts here in the United States ... but also around the world."
The bill would not pre-empt tougher climate rules enacted by states like California and would offer incentives to states that act early.
California enacted the first economy-wide limits on greenhouse gases last year; initial regulations are set to take effect in 2010. The law, AB32, intends to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020. California and a dozen other states also are battling in court and with the Bush administration to cut vehicle emissions of greenhouse gases.
Warner acknowledged that the new limits would burden industry and taxpayers. But he said less painful approaches - like the Bush administration's call for voluntary cuts - would not be enough to meet the global threat of climate change.
"The basic difference between the administration's approach and our approach is that we feel voluntary will not achieve the goals, the leadership that the United States of America simply must take ... to join the other nations of the world," Warner said.
Environmentalists mostly praised the bill as a good first step, though some groups said the emissions cuts were not deep enough. Some scientists estimate that reductions of 80 percent below 2000 emissions levels will be needed to avoid the worst impacts of rising temperatures.
"Senators Lieberman and Warner have offered serious preventative measures that will take us a long way to preventing catastrophic climate change," said Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "But it needs improvement if we're going to restore the patient to full health."
Industry groups were skeptical of the measure, saying the emissions cuts could hurt the competitiveness of U.S. companies by increasing their energy costs.
"We believe the bill's proposed greenhouse gas emissions reductions are 'too much, too soon,' " said Jack Gerard, president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council, a trade group of plastic and chemical manufacturers. He warned the bill would "turn energy markets upside down, causing massive reductions in coal usage and enormous increases in natural gas and renewable fuels usage."
Cynics noted that previous climate bills have failed in Congress, including a similar measure sponsored by Lieberman and Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona. But sponsors of the measure say rising public concern over global warming and the leading role played by Warner, one of the Senate's most respected Republicans, gives this measure a better chance.
Several Republicans have signed on as co-sponsors, including Sens. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Susan Collins of Maine. "I'm convinced this bill does represent a tipping point," Collins said Thursday.
Sen. James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican and leading climate change skeptic in Congress, took to the Senate floor to denounce the bill. He warned it could cost average families several thousands of dollars in additional energy costs.
"These are things that are very, very costly," Inhofe said.
The bill's sponsors say the bill has several cost-containment measures, including a "bank and borrow" system that lets greenhouse emitters save their allowances to pollute for future years, or borrow from future year's allowances to meet the goals.
The measure would also create a Carbon Market Efficiency Board, an appointed seven-member body that could loosen the rules on borrowing future credits if the price of carbon goes too high. However, all emitters would still have to meet the bill's targets over the long term.
The cap-and-trade system would work basically this way: A company that released more greenhouse gases than permitted would have to buy allowances for the extra pollution. The allowances would be sold in the market from a pool that came from companies that cut their missions below their required cap.
Some environmentalists were still unhappy with the bill's system for handling these allowances, which permit companies to emit greenhouse gases. Environmental groups would like to see them auctioned off and the proceeds go for consumer rebates and incentives for clean energy projects. Industry groups say an auction-only approach would be too costly to meet.
Warner and Lieberman have tried for a compromise that would start with auctioning off about one-quarter of the allowances, and increasing the number sold to 73 percent by 2036.
But Friends of the Earth president Brent Blackwelder warned that bill's approach "means that polluters will be rewarded with pollution permits worth tens or hundreds of billions of dollars or more."
Boxer said she or another senator would introduce an amendment to test support for a 100 percent auction system. "We'll see if we can get 51 votes," she said.
About half of the proceeds from the auctions would go to deploying clean energy technologies like solar, wind and geothermal energy as well as biofuels and plug-in hybrids. The other half would help poor people pay their energy bills and weatherize their homes, as well for training for "green-collar" jobs and aiding species put at risk by warming.
Lawmakers plan a subcommittee hearing on the bill next week, and Boxer is pledging a vote in her committee by the end of the year.
online resources
for more information about the lieberman-warner global warming proposal go to:
https://lieberman.senate.gov/issues/globalwarming.cfm
E-mail Zachary Coile at [email protected].
*******
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,521153,00.html
BALI CONFERENCE
US Seeks Alliance with China and India to Block Climate Protection
By Gregor Peter Schmitz in Washington, D.C.
December 03, 2007
Officially, the US government says it wants to push in Bali for a climate protection "road map." But SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that this may not be true. US government officials are already attempting to coordinate with China and India to prevent binding emissions limits.
In recent official statements, Washington has indicated it might be looking for a compromise during negotiations in Bali for a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. But sources say the White House is discreetly searching for partners in Beijing and Dehli to derail the prospects for any binding agreements to curb emissions of greenhouse gases.
In the run-up to the Bali Climate Conference that opened Monday, the administration of US President George W. Bush established contact with representatives of the Chinese and Indian governments in an attempt to curb progress on climate protection initiatives, SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned from a source familiar with the White House's Bali strategy.
"Bush's people don't want to make any real progress in the next two weeks," one Washington insider said. "But they also don't want to be severely criticized internationally again. So now the White House is seeking discreet ways of preventing binding limits on emissions."
Indirect teamwork with China and India appears to be regarded as one such way -- and Americans apparently feel it is essential. One problem is that the US can no longer count on one of its closest allies in its refusal to adopt more rigid climate protection rules: The first official act of Australia's new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd when he entered office Monday was to sign the Kyoto Protocol. He wants to try to ratify it in parliament later this week.
The strategy talks with China and India, though, are a glaring contradiction to the official statements coming from the US delegation before the start of the world climate conference. Just last week, Paula Dobriansky, undersecretary of state and the chief US representative in Bali, said week: "We'd like to see consensus on the launch of negotiations. We want to see a Bali roadmap."
But in Washington, people have been saying for days that this is just a diversionary tactic, and the government definitely wants to prevent clear agreements on pollutant limits. President Bush, too, sounded cautious last Wednesday in his comments on the climate. "We must lead the world to produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions," he said, before adding, "We must do it in a way that does not undermine economic growth or prevent nations from delivering greater prosperity for their people."
The Bush administration has so far always refused to accept binding rules on reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. They rejected the Kyoto Protocol, which established limits for emissions. The US has also regularly tried to obstruct the UN negotiations over a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
Hence the climate conference in September in Washington, to which Bush invited key industrialized countries, was regarded by the majority of climate experts as an attempt to devalue the Bali meeting. There was hardly any talk of concrete agreements. It's true that the White House no longer openly denies the facts of global warming. But it still calls for voluntary technical guidelines that will not put a burden on the economy, and suggests that technological innovations can solve the pollution problem.
With its effort to reach an agreement with China and India, Washington is now seeking to ensure that even in Bali the principle of voluntary guidelines will not be shaken. It is not clear, however, whether this strategy will work out. In the run-up to the conference, China had already reiterated its stance that the United States and the West must act first, and rejected mandatory limits of greenhouse gas emissions. However, the Chinese also held a meeting with senior representatives of the United States Congress in September -- bypassing the White House.
The main message the Chinese took away from that discussion was that the power center in Washington regarding climate issues had shifted to Congress, and that Congress would soon decide on stringent emissions limits. Such a move would also increase pressure on Beijing to accept stricter measures -- meaning that the Chinese delegation might already be willing to negotiate in Bali.
In fact, despite the blockade attempts by the White House, a change of heart is taking place in the US. It's possible that a Congressional committee could start discussing an ambitious climate change proposal by Senators Joseph Lieberman and John Warner as early as this week. The bill proposes that US emissions of greenhouse gases be reduced by 15 percent compared to 2005 levels by 2020. In addition, a trading system for emissions similar to the European model could be created.
"Ten years after the rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, that would be a real breakthrough," said Peter Goldmark, a former president of the Rockefeller Foundation who is now head of the Climate and Air program at the influential environmental organization Environmental Defense.
Last Friday, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi (a Democrat), pushed through new restrictions on auto emissions. If the bill becomes law, American car manufacturers will have to improve the efficiency of engines in cars and small trucks by 40 percent before 2020.
On a regional level, the US is changing fast. The governors of California, Utah and Montana have just started a TV campaign to demand new measures against climate change. "In state after state, we're taking action," say the governors. "Now it's time for Congress to act by capping greenhouse gas pollution."
"Now it's their turn," says Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Nine governors from the Midwest recently signed an agreement to reduce greenhouse gases in their respective states and to introduce an emissions trading system.
Before the Bali conference, there was a sensation in Washington over a report produced by the consulting agency McKinsey in cooperation with some environmental organizations. The consultants estimated that Americans could curb their greenhouse gas emissions with small technological innovations and moderate financial investment by a staggering 28 percent. But the report wasn't a work of pure fiction: The amount of CO2 emitted per person in the United States is estimated to be twice as high as the same figure in the UK or Germany.
Peter Goldmark thinks political support exists for a sea change in US climate policy. "All our studies show that people understand that if you start now, the impact (on the economy and the so-called American way of life) will be minimal. If you wait too long, it will have a tremendous impact."
ON THE AGENDA AT BALI
Timeline
The Bali Climate Change Conference runs from Dec. 3-14 on the island of Bali in Indonesia. The most pressing task immediately facing conference delegates will be to set a timeline in which to draft a new treaty. The Kyoto Protocol, which was drafted in 1997 and enacted in 2005, expires in 2012. The goal is to draft a successor treaty by 2009, which UN officials believe would leave enough time for it to be ratified by nations around the world and enacted in 2012.
Mitigation
Adaptation
Technology
Deforestation
Carbon Trading
--
NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C., section 107, some material is provided without permission from the copyright owner, only for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of federal copyright laws. These materials may not be distributed further, except for "fair use," without permission of the copyright owner. For more information go to: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Historic Vote on Global Warming
TOM PELTON - Baltimore Sun
A U.S. Senate committee is scheduled for an historic vote on a global warming bill this week, perhaps as early as Wednesday. Environmental groups are planning a flurry of press conferences Tuesday to try to influence the vote.
/snip/
On the Federal level, the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Wednesday is expected to debate amendments to a bill proposed by Sens. Lieberman of Connecticut and Warner of Virginia that would create a "cap and trade" system designed to cut total U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions. These systems require industries to pay fees when they emit carbon dioxide or other greenhouses gases above a set limit, with the money going to reward cleaner businesses.
https://lieberman.senate.gov/issues/globalwarming.cfm
Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland is a co-sponsor of the bill. A group of Maryland environmental groups recently wrote a letter to Cardin (see below) urging him to strengthen the bill. They praise the proposal as a good first step, but they want to end the bill's free giveaway of pollution credits to power companies and amend the legislation to create a more aggressive target of an 80 percent cut by 2050.
"This is the first time ever a Senate commitee is voting on a global warming bill, and that's historic," said Brad Heavner, director of Environment Maryland. "There is some reasonable expectation that this will get to the floor, but the big question is will it get stronger or weaker?....We think it needs to be stronger."
As this blog reported last month, Europe tried a pollution credit trading system to curb carbon dioxide emissions after it passed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, and power companies worked the system to make billions in profits. Electricity customers paid higher bills, thinking they were contributing to a cooler planet. But their money just went into the pockets of the electric companies, which didn't end up actually cutting down on their carbon dioxide emissions.
On the other side of the political spectrum from these environmental groups, most Republicans on the committee are unlikely to vote in favor of the bill's current requirements, according to the online journal Grist.
"Right now, there's little reason to expect that any Republican on the committee other than John Warner (R-Va.) himself will vote for it. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) spoke critically of it at the first subcommittee hearing last week, and Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) took to the podium of the National Press Club two days later to pillory the bill.
Voinovich said: 'I have significant reservations about the bill. I have recently heard the concerns of a variety of constituents, including both industry and labor representatives, who are especially concerned that the bill presents an overly aggressive first phase of emissions reductions that will hit well before we can reasonably expect commercially available technologies to deal with the problem.'
Without the support of more Republicans, it's unclear if the measure will make it out of the full Senate -- not to mention survive a veto by President Bush, if he chose to use that power.
Meanwhile, the nonprofit Pew Center on Global Climate Change is releasing a report tomorrow on the impact of global warming on the Chesapeake Bay. Environment Maryland tomorrow morning is releasing a report on changes in local rainfall expected because of climate change.
***
https://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/19/MNKCSSD3I.DTL
Historic bill in Senate to fight warming
California law a model for new measure
Zachary Coile, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Friday, October 19, 2007
(10-19) 04:00 PDT Washington - --
A bipartisan group of senators, borrowing heavily from California's efforts to fight climate change, fired the starting gun on what's expected to be a long global-warming debate in Congress with a proposal for limits on greenhouse gases affecting every major segment of the nation's economy.
Lawmakers, industry groups and environmentalists have waited months for the bill, which was introduced Thursday by Sen. John Warner, R-Va., and Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut.
The bill, expected to be the centerpiece of the Senate's efforts to address climate change, would cap emissions and gradually reduce them using a market-oriented cap-and-trade system in which allowances to emit greenhouse gases would be bought and sold.
"Today will be remembered as a turning point in the fight against global warming," said California Sen. Barbara Boxer, chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
The bill requires cuts in carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases from electric utilities, transportation and manufacturing, accounting for about 75 percent of U.S emissions.
The bill would cap greenhouse gases at the 2005 emission level starting in 2012 and gradually reduce them to 1990 levels - a 15 percent reduction - by 2020. The measure requires deeper cuts over the long term: a 65 percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2050.
"The goal should be to keep the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere below 500 parts per million," Lieberman said. "That will avoid what (scientists) describe as a high risk of severe global warming impacts here in the United States ... but also around the world."
The bill would not pre-empt tougher climate rules enacted by states like California and would offer incentives to states that act early.
California enacted the first economy-wide limits on greenhouse gases last year; initial regulations are set to take effect in 2010. The law, AB32, intends to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020. California and a dozen other states also are battling in court and with the Bush administration to cut vehicle emissions of greenhouse gases.
Warner acknowledged that the new limits would burden industry and taxpayers. But he said less painful approaches - like the Bush administration's call for voluntary cuts - would not be enough to meet the global threat of climate change.
"The basic difference between the administration's approach and our approach is that we feel voluntary will not achieve the goals, the leadership that the United States of America simply must take ... to join the other nations of the world," Warner said.
Environmentalists mostly praised the bill as a good first step, though some groups said the emissions cuts were not deep enough. Some scientists estimate that reductions of 80 percent below 2000 emissions levels will be needed to avoid the worst impacts of rising temperatures.
"Senators Lieberman and Warner have offered serious preventative measures that will take us a long way to preventing catastrophic climate change," said Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "But it needs improvement if we're going to restore the patient to full health."
Industry groups were skeptical of the measure, saying the emissions cuts could hurt the competitiveness of U.S. companies by increasing their energy costs.
"We believe the bill's proposed greenhouse gas emissions reductions are 'too much, too soon,' " said Jack Gerard, president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council, a trade group of plastic and chemical manufacturers. He warned the bill would "turn energy markets upside down, causing massive reductions in coal usage and enormous increases in natural gas and renewable fuels usage."
Cynics noted that previous climate bills have failed in Congress, including a similar measure sponsored by Lieberman and Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona. But sponsors of the measure say rising public concern over global warming and the leading role played by Warner, one of the Senate's most respected Republicans, gives this measure a better chance.
Several Republicans have signed on as co-sponsors, including Sens. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Susan Collins of Maine. "I'm convinced this bill does represent a tipping point," Collins said Thursday.
Sen. James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican and leading climate change skeptic in Congress, took to the Senate floor to denounce the bill. He warned it could cost average families several thousands of dollars in additional energy costs.
"These are things that are very, very costly," Inhofe said.
The bill's sponsors say the bill has several cost-containment measures, including a "bank and borrow" system that lets greenhouse emitters save their allowances to pollute for future years, or borrow from future year's allowances to meet the goals.
The measure would also create a Carbon Market Efficiency Board, an appointed seven-member body that could loosen the rules on borrowing future credits if the price of carbon goes too high. However, all emitters would still have to meet the bill's targets over the long term.
The cap-and-trade system would work basically this way: A company that released more greenhouse gases than permitted would have to buy allowances for the extra pollution. The allowances would be sold in the market from a pool that came from companies that cut their missions below their required cap.
Some environmentalists were still unhappy with the bill's system for handling these allowances, which permit companies to emit greenhouse gases. Environmental groups would like to see them auctioned off and the proceeds go for consumer rebates and incentives for clean energy projects. Industry groups say an auction-only approach would be too costly to meet.
Warner and Lieberman have tried for a compromise that would start with auctioning off about one-quarter of the allowances, and increasing the number sold to 73 percent by 2036.
But Friends of the Earth president Brent Blackwelder warned that bill's approach "means that polluters will be rewarded with pollution permits worth tens or hundreds of billions of dollars or more."
Boxer said she or another senator would introduce an amendment to test support for a 100 percent auction system. "We'll see if we can get 51 votes," she said.
About half of the proceeds from the auctions would go to deploying clean energy technologies like solar, wind and geothermal energy as well as biofuels and plug-in hybrids. The other half would help poor people pay their energy bills and weatherize their homes, as well for training for "green-collar" jobs and aiding species put at risk by warming.
Lawmakers plan a subcommittee hearing on the bill next week, and Boxer is pledging a vote in her committee by the end of the year.
online resources
for more information about the lieberman-warner global warming proposal go to:
https://lieberman.senate.gov/issues/globalwarming.cfm
E-mail Zachary Coile at [email protected].
*******
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,521153,00.html
BALI CONFERENCE
US Seeks Alliance with China and India to Block Climate Protection
By Gregor Peter Schmitz in Washington, D.C.
December 03, 2007
Officially, the US government says it wants to push in Bali for a climate protection "road map." But SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned that this may not be true. US government officials are already attempting to coordinate with China and India to prevent binding emissions limits.
In recent official statements, Washington has indicated it might be looking for a compromise during negotiations in Bali for a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. But sources say the White House is discreetly searching for partners in Beijing and Dehli to derail the prospects for any binding agreements to curb emissions of greenhouse gases.
In the run-up to the Bali Climate Conference that opened Monday, the administration of US President George W. Bush established contact with representatives of the Chinese and Indian governments in an attempt to curb progress on climate protection initiatives, SPIEGEL ONLINE has learned from a source familiar with the White House's Bali strategy.
"Bush's people don't want to make any real progress in the next two weeks," one Washington insider said. "But they also don't want to be severely criticized internationally again. So now the White House is seeking discreet ways of preventing binding limits on emissions."
Indirect teamwork with China and India appears to be regarded as one such way -- and Americans apparently feel it is essential. One problem is that the US can no longer count on one of its closest allies in its refusal to adopt more rigid climate protection rules: The first official act of Australia's new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd when he entered office Monday was to sign the Kyoto Protocol. He wants to try to ratify it in parliament later this week.
The strategy talks with China and India, though, are a glaring contradiction to the official statements coming from the US delegation before the start of the world climate conference. Just last week, Paula Dobriansky, undersecretary of state and the chief US representative in Bali, said week: "We'd like to see consensus on the launch of negotiations. We want to see a Bali roadmap."
But in Washington, people have been saying for days that this is just a diversionary tactic, and the government definitely wants to prevent clear agreements on pollutant limits. President Bush, too, sounded cautious last Wednesday in his comments on the climate. "We must lead the world to produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions," he said, before adding, "We must do it in a way that does not undermine economic growth or prevent nations from delivering greater prosperity for their people."
The Bush administration has so far always refused to accept binding rules on reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. They rejected the Kyoto Protocol, which established limits for emissions. The US has also regularly tried to obstruct the UN negotiations over a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
Hence the climate conference in September in Washington, to which Bush invited key industrialized countries, was regarded by the majority of climate experts as an attempt to devalue the Bali meeting. There was hardly any talk of concrete agreements. It's true that the White House no longer openly denies the facts of global warming. But it still calls for voluntary technical guidelines that will not put a burden on the economy, and suggests that technological innovations can solve the pollution problem.
With its effort to reach an agreement with China and India, Washington is now seeking to ensure that even in Bali the principle of voluntary guidelines will not be shaken. It is not clear, however, whether this strategy will work out. In the run-up to the conference, China had already reiterated its stance that the United States and the West must act first, and rejected mandatory limits of greenhouse gas emissions. However, the Chinese also held a meeting with senior representatives of the United States Congress in September -- bypassing the White House.
The main message the Chinese took away from that discussion was that the power center in Washington regarding climate issues had shifted to Congress, and that Congress would soon decide on stringent emissions limits. Such a move would also increase pressure on Beijing to accept stricter measures -- meaning that the Chinese delegation might already be willing to negotiate in Bali.
In fact, despite the blockade attempts by the White House, a change of heart is taking place in the US. It's possible that a Congressional committee could start discussing an ambitious climate change proposal by Senators Joseph Lieberman and John Warner as early as this week. The bill proposes that US emissions of greenhouse gases be reduced by 15 percent compared to 2005 levels by 2020. In addition, a trading system for emissions similar to the European model could be created.
"Ten years after the rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, that would be a real breakthrough," said Peter Goldmark, a former president of the Rockefeller Foundation who is now head of the Climate and Air program at the influential environmental organization Environmental Defense.
Last Friday, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi (a Democrat), pushed through new restrictions on auto emissions. If the bill becomes law, American car manufacturers will have to improve the efficiency of engines in cars and small trucks by 40 percent before 2020.
On a regional level, the US is changing fast. The governors of California, Utah and Montana have just started a TV campaign to demand new measures against climate change. "In state after state, we're taking action," say the governors. "Now it's time for Congress to act by capping greenhouse gas pollution."
"Now it's their turn," says Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Nine governors from the Midwest recently signed an agreement to reduce greenhouse gases in their respective states and to introduce an emissions trading system.
Before the Bali conference, there was a sensation in Washington over a report produced by the consulting agency McKinsey in cooperation with some environmental organizations. The consultants estimated that Americans could curb their greenhouse gas emissions with small technological innovations and moderate financial investment by a staggering 28 percent. But the report wasn't a work of pure fiction: The amount of CO2 emitted per person in the United States is estimated to be twice as high as the same figure in the UK or Germany.
Peter Goldmark thinks political support exists for a sea change in US climate policy. "All our studies show that people understand that if you start now, the impact (on the economy and the so-called American way of life) will be minimal. If you wait too long, it will have a tremendous impact."
ON THE AGENDA AT BALI
Timeline
The Bali Climate Change Conference runs from Dec. 3-14 on the island of Bali in Indonesia. The most pressing task immediately facing conference delegates will be to set a timeline in which to draft a new treaty. The Kyoto Protocol, which was drafted in 1997 and enacted in 2005, expires in 2012. The goal is to draft a successor treaty by 2009, which UN officials believe would leave enough time for it to be ratified by nations around the world and enacted in 2012.
Mitigation
Adaptation
Technology
Deforestation
Carbon Trading
--
NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C., section 107, some material is provided without permission from the copyright owner, only for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of federal copyright laws. These materials may not be distributed further, except for "fair use," without permission of the copyright owner. For more information go to: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml