Climate Change

Hurricane Sandy's Silver Lining: A Reaffirmation of Progressive Principles

Daniel Marans3 — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 14:44:19 -0400

At a time when the country is still reeling from the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the storm has reaffirmed progressive principles that have been under attack in recent years. Sandy has, in fact, brought together a trifecta of progressive policy vindications: the dangers of climate silence, the importance of a strong and responsive federal government, and the necessity of collective bargaining rights for workers.

Action on climate change. Climate hawks--also known as people who understand the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change--have long warned that climate change would lead to more extreme weather patterns. There are by now many studies showing that higher temperatures and rising sea levels have increased--and will continue to increase--the frequency and intensity of hurricanes and tropical storms.
Despite this year's already-extreme weather, including one of the worst droughts in American history, climate change has been largely overlooked in the election. For the first time since 1984, it was not mentioned during any of the Presidential debates, leading to charges of "climate silence" from activists, citizens, and the media.
Hurricane Sandy seems to be reversing that trend. Perhaps it is due to the nature of "Frankenstorm" itself, which extended unusually far inland, combined gale force winds, torrential rain and even snow, seemed to represent a new species of storm. Perhaps the fact that it was concentrated in the population-heavy economic and political centers of the mid-Atlantic region between New York and Washington. For any number of reasons, Sandy seems to have given climate change awareness new headwinds in the public discourse, right at a moment when it was being ignored the most.

Sandy has also reaffirmed the financial cost of climate change inaction. Reuters reported that Sandy caused between $5-$10 billion in insured losses, and $10-$20 billion in other economic losses. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has only $1 billion in reinsurance funds, or money insuring its in-house insurer, indicating it may need to be bailed out by taxpayers. This comes on top of $20 billion in federal crop insurance that the summer drought cost taxpayers. The national flood insurance corporation is apparently still $20 billion in debtfrom claims it paid out due to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Many long-time climate activists organized on the Internet to raise awareness of climate change issues during the storm. Bill McKibben, one of the country's top climate activists and an organizer of the massive Keystone XL pipeline protests, initiated a petition and fundraising drive through his group 350.org asking the fossil fuel companies responsible for extreme weather to donate their profits to hurricane relief efforts, and only then asking the same of petition signers. Matt Stoller, a policy fellow for the Roosevelt Institute, called for a "hardening" of our infrastructure to increase storm preparedness, and the building of a clean energy system, and took several mainstream environmental groups to task for featuring animal rights- and election-related issues on their websites. Stoller and others are promoting the site ForecasttheFacts.org, a creative new activism site that includes a "Weather Caster Watch"exposing meteorologists on local news channels who deny climate change and giving people the tools to pressure them.

Meanwhile, one of the Internet's most influential climate bloggers, David Roberts of Grist, debated the merits of highlighting one extreme weather event, when any one occurrence may or may not be the direct result of climate change. Roberts counsels us to think of climate change's role in Hurricane Sandy-level storms as similar to that of steroids in baseball.

"When the public asks, 'Did climate change cause this?" they are asking a confused question. It's like asking, 'Did steroids cause the home run Barry Bonds hit on May 12, 2006?' There's no way to know whether Bonds would have hit the home run without steroids. But who cares? Steroids mean more home runs. That's what matters."

So too the ongoing force of climate change will mean more storms like Sandy.

A strong, well-funded federal government.You might say there are no libertarians during natural disasters. The basic argument for a strong federal government received a major boost from Sandy. That's because, as usual, the federal government, and specifically, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), played an important role in helping states and cities prepare for the storm, and will undoubtedly be key in helping them rebuild.But the storm did not just positively affirm the role of government--it also discredited the right wing's war on key federal agencies and misguided obsession with states rights. The storm's concurrence with the presidential race brought out positions of that many top Republicans have taken on emergency disaster funding, FEMA in particular. The Huffington Post reported that during a Republican primary debate in June 2011, Mitt Romney called for privatizing FEMA or turning it over to the states. When asked whether he would shut down FEMA and let states handle disaster relief on their own, Romney said:

"Absolutely. Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction. And if you can go even further, and send it back to the private sector, that's even better. Instead of thinking, in the federal budget, what we should cut, we should ask the opposite question, what should we keep?"

The Romney campaign's tail-between-its-legs attempts to deny it ever held this position attests to how short-sighted state's rights or privatization seems when disaster actually strikes.

This gave progressive writers the chance to reiterate the case against federalism as a whole. As Alec MacGillis of The New Republic points out, states often mismanage or neglect responsibilities to their citizens. For example, many states, especially in the South, severely underfund and limit eligibility for Medicaid. Even when states have the political will to provide basic services, however, their ability to do so is often limited because, unlike the federal government, states must balance their budgets. As a result, without the federal government, states would be unable to fund basic programs during recessions, when revenues decline and demand for state services increase. With states as cash-strapped as they are currently, one can only imagine them trying to fund Sandy relief on their own.

In addition, Sandy put across-the-board austerity of the kind Republicans, and sometimes Democrats, are proposing under renewed scrutiny. Suzy Khimm reported in the Washington Post that the Romney-Ryan Administration would cut FEMA funding by between 22% and 40%, unless it were offset significantly elsewhere. For its part, the Obama Administration has cut FEMA funding by 3%, which it says is due to declining residual costs from Hurricane Katrina. That may be true, but given the increases in extreme weather we are expecting, cutting back for the sake of making cuts is risky. The Obama Administration tends to favor a lighter version of austerity than the Republicans, but Sandy reminds us that preparedness should be our top consideration, not the deficit boogey man.

The right to form a union and bargain collectively--in both the public and private sectors. There could be no more stinging rebuke to recent attempts by Republican state lawmakers to strip public sector workers of their collective bargaining rights than Hurricane Sandy. The storm was yet another reminder of the crucial, often dangerous work civil servants do, and the need for them to be able to bargain collectively for decent wages, benefits and working conditions. Republicans rely on characterizing public sector workers as an amorphous bloc, because when the public identifies them by their individual professions they are more sympathetic. During Sandy, there were no abstract "public sector workers," only the individuals police officers, firefighters, and EMTs rushing into flooding waters to evacuate people and put out burning houses in a time of crisis.Organized labor made sure to highlight this to the media. On the eve of the storm, Mario Cilento, President of the New York AFL-CIO, publicly stated:

"We're hopeful that preparations will prove unnecessary, but we have peace of mind knowing that union workers - public sector, private sector, and building trades - will be there for us: supermarket and retail workers making sure that supplies are available; utility and communication workers laboring day and night to keep the lights and phones on; police officers, firefighters and EMS professionals maintaining our safety; transportation workers preserving our subway, commuter rail and bus infrastructure; state, county and municipal employees keeping the roads clear; construction workers repairing our homes, businesses, and community; hospital workers providing care to our family, friends and neighbors; teachers and child care workers keeping our children safe until we can be with them; and hotel workers making sure there is a place to stay for those who cannot remain home."

The power outages and other disruptions that Sandy caused may also shine a light on the rampant union busting in power companies and the effect it could have on restoring power. After the derecho this past June left thousands of Washington, DC-area residents without power for days, Mike Elk reported in In These Times, that the extended outages may have been the result of local power company Pepco's reduction and replacement of its unionized electricians with less skilled contractors. We await news of any evidence of the effects of unionbusting on restoration of power in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania in the wake of Sandy.

Storms like Sandy show just how much Americans' standard of living depends on the workers who serve them being able to bargain collectively for a decent standard of living of their own. Would our civil servants be as willing to jump into flooded streets or climb burning buildings without the protections offered by collective bargaining rights? How quickly would our electric line workers fix power outages? Since virtually all of the states that were significantly affected by Sandy were highly unionized states, it is hard to say exactly how the storm would have been handled in right-to-work states. But there is little doubt that Sandy would have been far more tragic were it not for union workers from Maryland to Massachusetts.

For more of Daniel Marans' policy and political analysis, tune in to Take Action News with David Shuster, Saturday 12-3 pm on weactradio.com, or download the podcast on iTunes.

The Oval Office Address: Will The President Go For A "Price On Carbon"?

Bill Scher — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:23:34 -0400

It is rare for a President to deliver an Oval Office address on a subject that is not directly about war. When a President does so, he signals to the nation that the problem at hand is not only of the utmost importance, but requires the nation to come together to fix it.

This does not always work. President George W. Bush did not reform our immigration system. And, more relevant to tonight, President Jimmy Carter did not solve the energy crisis.

As this President already must know, one speech never solves a complicated problem. Follow-through is essential.

But as he also must know, a good speech never hurts.

President Obama delivers his first Oval Office address tonight, and only he knows what he wants to accomplish tonight.

CBS' Mark Knoller speculates that the President's primary objective "above all else" is "to show that he's on top of the [BP Gulf gusher] crisis." But that doesn't seem right. An Oval Office address isn't required to accomplish that.

The Oval Office setting offers the potential to galvanize a nation to action. The White House has signaled to CNN and Huffington Post that tonight's address will discuss "what we must do to decrease our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels." That sounds more like an Oval Office priority.

If the President tonight emphasizes the need for a comprehensive climate protection and clean energy jobs bill, he follows through with additional pressure, and most importantly, the public responds to the President's call, that could break the current Senate gridlock.

As I argued last week, neither the public nor the Senate is making the connection between the Gulf gusher and the climate crisis. This is the opportunity for the President to do so.

But as everyone in Washington who have pored over the poll data already know, the climate crisis by itself is not motivating enough.

What is? The prospect of millions of jobs generating clean American energy and energy-efficiency. The freedom from constant oil price spikes with stable, affordable clean energy. And curtailing the perennial threats of environmental disasters that destroy local economies like the Gulf coast. Conveying how the clean energy future can improve our day-to-day lives is essential.

Yet that basic picture has been painted by President and others before. People like it, but remain skeptical Washington is going to do anything about it.

What would make this speech different?

If the President explains the necessity of putting a price on carbon pollution to accelerate the transition to the clean energy future, making all goods and services powered with clean energy cheaper than with dirty energy.

Since everyone in Washington who works on climate issues knows that a price on carbon pollution is the linchpin to averting a climate crisis, drawing that line in the sand signals to the Senate that President is making a comprehensive climate protection and clean energy jobs bill the next big priority.

Of course, "price on carbon" is too wonky to be a silver rhetorical bullet. But the President has the capacity to make "price on carbon" a simple rallying cry to focus citizen activist energy, and push the Senate to act boldly.

Even if the votes in the Senate cannot be wrung out in the next few months, and an "energy-only" bill is the best fall-back position before the election season stalls legislative activity, by setting the "price on carbon" goal post, the President would define ultimate success and prepare citizen activist troops for the following battles.

But while we watch tonight to learn if the President raises the bar, let us also remember we in the grassroots have responsibilities too,

Whatever the president says about climate and clean energy tonight, it is in our best interest to press the Senate to take action tomorrow.

Yes, Nuclear

Dave Johnson — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:33:21 -0500

I believe that global warming is the most serious threat humanity faces. So we need to use every possible technology we can to replace energy sources that put greenhouse gases into the air. This includes nuclear energy.

One big problem with nuclear is figuring out what to do with the dangerous radioactive waste. But here's the thing, when we burn coal and oil we're just putting the dangerous waste product into the air and it is destroying the planet. So we can't make the perfect the enemy of the good -- nuclear waste is not destroying the planet and fossil-fuel waste is. We simply have to replace coal and oil as our energy source.

Climate change is an emergency. We need to do everything we can. This means we need to put up every windmill we can, every solar panel we can, every solar power plant, biofuel and geothermal facility that we can. We need to retrofit every building to be energy efficient, switch to electric cars, stop eating meat that is not grass-fed. We need to do research into finding ways to sequester carbon from coal. And we need to build nuclear power plants. What part of "everything we can" did I miss?

Please, let's make this a discussion. Please leave a comment with your thoughts on this.

BUT

As we proceed with this, we need to learn some lessons from the past. As we build a new generation of reactors there are some things that need to be clear from the outset.

Make them safe. This means a highly regulated effort, not a free-for-all for profits. Tax dollars are involved, and even if they were not public safety must be the primary focus. Newer reactor designs eliminate Chernobyl-style "meltdown" fears but we need close supervision by government. We need the government "meddling" and "interfering" and "snooping" every step of the way. We, the People need to be sure that every best practice is followed and no corners are cut to make a buck.

Buy American. If we are building nuclear power plants we should regulate that they create American jobs, not offshore in China or anywhere else. There are federal funds guaranteeing loans for these projects and they should specify that we Buy American. Use American –made components, right down to the steel. China's and other country's governments are helping their own economies, let's us help our own economy this time.

There are also safety concerns for Buy American. We need very close inspection of every component and material that is used in these plants. How would we monitor the manufacturing of the components and the quality of the steel if it is done outside the US? Do you remember the faulty welds in the Chinese components that shut down San Francisco's Bay Bridge last year?

Protect the environment. There is also the environmental impact of making steel in China and then shipping it versus making it here -- in our highly productive steel industry. China creates three times the greenhouse emissions when they make steel that our own steel plants create. This is one reason their steel costs less. What is the point of building nuclear to lower greenhouse gas emissions and using greenhouse gas-creating processes?

So I say Yes, Nuclear, and make sure that we use Big Government oversight to keep it safe, create American jobs and mostly to protect the environment.

Note: Here is what triggered this: Obama ups nuclear investment for climate fight

President Barack Obama announced $8.3 billion in loan guarantees Tuesday to build the first U.S. nuclear power plant in nearly three decades, a move designed to help advance climate legislation in Congress.

. . . The government backing will go to help Southern Co build two reactors at a plant in the state of Georgia. The reactors, which some experts estimate will cost $8.8 billion, could be in service in 2016 and 2017.

... "To meet our growing energy needs and prevent the worst consequences of climate change, we'll need to increase our supply of nuclear power. It's that simple."

Bitter Cold, Tough Negotiations Over Transparency

Bob Baugh — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:59:28 -0500

Thursday morning found Copenhagen bitterly cold with a cutting wind and covered in snow …much like the negotiations and the feelings of civil society. The Bella Center is on lockdown mode with heads of state and elected governmental leaders arriving. Civil society (unions and other non-governmental organizations) representation has been cut to 300 out of the more than 10,000 in town. The trade union presence has been reduced to 9 delegates.

Inside the center confusion, anxiety and despair have taken hold over the past few days as posturing continued and debates about process reigned over substance. One of the few bright spots was our ongoing fight to keep just transition language in.

Two days ago, after meeting with the U.S. negotiator who accepted our suggestions on new language as better than his own, our attempt to get Argentina promote the compromise failed only to have a new version show up in the next draft. That survived until last night when India bracketed the language (objected). Then, we are told, Argentina approached them and said they wanted the language kept in and India agreed. We’ll see what happens when the next draft comes out.

If only it was as easy to reach agreement on other issues as it has been on our just transition language. No kidding. There are many critical issues like finance for adaptation, targets, forestry, border adjustments and more on the table that should have been resolved before now.

One of the most difficult issues revolves around the MRV, measurable reportable and verifiable emission reporting. This transparency is all about the idea of “trust but verify,” a much needed commodity to actually build trust between nations for the long term on meeting commitments. The U.S. has reporting of major emitters as a legal requirement whit the first reports coming in this January.

This morning Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressed COP 15. She told the COP that the U.S. would participate in a $100 billion a year fund by 2020 to help the poorest most vulnerable developing countries. This was a much welcomed message and other nations have stepped up as well. She did however say it was contingent upon those nations also agreeing to meaningful mitigation efforts and reinforced the need for transparency (MRV).

Secretary Clinton closed her speech by quoting a Chinese proverb which says, “when you are in a common boat, you have to cross the river peacefully together.” She urged a constructive and creative approach toward a workable solution and said “we need to avoid negotiating approaches that undermine rather than advance progress toward our objective.”

Following her speech Secretary Clinton is living up to her words with back-to-back bilateral meetings with key developing and developed nations. She and others are back at the negotiating table with the clock ticking. Tomorrow more that 117 heads of state will meet. The betting is they did not come to Copenhagen to declare defeat. The challenge is to see what they will achieve.

Why Americans Really Need To Pay Attention To Copenhagen

OurFuture.org Staff — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:04:36 -0500

Climate talks, forest agreement in little danger of 'creating a better world for nothing'*

Natasha Chart — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 02:35:12 -0500

Stall, confusion and indecision reign in the UNFCC COP15 summit in Copenhagen according to negotiators for both developed and developing nations, with the possible exception of the REDD+ agreements, which are intended to reimburse poorer countries for preserving existing forests.

The last publicly available drafts of the Kyoto Protocol (KP) and Long Term Cooperative Action (LCA) agreements were filled in with placeholders like "to be elaborated" at critical points, such as the financing and trade measures. So for any of these major pieces to be nearly complete (how complete is very much in doubt, though,) seems quite astonishing and I think it's worth examining in terms of whose interests are being represented.

Forest Cover

So while the REDD deal is being reported in the New York Times as though "all major points of disagreement ... had been resolved through compromise," including concerns about protecting indigenous rights. Yet a look at the UN release on the matter says, "activists complain that [indigenous rights have] been moved out of a legally binding part of the text."

Now, maybe people who are concerned about getting kicked off their land might be inspired to activism, or might have inspired other advocates, but maybe they're just people concerned about getting kicked off their land who are tired of being on the losing end of 'compromise.' Maybe being described as activists misses the point.

Environmental Defense Fund's Fred Krupp, (EDF, btw, being so important that they've got their own office in the trailers where the country delegations are set up) was quoted in the Times article saying that the main benefit of REDD was the way it would let US companies reduce their emissions at "lower cost." By which he almost certainly meant a lower cost than actually reducing emissions, offsetting unhealthy practices through the purchase of land rights to land that other people may already live on and hadn't agreed to sell.

Krupp described this business bonanza as being "very important politically," which I expect will cut little ice with people who stand to be made homeless by it. Without legally protections, indigenous peoples are about as protected by any agreement as the world's children are by UN proclamations on their rights and welfare.

I don't hear anyone describing Krupp as a 'business activist', for example, (indeed I've never heard that term used to describe anyone,) though he's probably better labeled that way than an indigenous person coming to the UN to ask for tenancy rights for their very own ancestral land.

Perhaps the UN press staff should have left it at saying 'some indigenous peoples' were unhappy with the deal, and the Times should have made it more clear who was actually doing the compromising in this case. Because I don't think the Amazon Indians who are counting on REDD to save their home want it to come with an eviction notice.

Moreover, there's concern that the legal definition of "forest" for the agreement purposes might also include tea or biofuel plantations. Such export-oriented agricultural development is often also responsible for the displacement of indigenous peoples, may be initiated by governments who aren't keen on democratic consultation, and are scientifically, emphatically, not the same as established forest cover.

When it does come to negotiating something substantial in terms of technology transfer, financing and trade, are the rest of the compromises going to mean greater exposure for the little guy, as well?

The G77 Speak Out On Inclusion

The G77 negotiators, such as Bernarditas de Castro Muller of the Phillipines, and head of the African Group, Kemel Djemouai of Algeria, and Sri Lankan ambassador Dr. Palitha T.B. Kohona, are certainly concerned that with things going as they are, they're going to end up on the menu.

Multiple complaints have been made regarding the process arranged by the meeting's Danish hosts, who are said to be cutting many nations out of secretive side negotiations and refusing to release draft texts to the parties.

At a press conference Monday night, Muller said their bloc had been "shifted aside" from negotiations, and was frustrated that the ministers of 48 nations had met privately over the weekend. She said that no 48 countries should be allowed to decide for everyone "no matter how important they are," and that it was wrong that so much of what was in the agreements appeared to be "self-financed adaptation."

Djemouai agreed that it wasn't fair for wealthy nations to do nothing, while the poor were asked to make commitments. Under Kyoto, developing nations have only voluntary responsibilities, while developed nations have legally binding emission reduction obligations. He said that "maybe in 50 years it will be fair," referring to future projections indicating that the share of developing country emissions will become the largest sources of additional greenhouse gases.

Their concern stemmed largely from the fact that even with a binding treaty, emissions from wealthy nations have continued to rise. At present, the LCA track isn't expected to produce a binding treaty, only a political agreement, along with a great deal more relative pressure on poorer countries to abide by it.

As Bolivia's ambassador, Pablo Solon, said after the US negotiator, Todd Stern, recently rejected the idea that the US had culpability in the climate crisis, "the industrialised countries ... have used up two thirds of the atmospheric space, depriving us of the necessary space for our development and provoking a climate crisis of huge proportions. ... In Bolivia we are facing a crisis we had no role in causing. Our glaciers dwindle, droughts become ever more common, and water supplies are drying up. Who should address this? To us it seems only right that the polluter should pay, and not the poor."

Yet as Meena Raman of the Third World Network explained in a December 14th Copenhagen news update, this question of whether both the KP and LCA discussions will go forward is a key sticking point. The EU and Japan are insisting that they want to be part of an agreement that includes the US, which the KP treaty isn't, and that they want there to be only one treaty. The developing nations prefer Kyoto and want a new commitment period negotiated, and appear to think that too little of either good faith or assistance has been extended for them to make binding commitments.

Where REDD Fits In

If REDD actually worked, it could net developing countries as much as $33 billion per year in carbon credit trades, which is more than three times the best offer of direct assistance suggested by wealthy nations who have so far offered a maximum of $10 billion.

The promise of that much additional money might well overcome objections to a verification mechanism that applied to developing nations. If it were an additional benefit on top of direct aid, REDD might just make things work.

Further, after strident objections by US negotiators to financially supporting initiatives that would benefit China, they appear to have agreed to refuse to take adaptation and mitigation funds. While they're still holding to a developing nation status, which they say is warranted by their per capita GDP, they're also saying that unlike many other countries, they can self-finance much of their development.

It'll be interesting to see how that unfolds after their insistence that wind projects in China should still be eligible for Clean Development Mechanism financing, but who knows. Even the US has shown lately that it can be less belligerent.

Still, there are serious problems with what's known about REDD to date, and it doesn't warrant unlimited exuberance.

Indigenous rights remain in limbo, the definition of a forest is as much in question as it was back in November after the Barcelona REDD talks, there are logging loopholes that allow developed nations to refuse to count logging below a projected baseline of logging activity as emissions, and the NGO observers who would generally remind negotiators of all this are being shut out.

As Brad Johnson said this week, "The UN is doing better on setting a mandatory and declining cap on access to Bella Center than on carbon emissions."

Funny, but true, and no less true of REDD so far than anything else we've seen. This agreement won't actually help if it simply creates "museums for trees", while allowing wealthy nations to go on about their business as usual. If climate change continues killing forests because preventing new emissions is counted as if it were cutting them, this will all have been for nothing.

* Quote in title from this article on the no regrets path to stabilizing the climate.

G77 Suspend COP15 Talks: "These Negotiations Are A Joke."

Natasha Chart — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:55:29 -0500

Members of the African civil society delegations held a protest in the main hall of the COP15 summit today to support their negotiators' decision to hold up the climate summit talks, temporarily suspending the conference, over the sidelining of the Kyoto Protocol discussions, that were proceeding in parallel to the Long-Term Cooperative Action (LCA) talks in which the US is participating.

"Nothing is being offered by the rich countries," said Negusu Aklilu of Ethiopia's Forum For Environment, "it's just a joke. Climate change is not a joke in Africa, but these negotiations are a joke."

"As we speak now, [Kyoto] is the only binding agreement that we have," said Aklilu. He reiterated the stance that there needed to be a binding agreement, saying that wealthy nations were refusing to engage and were deep in a "politically motivated, 'after you' syndrome."

Aklilu said he'd like decisions to be science-based, and that while a 40% reduction by 2020 is now being discussed, new information from the IPCC suggests limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius would be necessary to save coastal Africa.

And then there's the question of mitigation and adaptation aid.

Going into more detail over something I've heard from several NGO representatives, Aklilu explained that much of the aid being discussed goes back to 1992 aid agreements that called for an ongoing commitment from wealthy nations of 0.7% of GDP. Not only have developed nations not generally kept this pledge, they would now like to repackage the same commitment as climate aid.

Aklilu said they wanted additional aid because climate change was an additional burden on their countries.

Message To Congress, Copenhagen: America is Cutting Carbon, One Way Or Another

Bill Scher — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:45:03 -0500

The Environmental Protection Agency formally declared that greenhouse gases are a pollutant that it can regulate under the existing Clean Air Act. And the timing of the announcement was no accident.

Before the President travels to the Copenhagen climate summit, the EPA and the White House are effectively sending the message: no matter what happens in Congress, America will cut our carbon.

The uncertainty of Senate action on climate has restricted the President's ability to make firm commitments. But now the President can clearly say, I have the legal authority to reduce greenhouse gas emissions even if the Senate refuses to get its act together.

Sen. Jim Webb sought to box Obama in last week, sending a letter saying, "I would like to express my concern regarding reports that the Administration may believe it has the unilateral power to commit the government of the United States to certain standards that may be agreed upon at the upcoming [conference] ... only specific legislation agreed upon in the Congress, or a treaty ratified by the Senate, could actually create such a commitment on behalf of our country."

News to Webb: Sure, Obama can't ratify a legally binding treaty by himself, but he absolutely can make a commitment to act under current law.

And making such a commitment will help considerably to extract similar concessions from other nations when he participates in final negotiations at Copenhagen next week.

Obama is also sending the message to Webb and other Senators on the fence that if they don't act, he will.

And special interests resisting legislation will surely prefer cutting deals with Senators than being subject to a completely free hand from the EPA. So the EPA move puts considerable pressure on the Senate to find compromises similar to what the House already struck.

Because one thing is clear. Under this President, America will be cutting its carbon, one way or another.

It's only up to the Senate to decide which way it's going to be.

Is China Still A Developing Nation?

Natasha Chart — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 13:18:26 -0500

This past week, the UN suspended funding for several Chinese wind farms, ruling the China had been gaming the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) subsidies paid by developed countries to developing countries for clean technology projects they would not have otherwise not have built.

The last point is key, what climate negotiators call "additionality." An agreement or sustainability mechanism is considered to be working if it reduces emissions from a business-as-usual scenario. This idea is going to come up a lot in the climate talks, almost as much as who gets considered a developing or developed nation. The definition determines who gets money and who gives it in this quest to make aid dollars have the most impact possible.

Needless to say, the CDM was not designed as an industrial dumping subsidy for flourishing, well-established industries, such as Chinese turbine manufacturers.

China is truly an economic powerhouse and their government went out of their way during the Olympics to highlight how modern and advanced a society they are. No one could dispute that, nor that they're stiff competition for us in the full range of heavy industry. Though it's hard to say that entirely disqualifies them as a developing nation. Much like India, they're almost two countries: one urban and high-tech, the other almost indistinguishable from a Medieval peasant economy.

According to World Bank estimates released last year, as of 2005, China still had 200 million people living in poverty. That's around six times the population of Canada, for comparison. Really, plenty enough people to be a whole country unto themselves, and it's this face that China presents to the world when it comes to climate negotiations. I'm not going to say that it's wrong for them to do that, either.

Human beings are the most significant arbiters of value for other humans and we should always value each other over dead matter. However, the 200 million in poverty in China live in a country that gets about half of the CDM money, though they make up just less than a tenth of the world population living in poverty.

If we're to really get all countries reducing emissions, what money is made available should at least be shared around more equitably.

I think it's a positive step that Obama has promised to help India and China with research and environmental enforcement., the moreso because it seems to have worked to get them moving in the right direction. They're major world economies with significant global impact and similar situations, and it seems fair for them to say that they didn't bring the world to its current state of crises, that they're late to a game the US, Europe and Japan have been playing for quite a while.

Though as with any other country, Chinese efforts to cut emissions that are meaningful must meet the test of additionality.

Right now, the world is increasing emissions at an increasing rate. Previous climate talks have been centered around getting all of us to increase emissions at a decreasing rate, which is to say, to still be increasing emissions, but more slowly. The scientific imperative is that emissions decrease significantly from previous levels if we want to stave off catastrophe, and that they become negative (that we start pulling more carbon out of the atmosphere than we put in) if we're to keep a stable climate like the one we've had for most of recorded history.

It isn't an accident that there was an explosion of human population and civilization during a period, brief in geologic time, notable mostly for its stability and mildness. Mild climate was a key factor in making civilization as we know it possible.

China has certainly started looking at clean technology as a business opportunity, as well. They have set binding internal targets, even if they've opposed external targets. However, there are serious questions about whether their current emission proposals represent a cut from business as usual. As a leading manufacturing economy, their impact either way, regardless of their relative newcomer status, will affect us all and bears particular attention.

And here we come back to where the US needs to step carefully. China needs to be brought into an agreement, yes, but so do we.

In addition to additionality, the political will required to maintain climate agreements will only stay with us if it accompanies increasing, widespread prosperity. China, India, and all the rest of the developing nations, must rise. Though if workers in developed nations are allowed to fall, that will inevitably choke off support for continuing with technology transfer and development assistance.

Everybody must win or everybody will fail. I don't mean to come over all self-help on you, but it's only the veriest truth.

If jobs and prosperity fall in the US, the US will continue being an enormous obstacle to world emission cuts, as we have been, lo, these many years.

But is China a developing nation or a rival on equal footing? What can both parties give that will best promote cuts from business-as-usual emissions? What mechanism will bring the greatest prosperity to average people in both countries, lifting their population out of poverty and keeping ours from sliding down into it? How we answer these questions will have a huge effect on whether either country comes to the table in good faith, and on that, much of the fate of the world hangs.

A Backdrop For Copenhagen

Natasha Chart — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 12:16:24 -0500

Jonathan Hiskes at Grist has written up a Copenhagen 101 primer for anyone who's just tuning in to the latest round of world climate talks, so I don't have to. Which is great, because there were three main points I wanted to go over.

First, the imperative: the planet is likely on track to lose life support ability for 5 billion people below current levels and our window to prevent this outcome is closing rapidly.

Catastrophic changes could happen within the lifetime of someone born today and have already begun. As Energy Secretary Steven Chu noted earlier in the year, California could be an uninhabitable desert within 40-50 years, and the state is already seeing mass dust storms, snow pack failures and widespread forest die-off. Around half the Midwest was declared an agricultural disaster area this year. Just for this country in the next couple decades, we could face drastic upheavals and it's no better outside our borders.

We're seeing ice changes happening 20 years ahead of schedule, sea levels that could rise over a meter by the end of the century, and a number of environmental indicators pointing to a worst-case scenario.

So here's the thing, there isn't a bigger problem than this facing humanity. This is the one that will make all our other difficulties impossible to solve.

Both the US military intelligence community and the Chinese government recognize climate change as a threat to national security, no matter what Exxon-Mobil says.

Second, the obstacles: who's going to pay for all this and why do we keep asking that like it's a bad thing?

There are other obstacles, like Exxon-Mobil, but mostly, somebody has invest the startup costs. Germany has done this in-country, as they've met their Kyoto targets three years early and have a strong economy and manufacturing base to show for it.

Though paying for climate mitigation and a clean energy transition is like being offered a chance to get in on the ground floor at Microsoft.

The old economy is dying, and the remnants of it are creating ever lower-paying jobs and an ever-decreasing standard of living. It isn't clear that policymakers have realized this yet, but unemployment and underemployment lead to even bigger deficits and kill the prospect of recovering a broad tax base for struggling state and local governments. We're headed for the bottom right now, if we maintain business as usual.

We must create new industries and new markets to get out of that situation, just as the way out of the Great Depression was direct job creation.

Clean energy, energy and efficiency retrofits, updated transit infrastructure - this is the way forward. People may worry about going forward, but there's no standing still option, only back.

Which is the dirty, big secret of the fossil fuel industry, that they've set us on a path of inevitably declining living standards, fewer jobs and worse health. Indeed, if forty years from now there are more people living and shivering in makeshift huts than there are today, it will be the direct result of listening to the Luddites of the oil, gas and coal industries who don't want our energy economy to advance beyond what it was 100 years ago.

Third, we're all in this together: the climate is a global phenomenon and there's no real escape from it.

Some areas may feel the impact worse than others, some are feeling it earlier than others. But in a globalized economy, wild and unpredictable weather can have worldwide repercussions. Consider that Hurricane Katrina caused an oil price spike, and a scramble throughout the world oil industry over the interruption of refinery and transport services.

A serious commitment to reduce emissions needs to be a worldwide commitment. This has been previously used as a call for inaction by delayers in Congress, dragging their feet until some other country does something first. (Since when did Congress get to be so whiny, so unconvinced that America was capable of great things, anyway?) But it is true that as developing countries pull themselves up, if they do what we did to industrialize, it'll cook the planet.

Developing nations must have the financial support and knowledge resources to lift people out of poverty and create opportunity with the latest, cleanest technology. Now that Obama's planning to attend the last, crucial day of the summit, partly in response to the commitment of so many world leaders to personally attend and really try to get an agreement, that might happen.

If it doesn't happen, we're cooked. And I don't mean that metaphorically.