Governors of 18 U.S. states on Wednesday urged Congress to stop “harmful” Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse-gas emissions, saying the agency isn’t equipped to deal with “the very real potential for economic harm.”
The governors, led by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, made their request in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) and their Republican counterparts. The letter was also signed by Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican who has been cited as a possible contender in the 2012 presidential election.
“We feel compelled to guard against a regulatory approach that would increase the cost of electricity and gasoline prices, manufactured products, and ultimately harm the competitiveness of the U.S. economy,” the governors wrote. “We strongly urge Congress to stop harmful EPA regulation of greenhouse-gas emissions that could damage those vital interests.”
The Obama administration’s EPA fired back that it “rejects the premise that addressing greenhouse gases threatens the economy,” saying that other EPA actions “have led to innovations and the creation of new markets that can spur economic growth.” The EPA “will continue to follow the law and the science, which overwhelmingly indicates climate change is a real and growing threat to the American people,” spokesman Brendan Gilfillan said in a statement.
The governors’ letter, signed mostly by Republicans, intensifies a battle with the Obama administration’s EPA as it prepares to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from vehicles and stationary sources such as power plants. The rules are due to be finalized by the EPA later this month. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has said the regulations for power plants, factories and oil refineries will be effective on a delayed basis, beginning in 2011, allowing companies extra time to plan ahead.
Coal, oil and manufacturing states have warned of the costs of complying, which could involve equipment purchases and other spending. In Congress, multiple measures are pending to hinder the EPA. One measure, from coal-state lawmakers including Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W.Va.) would suspend EPA regulations for two years. Another measure, led by oil-state Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) would overturn the EPA regulations.
“A simple delay of EPA action will do nothing to provide relief to Americans looking for jobs or businesses looking to make new investments in our states,” the governors wrote in urging Congress to stop the EPA outright and to pass comprehensive energy legislation. “Furthermore, such delay of EPA action only creates more uncertainty in a difficult fiscal environment.”
The letter emboldened Republicans already at odds with the EPA. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R, Okla.) said in a statement that the EPA should “stop this tax and the regulatory nightmare it will create, and work with Congress to pass an all-of-the-above energy plan that means more jobs, more energy, and more security for America.”
Sen. John D. Rockefeller (D-WVa.) will introduce legislation Thursday to impose a two-year moratorium on the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases from power plants and other stationary emitters, a move that could undermine the Obama administration’s plan to pursue a cap on carbon emissions in the face of congressional opposition.
Rockefeller’s bill, one of several recent congressional efforts to curb the EPA’s authority to address climate change under the Clean Air Act, highlights the resistance the administration will face if it attempts to limit carbon dioxide through regulation. Obama and his top deputies have repeatedly said they would prefer for Congress to set mandatory, nationwide limits on greenhouse gas emissions, but the EPA is moving ahead with plans to do so if legislation fails to pass this year.
“Today, we took important action to safeguard jobs, the coal industry, and the entire economy as we move toward clean coal technology,” Rockefeller said. “This legislation will issue a two-year suspension on EPA regulation of greenhouse gases from stationary sources–giving Congress the time it needs to address an issue as complicated and expansive as our energy future. Congress, not the EPA, must be the ideal decision-maker on such a challenging issue.”
Republicans, too, have repeatedly tried to rein in the EPA’s climate authority–Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) has introduced a resolution of disapproval that would overturn the agency’s scientific finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, and House Republicans introduced their own version of the resolution this week. But Rockefeller’s effort is especially significant because it points to growing unease among Democrats over the prospect of the administration tackling climate change without explicit congressional approval.
Three Senate Democrats–Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Mary Landrieu (La.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.)–are co-sponsoring Murkowksi’s resolution. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin C. Peterson (D-Minn.) and Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) have introduced a similar measure, and House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall (D-WVa), along with Democratic Reps. Alan Mollohan (WVa) and Rick Boucher (D-Va.), will introduce a companion bill to Rockefeller’s. In addition, Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.) has introduced a measure that would strip the EPA of its authority to regulate pollution linked to global warming.
Three big companies quit an influential lobbying group that had focused on shaping climate-change legislation, in the latest sign that support for an ambitious bill is melting away.
Oil giants BP PLC and ConocoPhillips and heavy-equipment maker Caterpillar Inc. said Tuesday they won’t renew their membership in the three-year-old U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a broad business-environmental coalition that had been instrumental in building support in Washington for capping emissions of greenhouse gases.
The move comes as debate over climate change intensifies and concerns mount about the cost of capping greenhouse-gas emissions.
On a range of issues, from climate change to health care, skepticism is growing in Washington that Congress will pass any major legislation in a contentious election year in which Republicans are expected to gain seats. For companies, the shifting winds have reduced pressure to find common ground, leading them to pursue their own, sometimes conflicting interests.
Last week, the head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, Billy Tauzin, said he would step down as president of the industry’s main lobby in Washington, amid criticism from some in the industry over the alliance he made last year with the White House to support health-care legislation.
The administration had worked hard to persuade industry groups to climb aboard its major legislative initiatives—a tack many business interests saw as sensible following the Democrats’ big gains in the 2008 elections. But “unlikely bedfellows make for breakups,” said Kevin Book, managing director of Clearview Energy Partners, a consulting firm.
Spokesmen for ConocoPhillips and BP said the companies still support legislation to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, but believe they can accomplish more working outside USCAP’s umbrella. Caterpillar said it plans to focus on commercializing green technologies.
ConocoPhillips’s senior vice president for government affairs, Red Cavaney, said the USCAP was focused on getting a climate-change bill passed, whereas Conoco is increasingly concerned with what the details of such a bill would be.
“USCAP was starting to do more and more on trying to get a bill out without trying to work as much on the substance of it,” Mr. Cavaney said.
A spokesman for USCAP said it intends to continue its work. More than 20 other large companies, including oil company Royal Dutch Shell PLC and industrial heavyweights General Electric Co. and Honeywell International Inc., remain in the coalition with environmental groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council. The USCAP said it expects to add new members in coming months.
“We think there’s momentum to get [a climate bill] done,” USCAP spokesman Tad Segal said. “President [Barack] Obama’s State of the Union address made it clear the administration is behind us.”
As Global Warming Movement Collapses, Activists Already ‘Test-Marketing’ the Next Eco-Fear! ‘Laughing Gas’ Crisis? Oxygen Crisis? Plastics?
Global Warming Being Thrown Under the Bus as New Replacement Environmental Scare is Sought
By Marc Morano
As the man-made global warming fear movement collapses and the climate establishment lay in a Climategate ridden tatters, many are asking what next? (For latest on climate movement’s demise go to www.ClimateDepot.com)
As man-made global warming fears enter the ashbin of history, what will environmentalists, UN activists and politicians do to fill the void of a failed eco-scare?
Well, wonder no more….
Some forward thinking green activists and even the UN climate Chief have already taken up the task of test-marketing the next eco-scares to replace man-made global warming.
As man-made climate fears subside and the scientific, economic, cultural and political case evaporates for climate change “action,” expect more and more green activists to take up the mantle for “laughing gas” as a possible replacement eco-scare.
See also: Laughing Gas Knocks Out CO2 - By Doug Hoffman - Oct. 30, 2009 - Excerpt: “In the face of ever mounting evidence that CO2 is incapable of causing the level of global devastation prophesied by climate change catastrophists a new villain is being sought. The leading candidate is nitrous oxide (N2O), better known as laughing gas. A report in Science claims that N2O emissions are currently the single most important cause of ozone depletion and are expected to remain so throughout the 21st century. The IPCC rates N2O as 310 times as potent a greenhouse gas as CO2 on a 100 year time scale. Is this a greenhouse gas bait and switch, or are the global warming alarmists trying to up the ante.”
Still can’t picture former Vice President Al Gore touting the “laughing gas” crisis as the “moral” challenge of our time in a Oscar-winning documentary? Not to worry, there are many more eco-scares currently being test-marketed.
Plastics
Gore’s own producer of “An Inconvenient Truth” — Hollywood eco-activist Laurie David — is already test-marketing another eco-scare with potential promise.
“The rapid rise in global plastic production is leading to a rise in plastic pollution and its devastating effects on our oceans and our lives.,” Laurie David wrote on July 31, 2009. Selected Excerpts From David’s blog post: “This insidious invasion of the biosphere by our plastic waste is in some ways more alarming for us humans than global warming. Our bodies have evolved to handle carbon dioxide, the nemesis of global warming, indeed, we exhale it with every breath. Plastic, though present in the biosphere from the nano scale on up, is too stable a molecule for any organism to fully assimilate or biodegrade. So we have a situation in which a vector for a suite of devastating chemicals, chemicals implicated in many modern diseases, is now invading the ocean, our bodies and indeed, the entire biosphere. The prognosis for improvement in this situation is grim.”
Still not convinced of either “laughing gas” or “plastics” as the next dominant eco-scare? Don’t worry, we are just getting started.
Just how widespread is the test marketing of a new eco-scare to replace the flailing global warming movement?
Modern men have lived through 20 sudden global warmings
By Pete DuPont
Al Gore said the other week that climate change is “a principle in physics. It’s like gravity. It exists.” Sarah Palin agreed that “climate change is like gravity,” but added a better conclusion: Each is “a naturally occurring phenomenon that existed long before, and will exist long after, any governmental attempts to affect it.”
Over time climates do change. As author Howard Bloom wrote in The Wall Street Journal last month, in the past two million years there have been 60 ice ages, and in the 120,000 years since the development of modern man, “we’ve lived through 20 sudden global warmings,” and of course this was before–long before–”smokestacks and tail pipes.”
In our earth’s history there has been both global warming and global cooling. In Roman times, from 200 B.C. to A.D. 600, it was warm; from 600 to 900 came the cold Dark Ages; more warming from 900 to 1300; and another ice age from 1300 to 1850. Within the past century, the earth has warmed by 0.6 degree Celsius, but within this period we can see marked shifts: cooling (1900-10), warming (1910-40), cooling again (1940 to nearly 1980), and since then a little warming. The Hadley Climatic Research Unit global temperature record shows that from 1980 to 2009, the world warmed by 0.16 degree Celsius per decade.
As for the impact of reducing global warming, Bjorn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, outlined in The Wall Street Journal that Oxfam concluded that if wealthy nations diverted $50 billion to climate change that “at least 4.5 million children would die and 8.6 million fewer people could have access to HIV/AIDS treatment.” And if we spent it on reducing carbon emissions? It would “reduce temperatures by all of one-thousandth of one degree Fahrenheit over the next hundred years.”
UN fails in last-ditch efforts to get world leaders to commit to a maximum 2C rise as draft texts get weaker
By Suzanne Goldenberg, John Vidal and Jonathan Watts
The UN’s climate summit was heading for meltdown this afternoon with countries unable to agree on emission cuts and blaming each other for the descent towards a humiliating fiasco.
Last-ditch efforts by the UN to get the 120 world leaders to at least commit to hold temperatures to a maximum rise of 2C in the next century were failing, as a series of draft political agreement — each weaker than the last — were circulated among countries.
Versions of the overarching political text seen by the Guardian showed that profound disagreements between countries had not been resolved. Only weak, long-term aspirations for an overall global emissions cut of 50% by 2050 and an 80% cut by 2050 for rich countries. These commitments, and the 2C pledge, were assumed to be givens in any deal.
As the draft text reached its sixth version, there were some glimmers of hope, as some nations put more encouraging language into the agreement, including a reference to a limit of 1.5C being supported by the science. But more versions are expected.
No commitments were sought for any of the major areas of dispute, such as a mid-term 2020 target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The European Union’s plan to raise its pledge from a 20% cut to 30% cut in emissions by 2020 was blocked, dashing hopes of prompting a series on increased offers from other nations. The latest text even dropped a deadline for reaching a legally binding treaty by the end of 2010. At the start of the week Gordon Brown was insisting that six months was the maximum acceptable delay.
A financial package intended to raise billions of dollars to help poor countries to adapt to climate change and develop green technology was also in doubt as rich countries declined to guarantee the money, simply affirming that they “supported a goal of mobilising $100bn by 2020″.
The lack of ambition and near total absence of commitment from the leaders is a bitter disappopintment for the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, and the UK government which has led worldwide efforts to forge an ambitious, legally binding global agreement to stop the rise in carbon emissions by 2020 and reduce them dramatically in the following 30 years.
Negotiators will now continue to work on individual agreements like deforestation, technology, finance but without strong leadership the chances are that it will take years to complete.
Hopes that Barack Obama would deploy his authority as the leader of the world’s largest economy — and his personal political charisma — to try to broker a last-minute deal were also frustrated. A visibly angry Obama told world leaders that it was past time for them to come to an agreement. “The time for talk is over,” he said.
But Obama did not offer any new pledges of action — either in increased emissions cuts or clarity on America’s contributions to a climate fund for poor countries. He also held the line against China, saying America would not yield on the vexed issue of measuring and verifying emissions cuts promised by developing countries.
Developing countries react furiously to leaked draft agreement that would hand more power to rich nations, sideline the UN’s negotiating role and abandon the Kyoto protocol
By John Vidal
The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN’s role in all future climate change negotiations.
The document is also being interpreted by developing countries as setting unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.
The so-called Danish text, a secret draft agreement worked on by a group of individuals known as “the circle of commitment” – but understood to include the UK, US and Denmark – has only been shown to a handful of countries since it was finalised this week.
The agreement, leaked to the Guardian, is a departure from the Kyoto protocol’s principle that rich nations, which have emitted the bulk of the CO2, should take on firm and binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, while poorer nations were not compelled to act. The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank; would abandon the Kyoto protocol – the only legally binding treaty that the world has on emissions reductions; and would make any money to help poor countries adapt to climate change dependent on them taking a range of actions.
The document was described last night by one senior diplomat as “a very dangerous document for developing countries. It is a fundamental reworking of the UN balance of obligations. It is to be superimposed without discussion on the talks.”
A confidential analysis of the text by developing countries also seen by the Guardian shows deep unease over details of the text. In particular, it is understood to:
Force developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement;
Divide poor countries further by creating a new category of developing countries called “the most vulnerable”;
Weaken the UN’s role in handling climate finance;
Not allow poor countries to emit more than 1.44 tonnes of carbon per person by 2050, while allowing rich countries to emit 2.67 tonnes.
Developing countries that have seen the text are understood to be furious that it is being promoted by rich countries without their knowledge and without discussion in the negotiations.
“It is being done in secret. Clearly the intention is to get [Barack] Obama and the leaders of other rich countries to muscle it through when they arrive next week. It effectively is the end of the UN process,” said one diplomat, who asked to remain nameless.
Antonio Hill, climate policy adviser for Oxfam International, said: “This is only a draft but it highlights the risk that when the big countries come together, the small ones get hurting. On every count the emission cuts need to be scaled up. It allows too many loopholes and does not suggest anything like the 40% cuts that science is saying is needed.”
Hill continued: “It proposes a green fund to be run by a board but the big risk is that it will run by the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility [a partnership of 10 agencies including the World Bank and the UN Environment Programme] and not the UN. That would be a step backwards, and it tries to put constraints on developing countries when none were negotiated in earlier UN climate talks.”
Officials gather in Copenhagen this week for an international climate summit, but business leaders are focusing even more on Washington, where the Obama administration is expected Monday to formally declare carbon dioxide a dangerous pollutant.
An “endangerment” finding by the Environmental Protection Agency could pave the way for the government to require businesses that emit carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases to make costly changes in machinery to reduce emissions — even if Congress doesn’t pass pending climate-change legislation. EPA action to regulate emissions could affect the U.S. economy more directly, and more quickly, than any global deal inked in the Danish capital, where no binding agreement is expected.
Many business groups are opposed to EPA efforts to curb a gas as ubiquitous as carbon dioxide.
An EPA endangerment finding “could result in a top-down command-and-control regime that will choke off growth by adding new mandates to virtually every major construction and renovation project,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue said in a statement. “The devil will be in the details, and we look forward to working with the government to ensure we don’t stifle our economic recovery,” he said, noting that the group supports federal legislation.
EPA action won’t do much to combat climate change, and “is certain to come at a huge cost to the economy,” said the National Association of Manufacturers, a trade group that stands as a proxy for U.S. industry.
Dan Riedinger, spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, a power-industry trade group, said the EPA would be less likely than Congress to come up with an “economywide approach” to regulating emissions. The power industry prefers such an approach because it would spread the burden of emission cuts to other industries as well.
Electricity generation, transportation and industry represent the three largest sources of U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions.
An EPA spokeswoman declined to comment Sunday on when the agency might finalize its proposed endangerment finding. Congressional Republicans have called on the EPA to withdraw it, saying recently disclosed emails written by scientists at the Climatic Research Unit of the U.K.’s University of East Anglia and their peers call into question the scientific rationale for regulation.
The spokeswoman said that the EPA is confident the basis for its decision will be “very strong,” and that when it is published, “we invite the public to review the extensive scientific analysis informing” the decision.
EPA action would give President Barack Obama something to show leaders from other nations when he attends the Copenhagen conference on Dec. 18 and tries to persuade them that the U.S. is serious about cutting its contribution to global greenhouse-gas emissions.
The vast majority of increased greenhouse-gas emissions is expected to come from developing countries such as China and India, not from rich countries like the U.S. But developing countries have made it clear that their willingness to reduce growth in emissions will depend on what rich countries do first. That puts a geopolitical spotlight on the U.S.
At the heart of the fight over whether U.S. emission constraints should come from the EPA or Congress is a high-stakes issue: which industries will have to foot the bill for a climate cleanup. A similar theme will play out in Copenhagen as rich countries wrangle over how much they should have to pay to help the developing world shift to cleaner technologies.
“There is no agreement without money,” says Rosário Bento Pais, a top climate negotiator for the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm. “That is clear.”
An endangerment finding would allow the EPA to use the federal Clean Air Act to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions, which are produced whenever fossil fuel is burned. Under that law, the EPA could require emitters of as little as 250 tons of carbon dioxide per year to install new technology to curb their emissions starting as soon as 2012.
As is noted at NoCapAndTrade.com, Coca-Cola is a target of a boycott against companies who support cap and trade legislation, or the proposed Copenhagen climate treaty (which is designed to implement global cap and trade regulations of carbon dioxide). The fact that they would support regulating carbon dioxide emissions is in itself quite bizarre, since one of the main ingredients of their primary products is carbon dioxide and they are one of the world’s top users of the gas. Every time a can or bottle of Coke is opened, CO2 gets released into the atmosphere. Dr. Roy Spencer of NASA estimates that Coca-Cola products release 4,000 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every day. It gets stranger.
In their effort to reduce their “carbon footprint,” they’ve replaced their HFC-based refrigeration units with units that use CO2-based refrigerants. According to Coca-Cola, “Carbon dioxide, a natural refrigerant that is HFC-free, has less direct climate impact and improves energy efficiency under typical operating conditions.” They point to a venture called, “Refrigerants, Naturally!” which is a global initiative of companies committed to combating climate change by substituting flourinated gasses with “natural refrigerants.” Refrigerants like carbon dioxide, and hydrocarbons, the most vilified gasses on earth for their supposed greenhouse-amplifying effect. As it happens, flourine is an element and thus quite natural, albeit, toxic. The effort is supported by Grenpeace and the United Nations Environment Programme.
Has Coca-Cola made a Faustian bargain? Support for cap and trade in exchange for absolution of their own tremendous use of carbon dioxide? Or, is another motivation at work?
Carbon Sequestration, or Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a new “green” field of technology being developed to combat the supposed perils of global warming. An example of the concept is “clean coal technology.” When the coal is burned, instead of allowing carbon dioxide to escape up the smokestacks, it’s captured, liquefied and stored to later be injected into deep geological formations, like spent oil fields (or applied to industrial purposes). How does the CO2 get from the power plant to its final resting place underground? As it happens, there are only 4 shipping tankers in the world that are purpose-built for transporting carbon dioxide. Coca-Cola owns them. They also rely on the gas for the manufacture of their soda products. Is Coke planning to capture and transport CO2, only to release it back through its soft drinks? Could they also be gearing up to become a supplier of CO2-based refrigerants for “green” fridges and air conditioners?
Coke’s biggest rival soft drink maker, Pepsi Co. is also targeted by the NoCapAndTrade.com boycott for their support of cap and trade. Pepsi is, of course, another company that is heavily dependant on carbon dioxide. They are listed as a partner on the Refrigerants, Naturally website.
There’s much more to the economics and politics of cap and trade than meets the eye. Clearly, many companies are lining up in support of cap and trade because they are set up to profit from it. Coca-Cola, one of the world’s most CO2-dependent companies is also one of cap and trade’s biggest corporate boosters. It’s becoming clearer why. When something political doesn’t at first seem to make sence, always follow the money.
U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday next month’s climate talks in Copenhagen should cut a deal with “immediate operational effect”, even if its original aim of a legally binding pact is not achievable.
Obama was speaking after talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao in which he said the world’s top two greenhouse gas emitters had agreed to take “significant” action to mitigate their output of carbon dioxide.
“Our aim (in Copenhagen) … is not a partial accord or a political declaration but rather an accord that covers all of the issues in the negotiations and one that has immediate operational effect,” Obama said.
Denmark, host of the Dec. 7-18 climate talks, welcomed Obama’s comments and said it expected the United States and all developed nations to promise firm emissions cuts and new cash to help the poor cope with global warming, even if no treaty text could be agreed.
Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen won backing on Sunday from Obama and other leaders at an Asia-Pacific summit for his scaled-down plan for a politically binding deal, with a legally binding one delayed until 2010.
“The American president endorsed our approach, implying that all developed countries will need to bring strong reduction targets to the negotiating table in Copenhagen,” he told about 40 environment ministers meeting in the Danish capital.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was also keen that the momentum for a deal should be maintained.
“We will make very clear that we continue to support ambitious goals for Copenhagen,” she told reporters before a cabinet meeting.
“We must do everything to ensure that we move quickly to get a binding agreement. Even if this can’t be reached in Copenhagen, it can’t be pushed back forever.”
President Barack Obama and other world leaders agreed today that next month’s much-anticipated climate change summit will be merely a way station, not the once hoped-for end point, in the search for a worldwide global warming treaty.
The 192-nation climate conference beginning in three weeks in Copenhagen had originally been intended to produce a new global climate-change treaty. Hopes for that have dimmed lately. But comments by Obama and fellow leaders at a hastily arranged breakfast meeting here on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit served to put the final nail in any remaining expectations for the December summit.
“There was an assessment by the leaders that it is unrealistic to expect a full internationally, legally binding agreement could be negotiated between now and Copenhagen which starts in 22 days,” said Michael Froman, Obama’s deputy national security adviser for international economic matters.
The prime minister of Denmark, Lars Loekke Rasmussen, the U.N.-sponsored climate conference’s chairman, flew overnight to Singapore to present a proposal to the leaders to instead make the Copenhagen goal a matter of crafting a “politically binding” agreement, in hopes of rescuing some future for the struggling process.
A fully binding legal agreement would be left to a second meeting next year in Mexico City, Froman said.
Obama backed the approach, cautioning the group not to let the “perfect be the enemy of the good,” Froman said. Addressing the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum later, Obama talked of the need to limit greenhouse-gas emissions “in Copenhagen and beyond.”
Froman said the Danish proposal would call for Copenhagen to produce “operational impact,” but he did not explain how that would work or to what it would apply.
Despite the cooperative-sounding words, the two-year process of crafting a landmark treaty has been stymied by deep distrust between rich, developed nations and poorer developing nations such as India, Brazil and China.
The developed nations hold that all countries must agree to legally binding targets to reduce heat-trapping gases. Developing countries say they can make reductions a goal but not a requirement, and they want more money from wealthy nations to help them make the transition.
A major bill dealing with energy and climate in the U.S., a domestic priority of Obama’s, is bogged down in the U.S. Senate with scant hope it would be completed by next month, giving the American president little to show in Copenhagen.
Between that and the developments in Singapore, there may be little reason for Obama to travel there. White House aides had been saying privately that the outcome of talks during Obama’s weeklong Asia trip, including a three-day visit to China that starts Sunday night, would help determine whether Obama might go to Copenhagen.
Obama arrived late Saturday night in Singapore for the annual 21-nation APEC summit that had begun without him early that morning. In remarks to the group today, Obama reached out by announcing that he would host the 2011 gathering in his native Hawaii.
Once again, take this story with a grain of salt. They may well press ahead with a full-blown treaty and a politically binding” agreement can cause all kinds of havoc as well. - GCS Editior
Control: The House and Senate climate bills contain a provision giving the president extraordinary powers in the event of a “climate emergency.” As chief of staff Rahm Emanuel says, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.
If you thought the House health care bill that nobody read has hidden passages that threaten our freedoms and liberty, take a peak at the “trigger” placed in the byzantine innards of both the House-passed Waxman-Markey bill and the Kerry-Boxer bill just passed by Democrats out of Sen. Barbara Boxer’s Environment and Public Works Committee.
As Nick Loris of the Heritage Foundation points out, the Kerry-Boxer bill requires the declaration of a “climate emergency” if the concentration of carbon dioxide and other declared greenhouse gases in the atmosphere exceeds 450 parts per million (ppm). It was at about 286 ppm before the Industrial Revolution and now sits at around 368 ppm.
That figure was picked out of a hat because the warm-mongers believe that’s the level at which the polar ice caps will disappear, boats can be moored on the Statue of Liberty’s torch and dead polar bears will wash up on the beaches of Malibu.
The Senate version includes a section that gives the president authority, under this declared “climate emergency,” to “direct all Federal agencies to use existing statutory authority to take appropriate actions … to address shortfalls” in achieving greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions.
What the “appropriate actions” might be are not defined and presumably left up to the discretion of the White House. Could the burning of coal be suspended or recreational driving be banned? Sen. David Vitter, R-La., asked the EPA for a definition and received no response.
Competitive Enterprise Institute scholar Chris Horner says “this agenda transparently is not about GHG concentrations, or the climate. It’s about what the provision would bring: almost limitless power over private economic activity and individual liberty for the activist president and, for the reluctant leader, litigious greens and courts” packed by liberal Democrat appointees.
Binding agreement not expected in Copenhagen
Administration working towards treaty next year
America refuses to rush into reaching a climate change deal in Denmark
By Suzanne Goldenberg and John Vidal
The US has given up hope of reaching a global climate change treaty at Copenhagen and is working towards a deal late next year, the Obama administration said today. The decision ends hopes of a legally binding deal being sealed next month.
“We have to be honest in the process and deal with the realities that we don’t have time in these four weeks to put the language together and flesh out every crossed t and dotted i of a treaty,” said John Kerry, who chairs the Senate foreign relations committee.
Todd Stern, the state department climate change envoy, agreed. “It doesn’t look like it’s on the cards for December,” he said. “We should make progress towards a political agreement that hits each of the main elements.”
The scaling back of US ambitions follows a growing international consensus that a binding legal agreement on global warming could not be reached at Copenhagen – now just 32 days away. The US shift resets expectations for what will be accomplished at Copenhagen, once billed by the UN as a last chance to avoid catastrophic global warming.
Editor’s note: The treaty isn’t dead yet, and despite this story, it, or domestic cap and trade laws could still be just around the corner. Remain vigilant. This story (and ones like it) could even be a smokescreen to throw people off guard.
It’s not the growing number of people in poverty who are causing climate change, it’s the rich
By Alex Renton
The worst thing that you or I can do for the planet is to have children. If they behave as the average person in the rich world does now, they will emit some 11 tonnes of CO² every year of their lives. In their turn, they are likely to have more carbon-emitting children who will make an even bigger mess. If Britain is to meet the government’s target of an 80% reduction in our emissions by 2050, we need to start reversing our rising rate of population growth immediately.
And if that makes sense, why not start cutting population everywhere? Are condoms not the greenest technology of all?
World population is forecast to peak at 9.2bn by 2050. According to a report by the LSE for the Optimum Population Trust, the lobbying body currently asking parents to “Stop at Two”, it would cost $220m to provide the family planning that would reduce the 2050 population by half a billion, preventing the emission of 34 gigatonnes of carbon. Introducing low-carbon technology for the same result would cost more than $1 trillion.
So why does population control hardly feature on the agendas of the UN bodies or of the governments now committed to tackling climate change? And why do the development and environmental groups shy away from it? The Guardian’s George Monbiot dismisses the topic as a distraction, the obsession largely of “post-reproductive, middle-class white men… a group more responsible for environmental destruction than any other class in history”. David King, the government’s former chief scientific adviser, argues: “The only way to tackle climate change is to change the way energy is used by those of us that have already been born.”
It is certainly true that “fewer people equals a greener planet” is simplistic. In 2050, 95% of the extra population will be poor and the poorer you are, the less carbon you emit. By today’s standards, a cull of Australians or Americans would be at least 60 times as productive as one of Bangladeshis.
As a result, NGOs such as Oxfam, for whom I’ve just written a report on climate change’s impact on humans, insist that dealing with consumption in the rich world is much more important than tackling population growth. According to the International Energy Agency, if the whole world moved over to clean electricity, the CO² savings would offset the emissions of up to 2.8bn poor people, easily accounting for the entire extra population forecast for 2050.
But what if we can’t reform the way we produce and use energy? The most worrying of climate change’s impacts – food and water shortages, forced migration, health epidemics – are exacerbated by population growth. According to two recent polls, nine out of 10 scientists working in climate change don’t believe we will achieve the changes in energy use committed to by the G8 and the EU. If they are right, population is going to start to matter a lot. Don’t we need a fallback plan?
By Siobhan Hughes (Dow Jones)
By Jennifer Loven, AP
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