With odds for climate change legislation this year now hovering around zero, the Obama administration is looking for fallback positions that can ensure the United States has a strong negotiating hand at December's U.N. Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen -- where 192 nations are supposed to develop a follow-on pact to the Kyoto Protocol.
The administration had hoped enactment of a domestic cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions would send a strong signal to its negotiating partners, and enable it to strike a global-warming deal that's acceptable to both houses of Congress.
Officials are eager to avoid repeating the experiences of the Clinton administration -- which backed the Kyoto pact but never submitted it for ratification to the Senate after the chamber in 1997 passed a resolution stating it would only sign a deal that included commitments to cut emissions levels from developing countries like China and India.
The White House is in a real bind. On one hand, it can't really come up with a coherent negotiating position without concrete emissions targets. And if negotiators in Copenhagen fail to reach any substantive agreement, Congress will probably be more reluctant to move cap-and-trade legislation next year, right before the mid-term elections. The House in June narrowly passed a bill (HR 2454) that would limit emissions at 17 percent below current levels in 2020, 42 percent in 2030 and 83 percent in 2050.
Michael Levi, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the best-case scenario would be for negotiators to sketch out guidelines for a treaty that can be filled in over the next couple of years. Key points of contention that would need to be addressed include how much aid industrialized nations are willing to extend to developing nations to help meet targets, developing a verification system to ensure carbon emissions actually are being reduced and clarifiying what fast-growing nations like China are expected to do.
"If you set some basic parameters, outline the division of labor between the developed and the developing world, it could evolve like successive rounds of trade talks. That would bring the greatest chance for eventual success," Levi said.
The administration will get an opportunity to weigh in at a U.N. climate change summit Tuesday in New York. But signs are Team Obama could be upstaged by China, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, whose premier, Hu Jintao, is expected to announce policy measures his country is willing to undertake to cut emissions -- including an a "carbon intensity" target that caps emissions produced for each dollar of national income.
"This suite of policies will take China to be the world leader on addressing climate change," Yvo De Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, told reporters on Monday. "It will be quite ironic to hear that tomorrow expressed in a country (the United States) that is firmly convinced that China is doing nothing to address climate change."
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Comments
LOL. Global Warming is now Global Climate change - since the earth is now actually cooling. But dont let science get in the way of a good political issue. Stop the madness - man made global warming is a lie. Solar spots account for 90% of all heating and cooling activity. The change in temp over 100 years is 0.01 degrees per decade. Look up the facts!!!
Posted by: dante805
| September 22, 2009 7:28 AM
Support for cap-and-trade has evaporated. Daily I read editorials, comments and letters-to-the-editor from all over the nation. Whereas when the House passed the cap-and-trade bill it was maybe 2-to-1 against cap-and-trade, opinion now is off the charts against it. Yet, the green energy juggernaut rolls onward toward expensive energy.
Sadly, America lost control of our own energy policy when we out-sourced climate science to the United Nations. The UN is an international political organization, dedicated to advancing their 'consensus' view that CO2 'drives' global warming. The problem is, their view is neither a consensus and can't possibly be totally correct. They don't factor-in clouds and solar activity, for instance.
The FACTS:
1) The 600 climate scientists who worked on the UN's Climate Change 2007 report never voted on the 'drives' issue. That conclusion was reached by UN bureaucrats and only about 50 scientists.
2) The UN has a huge conflict of interest. The 'Kyoto Protocol' is their's so they have a vested interest in demonizing CO2.
3) Thousands of knowledgeable people and climate scientists worldwide tell us the UN is wrong.
4) Past climate changes--100s of them--were driven by Mother Nature, not mankind. Yet, the UN took Mother Nature off the table when they limited their evaluation to 'climate change caused by human activity'.
5) There is no 'smoking gun.' The proof that CO2 drives global warming is circumstantial.
6) The UN treats unproven climate projections as 'fact', yet UN forecasts for the last 10 years do not fit what actually happened.
7) The UN used faulty data to bolster unwarranted findings in the past.
The United States needs our own objective, transparent climate commission to think-through global warming. We need the advice of a bi-partisan Climate Truth Commission before we burden our economy with expensive energy. Both sides of the man-made global warming issue should welcome such an approach. ...each is so sure of themselves.
-- Robert Moen, www.energyplanUSA.com
Posted by: Rmoen
| September 22, 2009 11:55 AM
1. About two thirds of deficit in the U.S. accrue from oil import.
2. As with "Inaction" cost, $9trillion over the next decade in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, supposedly the same is of inaction on the 21st energy bill to determine war & peace, catastrophe & prosperity. For the global economy to reign in the runaway price of fossil fuels, "Sustainable Option" will be indispensable.
3. Looking to worthless, painful and wasteful oil wars, namely, the "Original Source" of this great recession, to waste time bickering over meaningless things and drag feet on a defining energy bill are sure to shake the embryonic effect of stimulus package that is an interim measure for build-out of a new foundation.
4. As the overall oil reserve in Middle East, let alone the rest of oil-producing areas, is on the decline more than known, the region blessed with affluent sun rays also needs to ready for a new groundwork, particularly in this context AEU is beginning to concentrate on future energy and Iranian EV is rolling out recently, the countries in the region will never stand still on the occupation, that means no matter what the result is, the repetitious mistake at the cost of invaluable lives and gigantic spending will end up with a heartbreaking tragedy once again.
5. Facing a sharp downturn in fossil fuels all over the world, the world-wide overpopulation growing consistently is using up tremendous fossil fuels at an alarming pace. Especially when the own conventional resources in some dense countries is facing drastic dent, it adds up explicitly.
6. For that reason, it is widely accepted that the price of fossil fuels is expected to go up and up simply, which is behind all but major states taking a bold and speedy action in a bid to put the global economy on a sustainable and solid ground.
7. Thankfully and interestingly enough, 100s of Companies (with $13 Trillion) Are Demanding Strong Climate Deal in Copenhagen just like environmental activists, a coalition of more than 500 Global Businesses is also demanding ambitious new climate deal, and the report by Blair and the Climate Group, a London-based nonprofit organization, found a climate-change accord among all countries would spur economic growth and create as many as 10 million jobs by 2020.
8. Currently, a 21st energy bill has passed the House and is making its way through Senate. According to CBO, this bill known as more progressive generally would trim budget deficit by $24.4 billion of a net gain.
9. I think the world is eagerly looking forward to Americans' participation, and if it were not for world-wide massive job creation, the world can not pull the economy out of this recession successfully.
10. I'd say only science and innovation can meet this challenge, and the science enough for all around the globe to live in harmony is awaiting final assembly by way of innovation. It seems to me that this great recession is pitching us a serious lesson to make sure we build a bridge for future generations, otherwise, our generation, too, is falling off the cliff.
Thank You !
Posted by: hsr0601
| September 22, 2009 12:59 PM
Will Obama take the time to read the Climate Change treaty, especially the fine print?? Protect our sovereignty! This is a must read for all Americans.
Lord Monckton - Reveals Inconvenient Truth About Copenhagen Treaty
http://www.rightsidenews.com/200910206919/energy-and-environment/glenn-beck-interviews-lord-monckton-reveals-inconvenient-truth-about-copenhagen-treaty.html
Posted by: WeimMom
| October 27, 2009 8:41 AM
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