The G20 failed to produce a climate change financing plan for developing nations at its Pittsburgh meeting this past week. It took a step forward on cutting greenhouse gas emissions by agreeing to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, but on both issues, the details were pushed aside until the next G20 finance ministers’ meeting.
That meeting isn't until November, one month before world leaders gather for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change at Copenhagen.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barraso and environmental groups were dismayed by the delay and warned that time is running out.
Speaking at the close of the Pittsburgh meeting, Barraso said the world’s most powerful nations aren’t moving fast enough on climate change financing and related issues to have an agreement that could replace the Kyoto Protocol ready by the start of the Copenhagen summit.
"Negotiations cannot be an open-ended process," Barraso said. "This is a test of credibility for the G20 — failure is not an option."
Environmental groups found little to praise from the meeting beyond welcoming the fossil fuel subsidy phase-out as “an acknowledgement from the G20 leaders that we are in a hole and need to stop digging.”
“In all, this has been an unacceptable week for anyone worried about climate change and anxious to see real action to tackle it." said Patricia Lerner, senior political advisor for Greenpeace International. "In their UN speeches, leaders sounded the climate alarm, but they got to Pittsburgh and hit the snooze button."
The G20 leaders made a few vague statements promising action on climate change. They vowed to support clean and renewable energy and to help transfer clean energy technology to developing countries. They also listed addressing climate change among their “core values for sustainable economic activity.”
Here are excerpts from what the leaders of the world’s wealthiest nations – and largest greenhouse gas emitters – had to say about climate change in a statement released at the close of their two-day meeting.
The G20 leaders agreed to:
* reform the global architecture to meet the needs of the 21st century.
"After this crisis, critical players need to be at the table and fully vested in our institutions to allow us to cooperate to lay the foundation for strong, sustainable and balanced growth. We designated the G-20 to be the premier forum for our international economic cooperation."
"Today we have delivered on our promise to contribute over $500 billion to a renewed and expanded IMF New Arrangements to Borrow (NAB). ... We called on the World Bank to play a leading role in responding to problems whose nature requires globally coordinated action, such as climate change and food security, and agreed that the World Bank and the regional development banks should have sufficient resources to address these challenges and fulfill their mandates."
* take new steps to increase access to food, fuel and finance among the world’s poorest while clamping down on illicit outflows.
"To start, we call on the World Bank to develop a new trust fund to support the new Food Security Initiative for low-income countries announced last summer. We will increase, on a voluntary basis, funding for programs to bring clean affordable energy to the poorest, such as the Scaling Up Renewable Energy Program."
* phase out and rationalize over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies while providing targeted support for the poorest.
"Inefficient fossil fuel subsidies encourage wasteful consumption, reduce our energy security, impede investment in clean energy sources and undermine efforts to deal with the threat of climate change. We call on our Energy and Finance Ministers to report to us their implementation strategies and timeline for acting to meet this critical commitment at our next meeting."
“We will spare no effort to reach agreement in Copenhagen through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations.”
On the issue of financial aid, they called for the World Bank and regional development banks to strengthen their support in several areas connected to the impacts of climate change:
* food security through enhancements in agricultural productivity and access to technology, and improving access to food.
* human development and security in the poorest and most challenging environments.
* support for private-sector led growth and infrastructure to enhance opportunities for the poorest, social and economic inclusion, and economic growth.
* contributions to financing the transition to a green economy through investment in sustainable clean energy generation and use, energy efficiency and climate resilience; this includes responding to countries needs to integrate climate change concerns into their core development strategies, improved domestic policies, and to access new sources of climate finance.
The G20 also called on all nations to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, a proposal submitted by the Obama administration. It noted OECD and IEA studies suggesting that if fossil fuel subsidies were eliminated by 2020, global greenhouse gas emissions would drop 10 percent by 2050. However, the group did not set a timetable, leaving that, too, to finance ministers to work out for the next meeting. The G20 wrote:
“Many countries are reducing fossil fuel subsidies while preventing adverse impact on the poorest. Building on these efforts and recognizing the challenges of populations suffering from energy poverty, we commit to rationalize and phase out over the medium term inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption. As we do that, we recognize the importance of providing those in need with essential energy services, including through the use of targeted cash transfers and other appropriate mechanisms.”
The G20 leaders stressed that the fossil fuel subsidies phase-out "will not apply to our support for clean energy, renewables, and technologies that dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
In fact, they vowed to support clean and renewable energy — and to help transfer clean energy technology to developing countries:
“Increasing clean and renewable energy supplies, improving energy efficiency, and promoting conservation are critical steps to protect our environment, promote sustainable growth and address the threat of climate change. Accelerated adoption of economically sound clean and renewable energy technology and energy efficiency measures diversifies our energy supplies and strengthens our energy security."
"We commit to:
* Stimulate investment in clean energy, renewables, and energy efficiency and provide financial and technical support for such projects in developing countries.
* Take steps to facilitate the diffusion or transfer of clean energy technology including by conducting joint research and building capacity. The reduction or elimination of barriers to trade and investment in this area are being discussed and should be pursued on a voluntary basis and in appropriate fora."
In summary, they write:
“As leaders of the world’s major economies, we are working for a resilient, sustainable, and green recovery. We underscore anew our resolve to take strong action to address the threat of dangerous climate change. We reaffirm the objective, provisions, and principles of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), including common but differentiated responsibilities.
“We will intensify our efforts, in cooperation with other parties, to reach agreement in Copenhagen through the UNFCCC negotiation. An agreement must include mitigation, adaptation, technology, and financing.”
The G20 expressed the right sentiments but offered no solid plans of action, environmental groups pointed out. The Copenhagen summit is a little over 10 weeks away, and while the European Union suggested another G20 meeting in the interim, possibly by video conference, U.S. officials said there was no agreement to meet.
At this point, says Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica, "the lack of financial commitments jeopardizes an international agreement on global warming."
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Is America wimping out on climate change?
With the G-20 over in Pittsburgh and attention being shifted toward the world’s most historic climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December, I can’t get the headline that appeared in The Blade last Tuesday above Thomas Friedman’s column out of my head.
A Nation of Wimps.
Are we?
From health care to Afghanistan, we’ve got hard choices in front of us.
But when haven’t we?
In his speech at the United Nations on Tuesday — one poorly covered by the media — President Obama said there “should be no illusions that the hardest part of our journey is in front of us.”
“We seek sweeping but necessary change in the midst of a global recession, where every nation’s most immediate priority is reviving their economy and putting their people back to work. And so all of us will face doubts and difficulties in our own capitals as we try to reach a lasting solution to the climate challenge,” he said.
Industrialized countries such as the United States must step up as leaders, Mr. Obama said.
“What we are seeking, after all, is not simply an agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions. We seek an agreement that will allow all nations to grow and raise living standards without endangering the planet,” he said.
America was built on innovation. On integrity. On sacrifice.
Are we sticking our heads in the sand? Or are we just not up to one of Earth’s most historic challenges?
The sheer concept of providing basic health care to those unable to afford it has the nation up in arms, as if we are a bunch of bratty kids being told to give up our video games.
Truth is, most people don’t like the status quo for health care but are just too scared to change it. The lengthy debate over it has already stalled cap-and-trade discussions in the Senate and more than likely deflated hopes for meaningful climate negotiations in Copenhagen.
Yet two puzzling items came across my desk on Sept. 16.
One was a statement from the International Investor Forum on Climate Change, sponsored by the New York State Comptroller and others with ties to the financial community, including a coalition of investor-based environmental groups called Ceres. It said a joint investor statement calling for action on climate change had been released by 181 investors managing more than $13 trillion in assets, a group it billed as the world’s largest collection of global investors.
That same day, a French wire service agency reported that 18 colleges of physicians or academies of medicine from the United States, Australia, Britain, Canada, Ireland, Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Ireland, South Africa, and Scotland made a joint appeal for a breakthrough in Copenhagen.
The physician groups claimed that failing to get serious about climate change would be “catastrophic” for public health, citing the prospect of greater drought and a wider spread of mosquito-borne diseases.
In the past, military experts have explained how climate change could affect national security. And, of course, climatologists — the ones we should have been listening to all along — have been pretty firm about what inaction could mean.
Yet we’re gonna muddle and muck things up. On Wednesday, the National Association of Manufacturers, led by former Michigan Gov. John Engler, supported calls for a Republican-led Senate moratorium on letting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
Moving too quickly “would only impose overly burdensome compliance costs on the manufacturing sector and limit their ability to deploy advanced technologies,” Jay Timmons, the association’s executive vice president, said.
A lot’s at stake for the Great Lakes region.
On Thursday, the University of Michigan announced a major initiative to map public health threats to the Great Lakes. One goal will be to account for the impact of climate change already under way, according to David Allan, a professor of aquatic sciences at the UM school of natural resources and environment.
Good-bye to One Great Lady: I only spent one day in the life of 85-year-old Betty Jo Carstensen, but what a memorable one it was. She was like a little kid when we quietly tip-toed through her own little piece of paradise in eastern Lucas County in the fall of 2004, looking for wildlife in a beautiful 35-acre forest she had carved out of the 135-acre farm she and her late husband, Bill, had owned since 1958.
Betty died Sept. 5. When I saw her obituary, my heart sunk. Eighty-five years is a good life for most of us — but for someone as spry as Betty, she was in her prime as an educator and environmental steward.
She was a member of the Oregon school board since 1993 and a tutor to countless children. As a lover of land, she followed her husband’s footsteps on to the Lucas Soil and Water Conservation District’s board of directors, continuing on with work he began as a founding supervisor in 1965.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources lauded her commitment to forestry, especially on her own property. She made sure that every Oregon child had a tree to plant in the spring.
And when the time came for her and her husband to put their five kids through college, the couple avoided the temptation of clear-cutting their land and farming every square inch they could.
Instead, they sold pickles.
Pickles.
“I tell you what — we didn’t get any new furniture for a while,” she mused during my 2004 interview.
Good for them.
A Nation of Wimps.
Are we?
From health care to Afghanistan, we’ve got hard choices in front of us.
But when haven’t we?
In his speech at the United Nations on Tuesday — one poorly covered by the media — President Obama said there “should be no illusions that the hardest part of our journey is in front of us.”
“We seek sweeping but necessary change in the midst of a global recession, where every nation’s most immediate priority is reviving their economy and putting their people back to work. And so all of us will face doubts and difficulties in our own capitals as we try to reach a lasting solution to the climate challenge,” he said.
Industrialized countries such as the United States must step up as leaders, Mr. Obama said.
“What we are seeking, after all, is not simply an agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions. We seek an agreement that will allow all nations to grow and raise living standards without endangering the planet,” he said.
America was built on innovation. On integrity. On sacrifice.
Are we sticking our heads in the sand? Or are we just not up to one of Earth’s most historic challenges?
The sheer concept of providing basic health care to those unable to afford it has the nation up in arms, as if we are a bunch of bratty kids being told to give up our video games.
Truth is, most people don’t like the status quo for health care but are just too scared to change it. The lengthy debate over it has already stalled cap-and-trade discussions in the Senate and more than likely deflated hopes for meaningful climate negotiations in Copenhagen.
Yet two puzzling items came across my desk on Sept. 16.
One was a statement from the International Investor Forum on Climate Change, sponsored by the New York State Comptroller and others with ties to the financial community, including a coalition of investor-based environmental groups called Ceres. It said a joint investor statement calling for action on climate change had been released by 181 investors managing more than $13 trillion in assets, a group it billed as the world’s largest collection of global investors.
That same day, a French wire service agency reported that 18 colleges of physicians or academies of medicine from the United States, Australia, Britain, Canada, Ireland, Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Ireland, South Africa, and Scotland made a joint appeal for a breakthrough in Copenhagen.
The physician groups claimed that failing to get serious about climate change would be “catastrophic” for public health, citing the prospect of greater drought and a wider spread of mosquito-borne diseases.
In the past, military experts have explained how climate change could affect national security. And, of course, climatologists — the ones we should have been listening to all along — have been pretty firm about what inaction could mean.
Yet we’re gonna muddle and muck things up. On Wednesday, the National Association of Manufacturers, led by former Michigan Gov. John Engler, supported calls for a Republican-led Senate moratorium on letting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
Moving too quickly “would only impose overly burdensome compliance costs on the manufacturing sector and limit their ability to deploy advanced technologies,” Jay Timmons, the association’s executive vice president, said.
A lot’s at stake for the Great Lakes region.
On Thursday, the University of Michigan announced a major initiative to map public health threats to the Great Lakes. One goal will be to account for the impact of climate change already under way, according to David Allan, a professor of aquatic sciences at the UM school of natural resources and environment.
Good-bye to One Great Lady: I only spent one day in the life of 85-year-old Betty Jo Carstensen, but what a memorable one it was. She was like a little kid when we quietly tip-toed through her own little piece of paradise in eastern Lucas County in the fall of 2004, looking for wildlife in a beautiful 35-acre forest she had carved out of the 135-acre farm she and her late husband, Bill, had owned since 1958.
Betty died Sept. 5. When I saw her obituary, my heart sunk. Eighty-five years is a good life for most of us — but for someone as spry as Betty, she was in her prime as an educator and environmental steward.
She was a member of the Oregon school board since 1993 and a tutor to countless children. As a lover of land, she followed her husband’s footsteps on to the Lucas Soil and Water Conservation District’s board of directors, continuing on with work he began as a founding supervisor in 1965.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources lauded her commitment to forestry, especially on her own property. She made sure that every Oregon child had a tree to plant in the spring.
And when the time came for her and her husband to put their five kids through college, the couple avoided the temptation of clear-cutting their land and farming every square inch they could.
Instead, they sold pickles.
Pickles.
“I tell you what — we didn’t get any new furniture for a while,” she mused during my 2004 interview.
Good for them.
G20 Leaders Agree, Broadly, on Climate Change
Environmental groups hoping for concrete action on climate change were left disappointed by talks at the Group of 20 summit on Friday. Although world leaders managed to forge some agreement on global warming — despite news of Iran's secret nuclear facility eclipsing most of the discussion at the Pittsburgh summit — greens said little of substance was actually achieved. "They haven't really produced anything that is relevant in terms of active progress," says Kim Carstensen, head of the World Wildlife Fund's Global Climate Initiative. "I'm not that impressed."The main climate question for the G20 was how to finance global carbon emission reductions, and how to help developing nations that stand to lose the most from climate change adapt to a warmer world. That latter issue is a chief sticking point for the ongoing U.N. climate negotiations, in which governments are working to produce a successor to the Kyoto Protocol at the Copenhagen summit in December. While poor nations have demanded funds to help them develop sustainably and prepare for warming, rich nations have so far been slow to promise money. "Climate financing is going to be absolutely key if we're going to have a deal in Copenhagen," says Bill McKibben, an environmentalist and author who heads the climate advocacy group 350.org.
But G20 leaders put no specific numbers on the table, just a vague statement of intention that did little to clarify murky global climate negotiations: "Public and private financial resources to support mitigation and adaptation in developing countries need to be scaled up urgently and substantially," the statement said. Negotiators also eliminated a section of the agreement that would have specified that funding for climate adaptation had to come in addition to existing levels of foreign aid. Instead, the G20 leaders directed their finance ministers to return to the issue later in the year — with just three months to go before Copenhagen. "You do want your finance ministries working on this," says Jake Schmidt, international climate policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "But they need to be on the hook for this, or they will lose the option to carry it into Copenhagen."
Still, the summit wasn't a total loss for greens. President Barack Obama introduced the idea of phasing out fossil fuel subsidies over time, to help improve energy efficiency and "transition to a 21st-century clean energy economy." Phasing out subsidies for fossil fuels would save money — the Environmental Law Institute estimated that the U.S. paid out $72 billion in subsidies between 2002 and 2008 — and correct a market that has been warped against low-carbon alternatives precisely at a time when nations are supposed to be cutting carbon. But again, specifics of a concrete plan were wanting in Obama's speech. There was no mention of a timetable, and the proposal itself has little to do with the ongoing climate negotiations. "It's a welcome initiative, but no one will underestimate the challenge that countries from the U.S. to India will face actually doing this," says Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The G20 summit ended a whirlwind week for climate news that began on Sept. 22 with a high-level U.N. summit on warming. Before "Climate Week" began, the U.S. Senate made intimations that it would not likely vote on a carbon cap-and-trade bill before the year was up, dimming the chances for a global deal at Copenhagen. But, then, China pledged to improve energy efficiency, while progress was made toward crafting a way to use global carbon markets to slow tropical deforestation. That gave environmentalists some hope. "Overall, I still feel better than I did a week ago," said Carstensen. "We had 100 leaders in the U.N. in New York come together and they actually talked about climate change in a significantly committed way. We have the door open."
The question is whether world leaders will walk through it in time. In the U.S. and elsewhere, more is being done to grapple with global warming than ever before. Tighter energy efficiency standards are being passed, nations like Japan are pledging deep emission cuts and hundreds of billions of dollars are being spent on green stimulus for recovering economies. But the world is late — and time is short. "Our political method has so far failed to grapple with reality," says McKibben. "We have to understand that the negotiations aren't just between the U.S., the E.U. and China. We're trying to negotiate with chemistry and physics — and they don't negotiate."
But G20 leaders put no specific numbers on the table, just a vague statement of intention that did little to clarify murky global climate negotiations: "Public and private financial resources to support mitigation and adaptation in developing countries need to be scaled up urgently and substantially," the statement said. Negotiators also eliminated a section of the agreement that would have specified that funding for climate adaptation had to come in addition to existing levels of foreign aid. Instead, the G20 leaders directed their finance ministers to return to the issue later in the year — with just three months to go before Copenhagen. "You do want your finance ministries working on this," says Jake Schmidt, international climate policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "But they need to be on the hook for this, or they will lose the option to carry it into Copenhagen."
Still, the summit wasn't a total loss for greens. President Barack Obama introduced the idea of phasing out fossil fuel subsidies over time, to help improve energy efficiency and "transition to a 21st-century clean energy economy." Phasing out subsidies for fossil fuels would save money — the Environmental Law Institute estimated that the U.S. paid out $72 billion in subsidies between 2002 and 2008 — and correct a market that has been warped against low-carbon alternatives precisely at a time when nations are supposed to be cutting carbon. But again, specifics of a concrete plan were wanting in Obama's speech. There was no mention of a timetable, and the proposal itself has little to do with the ongoing climate negotiations. "It's a welcome initiative, but no one will underestimate the challenge that countries from the U.S. to India will face actually doing this," says Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The G20 summit ended a whirlwind week for climate news that began on Sept. 22 with a high-level U.N. summit on warming. Before "Climate Week" began, the U.S. Senate made intimations that it would not likely vote on a carbon cap-and-trade bill before the year was up, dimming the chances for a global deal at Copenhagen. But, then, China pledged to improve energy efficiency, while progress was made toward crafting a way to use global carbon markets to slow tropical deforestation. That gave environmentalists some hope. "Overall, I still feel better than I did a week ago," said Carstensen. "We had 100 leaders in the U.N. in New York come together and they actually talked about climate change in a significantly committed way. We have the door open."
The question is whether world leaders will walk through it in time. In the U.S. and elsewhere, more is being done to grapple with global warming than ever before. Tighter energy efficiency standards are being passed, nations like Japan are pledging deep emission cuts and hundreds of billions of dollars are being spent on green stimulus for recovering economies. But the world is late — and time is short. "Our political method has so far failed to grapple with reality," says McKibben. "We have to understand that the negotiations aren't just between the U.S., the E.U. and China. We're trying to negotiate with chemistry and physics — and they don't negotiate."
Climate change bill may drift
Although President Barack Obama confidently assured world leaders last week that the U.S. was determined to combat global climate change, that resolve isn't shared in the U.S. Senate.
The chamber has instead been consumed by other domestic priorities — including the administration-backed push to overhaul health care — and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is months behind her original timetable for introducing legislation that would cap greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.
With all of the obstacles, it is increasingly likely the Obama administration will not have a new climate change law — or even a preliminary version passed by the Senate — to bring to international negotiations on a global warming pact this December in Copenhagen.
“I don't think there's any chance you can have a complete bill passed by the Senate and the House and signed by the president in time for him to head to Copenhagen with the bill in his coat pocket,” lamented Jim DiPeso, an environmentalist who backs the effort.
Even the odds of Senate passage are 50-50, DiPeso said, adding: “It's chancy that the Senate will pass a bill this year.”
Boxer and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., are set to introduce a climate change bill Wednesday, after months of delays and negotiations aimed at appeasing moderate Democrats worried that new emissions caps could impose hefty economic costs on the energy industry, struggling manufacturers and coal mining.
Boxer and Kerry are modeling their bill after a broad measure that passed the House in June and aim to get the legislation approved by the Environment and Public Works Committee by the end of October.
Other priorities
But that could be the end of the road for the bill this year. Top Democratic leaders who set the Senate schedule have signaled that other legislation deserves higher priority, including a financial regulatory overhaul, the health care measure and must-pass government spending bills. That could push climate change legislation into next year.
“We are going to have a busy, busy time the rest of this year,” said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. “And of course … we still have next year to complete things if we have to.”
Environmentalists fret that if the climate change debate slips to 2010, election-year politics could make it much more difficult to pass.
“It's always harder to pass something this controversial and complicated in an even-numbered year,” said DiPeso, the policy director of Republicans for Environmental Protection, an environmental advocacy group.
Already, supporters of the House cap-and-trade plan, as it is known, are finding it a tough sell in the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to shut down a filibuster and pass controversial legislation.
GOP nearly united
Republicans are nearly united in opposition to what they call a national energy tax that would mean higher costs for businesses and consumers nationwide. More than a dozen Democratic senators have expressed serious concerns on climate change legislation.
“When you look at the Senate dynamic, you hear a lot of senators from both parties … and particularly a lot of conservative Democrats, indicating they have real reservations,” noted Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, which opposes the House bill.
The Democratic differences on the issue pit Rust Belt and Midwestern states dependent on coal-fired power against coastal states with more developed renewable energy programs.
Rust Belt senators led by Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., have said their support hinges on whether the bill includes protections to insulate steel and other manufacturers from the burden of competing with foreign companies in countries without more lenient greenhouse gas limits.
“It is important that such a bill include provisions to maintain a level playing field for American manufacturing,” Brown, Stabenow and eight other senators said in an Aug. 6 letter to Obama.
Meanwhile, senators from states that produce coal — as well as those that are heavily dependent on it for power — want to see safeguards to cushion business and residential consumers from skyrocketing electricity bills.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, insists that a climate change bill has to have bipartisan support to get through the chamber.
‘Clean coal'
He has been working with a group of mostly moderate Republicans on a possible compromise to boost nuclear power and “clean coal” technology that traps more of the greenhouse gases emitted when coal and other fossil fuels are burned. Those changes are key, he said, to winning some Republican support and getting a bill through the Senate.
To pass a Senate climate change bill, “we've got to do more than the House bill does to support nuclear energy and clean coal,” Lieberman said.
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said “there is far from enough support” to get a climate change bill passed in the Senate.
“The Democrats don't have the votes,” he said. “There are too many newly elected Democrats in the Senate who don't want to go home and tell voters that they just voted for the largest tax increase in American history.”
Health care debate
The already uphill fight is complicated by the health care debate, which has distracted some key players.
The politics of health care also spill over into the climate change issue. Moderate Democrats who are already wary of the climate bill may be less willing to support the legislation after taking tough votes on a health care overhaul unpopular with some constituents.
Even moderate Republicans who could be persuaded to back a broad climate change bill could be turned off if the health care debate is too polarizing.
Lieberman said the two issues are inevitably linked. If Democrats are unable to pass a health care overhaul, he predicted, that could spell doom for climate change legislation.
“If that ends in failure, I think President Obama will come into this fight with less strength to do what he wants to do,” Lieberman said. “If this fails . . . it will be hard for climate change. Not impossible — but harder
The chamber has instead been consumed by other domestic priorities — including the administration-backed push to overhaul health care — and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is months behind her original timetable for introducing legislation that would cap greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.
With all of the obstacles, it is increasingly likely the Obama administration will not have a new climate change law — or even a preliminary version passed by the Senate — to bring to international negotiations on a global warming pact this December in Copenhagen.
“I don't think there's any chance you can have a complete bill passed by the Senate and the House and signed by the president in time for him to head to Copenhagen with the bill in his coat pocket,” lamented Jim DiPeso, an environmentalist who backs the effort.
Even the odds of Senate passage are 50-50, DiPeso said, adding: “It's chancy that the Senate will pass a bill this year.”
Boxer and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., are set to introduce a climate change bill Wednesday, after months of delays and negotiations aimed at appeasing moderate Democrats worried that new emissions caps could impose hefty economic costs on the energy industry, struggling manufacturers and coal mining.
Boxer and Kerry are modeling their bill after a broad measure that passed the House in June and aim to get the legislation approved by the Environment and Public Works Committee by the end of October.
Other priorities
But that could be the end of the road for the bill this year. Top Democratic leaders who set the Senate schedule have signaled that other legislation deserves higher priority, including a financial regulatory overhaul, the health care measure and must-pass government spending bills. That could push climate change legislation into next year.
“We are going to have a busy, busy time the rest of this year,” said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. “And of course … we still have next year to complete things if we have to.”
Environmentalists fret that if the climate change debate slips to 2010, election-year politics could make it much more difficult to pass.
“It's always harder to pass something this controversial and complicated in an even-numbered year,” said DiPeso, the policy director of Republicans for Environmental Protection, an environmental advocacy group.
Already, supporters of the House cap-and-trade plan, as it is known, are finding it a tough sell in the Senate, where 60 votes are needed to shut down a filibuster and pass controversial legislation.
GOP nearly united
Republicans are nearly united in opposition to what they call a national energy tax that would mean higher costs for businesses and consumers nationwide. More than a dozen Democratic senators have expressed serious concerns on climate change legislation.
“When you look at the Senate dynamic, you hear a lot of senators from both parties … and particularly a lot of conservative Democrats, indicating they have real reservations,” noted Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, which opposes the House bill.
The Democratic differences on the issue pit Rust Belt and Midwestern states dependent on coal-fired power against coastal states with more developed renewable energy programs.
Rust Belt senators led by Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., have said their support hinges on whether the bill includes protections to insulate steel and other manufacturers from the burden of competing with foreign companies in countries without more lenient greenhouse gas limits.
“It is important that such a bill include provisions to maintain a level playing field for American manufacturing,” Brown, Stabenow and eight other senators said in an Aug. 6 letter to Obama.
Meanwhile, senators from states that produce coal — as well as those that are heavily dependent on it for power — want to see safeguards to cushion business and residential consumers from skyrocketing electricity bills.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, insists that a climate change bill has to have bipartisan support to get through the chamber.
‘Clean coal'
He has been working with a group of mostly moderate Republicans on a possible compromise to boost nuclear power and “clean coal” technology that traps more of the greenhouse gases emitted when coal and other fossil fuels are burned. Those changes are key, he said, to winning some Republican support and getting a bill through the Senate.
To pass a Senate climate change bill, “we've got to do more than the House bill does to support nuclear energy and clean coal,” Lieberman said.
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said “there is far from enough support” to get a climate change bill passed in the Senate.
“The Democrats don't have the votes,” he said. “There are too many newly elected Democrats in the Senate who don't want to go home and tell voters that they just voted for the largest tax increase in American history.”
Health care debate
The already uphill fight is complicated by the health care debate, which has distracted some key players.
The politics of health care also spill over into the climate change issue. Moderate Democrats who are already wary of the climate bill may be less willing to support the legislation after taking tough votes on a health care overhaul unpopular with some constituents.
Even moderate Republicans who could be persuaded to back a broad climate change bill could be turned off if the health care debate is too polarizing.
Lieberman said the two issues are inevitably linked. If Democrats are unable to pass a health care overhaul, he predicted, that could spell doom for climate change legislation.
“If that ends in failure, I think President Obama will come into this fight with less strength to do what he wants to do,” Lieberman said. “If this fails . . . it will be hard for climate change. Not impossible — but harder
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