Here on the endlessly rolling and tussocky terrain of northwest Canada, where man has hunted caribou since the Stone Age, the vast antlered herds are fast growing thin. And it's not just here.
Across the tundra 1,500 kilometers (1,000 miles) to the east, Canada's Beverly herd, numbering more than 200,000 a decade ago, can barely be found today.
Halfway around the world in Siberia, the biggest aggregation of these migratory animals, of the dun-colored herds whose sweep across the Arctic's white canvas is one of nature's matchless wonders, has shrunk by hundreds of thousands in a few short years.
From wildlife spectacle to wildlife mystery, the decline of the caribou — called reindeer in the Eurasian Arctic — has biologists searching for clues, and finding them.
They believe the insidious impact of climate change, its tipping of natural balances and disruption of feeding habits, is decimating a species that has long numbered in the millions and supported human life in Earth's most inhuman climate.
Many herds have lost more than half their number from the maximums of recent decades, a global survey finds. They "hover on the precipice of a major decline," it says.
The "People of the Caribou," the native Gwich'in of the Yukon and Alaska, were among the first to sense trouble, in the late 1990s, as their Porcupine herd dwindled. From 178,000 in 1989, the herd — named for the river crossing its range — is now estimated to number 100,000.
"They used to come through by the hundreds," James Firth, 56, of the Gwich'in Renewable Resources Board said as he guided two Associated Press journalists across the tundra.
Off toward distant horizons this summer afternoon, only small groups of a dozen or fewer migrating caribou could be seen grazing southward across the spongy landscape, green with a layer of grasses, mosses and lichen over the Arctic permafrost.
"I've never seen it like this before," Firth said of the sparse numbers.
More than 50 identifiable caribou herds migrate over huge wilderness tracts in a wide band circling the top of the world. They head north in the spring to ancient calving grounds, then back south through summer and fall to winter ranges closer to northern forests.
The Porcupine herd moves over a 250,000-square-kilometer (100,000-square-mile) range, calving in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, near Alaska's north coast, where proposals for oil drilling have long stirred opposition from environmentalists seeking to protect the caribou.
The global survey by researchers at the University of Alberta, published in June in the peer-reviewed journal Global Change Biology, has deepened concerns about the caribou's future.
Drawing on scores of other studies, government databases, wildlife management boards and other sources, the biologists found that 34 of 43 herds being monitored worldwide are in decline. The average falloff in numbers was 57 percent from earlier maximums, they said.
Siberia's Taimyr herd has declined from 1 million in 2000 to an estimated 750,000, as reported in the 2008 "Arctic Report Card" of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Taimyr is the world's largest herd, but Canada and Alaska have more caribou, and the Alberta study reported that 22 of 34 North American herds are shrinking. Data were insufficient to make a judgment on seven others.
In an AP interview, Liv Solveig Vors, the June report's lead author, summarized what is believed behind the caribou crash: "Climate change is changing the way they're interacting with their food, directly and indirectly."
Global warming has boosted temperatures in the Arctic twice as much as elsewhere, and Canadian researchers say the natural balance is suffering:
_Unusual freezing rains in autumn are locking lichen, the caribou's winter forage, under impenetrable ice sheets. This was the documented cause in the late 1990s of the near-extinction of the 50,000-strong Peary caribou subspecies on Canada's High Arctic islands.
_Mosquitoes, flies and insect parasites have always tormented and weakened caribou, but warmer temperatures have aggravated this summertime problem, driving the animals on crazed, debilitating runs to escape, and keeping them from foraging and fattening up for winter.
_The springtime Arctic "green-up" is occurring two weeks or more earlier. The great caribou migrations evolved over ages to catch the shrubs on the calving grounds at their freshest and most nutritious. But pregnant, migrating cows may now be arriving too late.
Vors said caribou are unlikely to adjust.
"Evolutionary changes tend to take place over longer time scales than the time scale of climate change at the moment," she said. Climatologists foresee northern temperatures rising several degrees more this century unless global greenhouse gas emissions are sharply reduced soon.
Caribou herds have gone through boom-and-bust cycles historically, but were never known to decline so uniformly worldwide.
Leading Canadian specialist Don Russell, coordinator of a new global network formed to more closely monitor what's happening to the herds, said experts are focusing on "what has changed between this decline and previous declines."
"We've seen a number of areas where climate change is playing a big role, and we see some very dramatic trends," he said in an interview in Whitehorse, the Yukon territorial capital.
In neighboring Northwest Territories, the territorial government on Sept. 24 reported results of its aerial survey of the Bathurst herd: Its population has dropped to about 32,000, from 128,000 in 2006.
"The numbers are not getting better. There's no good news, no indication of recovery," J. Michael Miltenberger, the environment and natural resources minister, said by telephone from Yellowknife, the capital.
He said "there's a huge issue" with the Beverly herd, which numbered 276,000 in 1994, ranging over the Canadian tundra 1,500 kilometers (1,000 miles) due north of North Dakota.
"We've been flying north to south, east to west," Miltenberger said. "By our count, with the Beverly herd, they've all but disappeared."
Climate change is piling problem upon problem on the caribou, he said, including bogging them down in thawing permafrost and lengthening the wildfire season, burning up their food.
"The cumulative impact is bringing enormous pressure on the caribou," he said.
And that puts pressure on Canada's "first nations," who for at least 8,000 years have relied on the harvest of caribou meat for the winter larder, have settled along migration routes, have built their material culture around the animal — using skin, bones and sinews for clothing, shelter, tools, thread, even their drums.
"There are probably ominous implications for communities relying on caribou," Russell said.
Such reliance is mirrored in Siberia and northern Scandinavia, where the Sami people make a hard living herding reindeer as livestock. Freezing rains there are reported to have forced Sami to buy fodder to substitute for ice-locked forage.
Here in the timeless, silent beauty of Gwich'in country, his people may face "hard decisions," Firth acknowledged, perhaps to limit their hunt to ease the pressure.
"The future of the Gwich'in and the future of the caribou are the same," the Gwich'in often say. But even more may be at stake.
On this summer day above the Arctic Circle, binoculars found a group of caribou being stalked and circled by a hungry grizzly bear, a needy predator and another link in an intricate, interdependent natural web that may be unraveling, year by year and degree by degree, on the tundra.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Political barriers on the road to climate change control
When the 1997 Kyoto Protocol covering 180 nations did not include China and India, there was political backlash in the U.S. David Sandalaow was on President Clinton's negotiating team. He says now going forward, "Only agree abroad to what you can implement at home."
Kyoto remains largely a failure. The U.S. never joined it. Members that did join have not met their carbon reduction targets. But if any agreement is reached in Copenhagen in 2 months it will have to reflect the current American political climate. Kenichi Kobayashi, of the Japanese foreign Ministry says the Kyoto framework must be abandoned for a totally new program, citing changes in the 12 years since Kyoto.
One of the biggest developments is that China has overtaken the U.S. as the worlds top carbon emitter. China and the U.S. contribute nearly half of global carbon emissions. Copenhagen won't work without each of them coming to the table. China, India and Brazil emit far more carbon now than they did when Kyoto was agreed upon. The International Energy Agency says that 97% of increased carbon will come from the Emerging World in 2030.
Such projections sway Moderate Senate Democrats like Evan Bayh (Ind) to balk at legal limits on U.S. carbon emissions. "I could not ask the American people to sacrifice and not solve the problem of global warming because the developing world was not participating," he said.
India's Minister of Environment Jairam Ramesh said the U.S. short term carbon reductions remain too low. "The stalemate in negotiations has not been caused by China and India," Ramesh said. "The make or break issue is emissions cuts. If there is no agreement on that, there's no agreement in Copenhagen."
The U.S. is slow to use provisions in the House Climate Change Bill passed in the late spring for a framework of the U.S. position at Copenhagen, such as firm U.S. emission targets and investment and aid to Emerging Nations for forest preservation and Green Technology transfer. Many top environmental leaders say because of the U.S. failure to act on Kyoto we must now act more aggressively in Copenhagen.
Friday, Carol Browner, Obama's Climate Change czar said it is "not likely" that the U.S. will have a Climate Change bill passed and signed by the President in time for Copenhagen. The U.S. will not endorse international goals the U.S. has yet to accept at home, according to Todd Stern of the State Department.
The alternative to break the stalemate going into Copenhagen under discussion by both the U.S. and India is nationally binding targets that would be capable of international scrutiny.
Jim Connaughton, a top Bush environmental adviser said that what comes out of Copenhagen may look a great deal like what Bush had promoted. " What countries came to realize after Kyoto was it was hugely problematic to have international environmental negotiations establishing domestic economic and energy policy without first forging a domestic consensus," Connaughton said.
"What all major economies realized this time around is that they need to establish a domestic consensus on an agreed level of effort as a stronger basis for the commitments they make internationally and as a catalyst for international cooperation."
The promise of flexibility at Copenhagen signals not the end of discussion on Climate Change control but the real beginning.
Kyoto remains largely a failure. The U.S. never joined it. Members that did join have not met their carbon reduction targets. But if any agreement is reached in Copenhagen in 2 months it will have to reflect the current American political climate. Kenichi Kobayashi, of the Japanese foreign Ministry says the Kyoto framework must be abandoned for a totally new program, citing changes in the 12 years since Kyoto.
One of the biggest developments is that China has overtaken the U.S. as the worlds top carbon emitter. China and the U.S. contribute nearly half of global carbon emissions. Copenhagen won't work without each of them coming to the table. China, India and Brazil emit far more carbon now than they did when Kyoto was agreed upon. The International Energy Agency says that 97% of increased carbon will come from the Emerging World in 2030.
Such projections sway Moderate Senate Democrats like Evan Bayh (Ind) to balk at legal limits on U.S. carbon emissions. "I could not ask the American people to sacrifice and not solve the problem of global warming because the developing world was not participating," he said.
India's Minister of Environment Jairam Ramesh said the U.S. short term carbon reductions remain too low. "The stalemate in negotiations has not been caused by China and India," Ramesh said. "The make or break issue is emissions cuts. If there is no agreement on that, there's no agreement in Copenhagen."
The U.S. is slow to use provisions in the House Climate Change Bill passed in the late spring for a framework of the U.S. position at Copenhagen, such as firm U.S. emission targets and investment and aid to Emerging Nations for forest preservation and Green Technology transfer. Many top environmental leaders say because of the U.S. failure to act on Kyoto we must now act more aggressively in Copenhagen.
Friday, Carol Browner, Obama's Climate Change czar said it is "not likely" that the U.S. will have a Climate Change bill passed and signed by the President in time for Copenhagen. The U.S. will not endorse international goals the U.S. has yet to accept at home, according to Todd Stern of the State Department.
The alternative to break the stalemate going into Copenhagen under discussion by both the U.S. and India is nationally binding targets that would be capable of international scrutiny.
Jim Connaughton, a top Bush environmental adviser said that what comes out of Copenhagen may look a great deal like what Bush had promoted. " What countries came to realize after Kyoto was it was hugely problematic to have international environmental negotiations establishing domestic economic and energy policy without first forging a domestic consensus," Connaughton said.
"What all major economies realized this time around is that they need to establish a domestic consensus on an agreed level of effort as a stronger basis for the commitments they make internationally and as a catalyst for international cooperation."
The promise of flexibility at Copenhagen signals not the end of discussion on Climate Change control but the real beginning.
India seeks new path on climate change
India seeks new path on Climate Change. India has softened its harsh voice on resisting carbon limits. The change is brought about by India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who is nudging India into a more international pose on topics ranging from trade to Climate Change.
Mr. Singh says India faces multiple complex stumbling blocks that are all interrelated. These include everything from domestic issues like pollution and energy security to even national security. All are tied into Climate Change.
Experts say India's previous stand did not work. India is seen as an unwilling laggard on Climate Change. China meanwhile, India's top development ally, has come off as more active on Climate Change, despite resisting legal limits on carbon emissions.
"We can not compromise our basic national position on protecting our prospects for growth, but we can see things that can be done," said Nitin Desai, one of the Prime Minister's special Climate Change advisors. "The signal that I get is that India is not going to be a spoiler at Copenhagen. If a reasonable deal can be worked out, they will be there."
Experts are looking at alternatives to mandatory rules on carbon limits, like those of the failing Kyoto Protocol. As Copenhagen approaches within 3 months planners are considering providing credit for domestic programs, like the one India is considering.
India's ties to China on development make it seem the two are equal emitters of carbon. China is the worlds biggest carbon emitter. India emits a fifth of the carbon emissions of China, measured both in total and per capita. China comprises 23% of all worldwide carbon emissions while India contributes just 5%.
David Victor, an energy expert who researches India's Climate Change policies, believes the developing nations will break up as India distinguishes itself from nations like Mexico, Brazil and China that have more mature economies and greater carbon emissions. "The Indians need to be very careful that they are seen as a different kind of country."
Mr. Ramesh, India's Environmental Minister, said, "China has raced ahead of us, in conveying they are doing a lot on Climate Change." Mr. Ramesh said India has 2 basic requirements for Copenhagen. Industrialized countries must consent to steep cuts in carbon by 2020 and provide monetary and technical help to the Emerging World. India is still against mandatory carbon limits.
Mr. Ramesh said despite all the bad press about India on Climate Change, he said the Environmental Ministry is introducing legislation to the Indian Parliament to strengthen fuel efficiency standards, create voluntary targets to improve energy efficiency and promote solar power and implement clean coal technology among its utilities.
At the U.N. last month Mr. Ramesh highlighted the basic needs of India like increased forestation cover, lengthening a treaty on investment in Green Technology and more technological help.
For a long time, India defined its stance on Climate Change in geopolitical economic social justice and a national rights terms, claiming the Industrialized nations created Climate Change and the majority of response should come from the West.
Historically India has said legal limits on carbon would stunt India's economic development. This debate is still raging in India as part of the domestic debate on Climate Change. Mr. Singh was rebuked by members of Parliament after consenting last summer in Italy to prevent worldwide temperatures from increasing more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit from today.
Mr. Ramesh said its his responsibility to create a new domestic political partnership on how India can fruitfully work on Climate Change without jeopardizing India's economy, "without a solid domestic consensus, or even domestic constituency, we can not even think about engaging internationally. And this is also true of the United States", he added. "Its true of all democracies."
Mr. Singh says India faces multiple complex stumbling blocks that are all interrelated. These include everything from domestic issues like pollution and energy security to even national security. All are tied into Climate Change.
Experts say India's previous stand did not work. India is seen as an unwilling laggard on Climate Change. China meanwhile, India's top development ally, has come off as more active on Climate Change, despite resisting legal limits on carbon emissions.
"We can not compromise our basic national position on protecting our prospects for growth, but we can see things that can be done," said Nitin Desai, one of the Prime Minister's special Climate Change advisors. "The signal that I get is that India is not going to be a spoiler at Copenhagen. If a reasonable deal can be worked out, they will be there."
Experts are looking at alternatives to mandatory rules on carbon limits, like those of the failing Kyoto Protocol. As Copenhagen approaches within 3 months planners are considering providing credit for domestic programs, like the one India is considering.
India's ties to China on development make it seem the two are equal emitters of carbon. China is the worlds biggest carbon emitter. India emits a fifth of the carbon emissions of China, measured both in total and per capita. China comprises 23% of all worldwide carbon emissions while India contributes just 5%.
David Victor, an energy expert who researches India's Climate Change policies, believes the developing nations will break up as India distinguishes itself from nations like Mexico, Brazil and China that have more mature economies and greater carbon emissions. "The Indians need to be very careful that they are seen as a different kind of country."
Mr. Ramesh, India's Environmental Minister, said, "China has raced ahead of us, in conveying they are doing a lot on Climate Change." Mr. Ramesh said India has 2 basic requirements for Copenhagen. Industrialized countries must consent to steep cuts in carbon by 2020 and provide monetary and technical help to the Emerging World. India is still against mandatory carbon limits.
Mr. Ramesh said despite all the bad press about India on Climate Change, he said the Environmental Ministry is introducing legislation to the Indian Parliament to strengthen fuel efficiency standards, create voluntary targets to improve energy efficiency and promote solar power and implement clean coal technology among its utilities.
At the U.N. last month Mr. Ramesh highlighted the basic needs of India like increased forestation cover, lengthening a treaty on investment in Green Technology and more technological help.
For a long time, India defined its stance on Climate Change in geopolitical economic social justice and a national rights terms, claiming the Industrialized nations created Climate Change and the majority of response should come from the West.
Historically India has said legal limits on carbon would stunt India's economic development. This debate is still raging in India as part of the domestic debate on Climate Change. Mr. Singh was rebuked by members of Parliament after consenting last summer in Italy to prevent worldwide temperatures from increasing more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit from today.
Mr. Ramesh said its his responsibility to create a new domestic political partnership on how India can fruitfully work on Climate Change without jeopardizing India's economy, "without a solid domestic consensus, or even domestic constituency, we can not even think about engaging internationally. And this is also true of the United States", he added. "Its true of all democracies."
US climate bill not likely this year, says Obama adviser
The White House has said for the first time that it does not expect to see a climate change bill this year, removing one of the key elements for reaching an international agreement to avoid catastrophic global warming.
In a seminar in Washington, Barack Obama's main energy adviser, Carol Browner, gave the clearest indication to date that the administration did not expect the Senate to vote on a climate change bill before an international meeting in Copenhagen in December.Browner spoke barely 48 hours after Senate Democrats staged a campaign-style rally in support of a climate change bill that seeks to cut US emissions by 20% on 2005 levels by 2020.
"Obviously, we'd like to be through the process, but that's not going to happen," Browner told a conference hosted by the Atlantic magazine on Friday. "I think we would all agree the likelihood that you'd have a bill signed by the president on comprehensive energy by the time we go in December is not likely."
Browner's bleak assessment deepens concerns that negotiations, already deadlocked, will fail to produce a meaningful agreement in Copenhagen. It also threatens to further dampen the prospects for a bill that was struggling for support among conservative and rustbelt Democrats.
The UN has cast the Copenhagen meeting as a last chance for countries to reach an agreement to avoid the most disastrous effects of warming. Negotiators – including the state department's climate change envoy – admit it will be far harder to reach such a deal unless America, historically the world's biggest polluter, shows it is willing to cut its own greenhouse gas emissions.
Browner's comments undercut a campaign by Democratic leaders in the Senate, corporations and environmental organisations to try to build momentum behind the bill. The day before Browner's comments, John Kerry, the former presidential candidate who is one of the sponsors of the cap-and-trade bill, told a conference he remained confident the bill would squeak through the Senate.
Her remarks also raise further doubts about how forcefully the Obama administration is willing to press the Senate for a climate bill in the midst of its struggles over healthcare.
In the last two weeks, diplomats have grown increasingly frustrated with the administration. Negotiators say they understand Obama would have to struggle to get this agenda through the Senate, but say the president has shied away from opportunities to make the case for climate change.Obama came in for harsh criticism from environmental organisations for failing to urge the Senate to act during a speech to the United Nations summit on climate change late last month. Environmental groups called it a "missed opportunity".
"If there is no serious US legislation in place then we will have delegations arriving and getting increasingly frustrated with nothing happening," said John Bruton, the European Union's ambassador.Combating climate change with condoms
Earlier this year, a Lancet Commission on Climate Change and Health reported its finding that "climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century." Now, the Lancet is taking their statement one step farther by providing method for the world to reduce the rate of climate change. This novel method involves contraception and providing this resource to those who want and need it in the world, Lancet asserts that by reducing unintended pregnancies the world can reduce the pressure that large populations put on the environment.
When applying this to a worldly perspective, over 200 million women want, but currently lack, access to modern contraceptives. This results in 76 million unintended pregnancies occurring every year. The availability of contraception methods could slow high rates of population growth, thereby reducing demographic pressure on the environment. Experts believe that while normal population growth is unlikely to significantly increase global warming that overpopulation in developing countries could lead to increased demand for food and shelter, which could jeopardize the environment as it struggles with global warming.
To back this up the Lancet presents a case study from Ethiopia that trained people in sustainable land management practices, while increasing availability of family planning. This case study saw an immediate improvement to the environment with better agricultural practices, which in the long term will be sustained and not eroded by a rapidly increasing population (which had been curbed by family planning practices).
The Lancet's assertions have created an emerging debate and interest about the links between population dynamics, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and climate change. This is not the first time lifestyle issues have been tied to the battle against global warming. Climate change experts have previously recommended that people cut their meat intake to slow global warming by reducing the numbers of animals using the world's resources. Most recently there has been a push for people to stop using plastic water bottles and to use more eco-friendly water canisters.
By presenting this argument the Lancet believes that the sexual and reproductive health and rights community should challenge the global design of climate change. In other words, the Lancet hopes that the argument about how to combat climate change will shift its current focus from green technology to a more "human-based, rights-based adaptation approach".
By changing the focus of climate change, one can bring the issue of reducing environmental impact away from industries and their corporations down to the grassroots level where most of the world's population resides.
Perhaps this strategy would better serve the range of issues pivotal to improving the health of women worldwide as well as affecting the environmental impacts of developing nations rather than just developed and industrialized nations.
When applying this to a worldly perspective, over 200 million women want, but currently lack, access to modern contraceptives. This results in 76 million unintended pregnancies occurring every year. The availability of contraception methods could slow high rates of population growth, thereby reducing demographic pressure on the environment. Experts believe that while normal population growth is unlikely to significantly increase global warming that overpopulation in developing countries could lead to increased demand for food and shelter, which could jeopardize the environment as it struggles with global warming.
To back this up the Lancet presents a case study from Ethiopia that trained people in sustainable land management practices, while increasing availability of family planning. This case study saw an immediate improvement to the environment with better agricultural practices, which in the long term will be sustained and not eroded by a rapidly increasing population (which had been curbed by family planning practices).
The Lancet's assertions have created an emerging debate and interest about the links between population dynamics, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and climate change. This is not the first time lifestyle issues have been tied to the battle against global warming. Climate change experts have previously recommended that people cut their meat intake to slow global warming by reducing the numbers of animals using the world's resources. Most recently there has been a push for people to stop using plastic water bottles and to use more eco-friendly water canisters.
By presenting this argument the Lancet believes that the sexual and reproductive health and rights community should challenge the global design of climate change. In other words, the Lancet hopes that the argument about how to combat climate change will shift its current focus from green technology to a more "human-based, rights-based adaptation approach".
By changing the focus of climate change, one can bring the issue of reducing environmental impact away from industries and their corporations down to the grassroots level where most of the world's population resides.
Perhaps this strategy would better serve the range of issues pivotal to improving the health of women worldwide as well as affecting the environmental impacts of developing nations rather than just developed and industrialized nations.
Political Alliances Shift in Fight Over Climate Bill
The flurry of companies quitting the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is highlighting how the climate-change issue is straining traditional alliances in Washington, as some businesses seek to profit from overhauling the energy market and others try to cut deals to head off tougher regulation.
Some companies and industry groups that have in the past worked with Republicans to fight efforts to curb the use of fossil fuels -- such as Detroit's auto makers -- are now expressing support for action on climate change. Some support legislation to put a price on the carbon-dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming, while others support preserving the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate such greenhouse gases.
The Chamber of Commerce says it supports efforts to fight climate change through federal investments and incentives for power that can be produced without emitting carbon dioxide. But the group has opposed proposals to require companies to pay for the right to emit carbon.
The Chamber, which says it represents three million businesses, says its positions are "mainstream, common-sense views" approved by a majority of more than 100 business leaders who sit on its board of directors.
Some companies -- such as Peabody Energy and ConocoPhillips -- have spoken out against climate legislation passed by the House of Representatives. Others -- such as General Electric Co. and Duke Energy Corp. -- have expressed support for it.
Many companies backing action on climate change stand to gain if the U.S. requires corporations to pay for the right to emit carbon dioxide.
In the past two weeks, three utilities -- Exelon Corp., PG&E Corp. and PNM Resources Inc. -- have quit the Chamber, citing the group's opposition to climate bills. A fourth company, Nike Inc., said Wednesday that it was resigning from the Chamber's board because the group "has not represented the diversity of perspective" held by the board's members on climate change.
GE, which has built a marketing campaign around the clean-energy technology it sells, intends to remain a member despite differences with the Chamber on specific legislation, a spokesman says.
Exelon, the nation's biggest nuclear-plant operator by output, says it sees an annual upside to its revenue of about $1.1 billion if climate legislation approved by the House in June is enacted. Because nuclear plants don't spew carbon dioxide, their operators wouldn't have to pay for the right to emit such gases, giving them an edge over competitors that burn fossil fuels.
Exelon notes that it has spent billions of dollars over the years to reduce its carbon footprint, by investing in nuclear power, and that it decided years ago to sell most of its coal-powered plants.
Last month, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers -- which includes General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. -- joined the Obama administration and environmentalists in opposing an effort to bar the EPA for one year from attempting to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions for power plants and other large sources.
The group says it opposed the measure because it prefers a single, nationwide set of rules rather than a patchwork of regulations by states. It says it feared the one-year prohibition would have delayed the EPA from finalizing an agency proposal to regulate automobile greenhouse-gas emissions, potentially exposing its members to regulation by states.
"It's not a big surprise that the auto industry, which was just bailed out by the administration, would come to their defense," says a spokesman for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska), who wrote the proposal. He notes that the measure said that "mobile" sources, such as cars, could still be regulated by the EPA.
An alliance spokesman says that the group was "sympathetic to the thrust" of Ms. Murkowski's proposal but that eliminating the "inconsistency created by conflicting and overlapping" regulations at the state and federal level has been "the main priority of all auto makers" since 2002.
Environmentalists have cheered the recent defections from the Chamber, hoping they might weaken one of the best-funded opponents of the climate legislation.
The Chamber, in a statement after Exelon's resignation, said legislation capping U.S. emissions and passed by the House "is neither comprehensive nor international," and would spur retaliation from U.S. trading partners.
Some companies and industry groups that have in the past worked with Republicans to fight efforts to curb the use of fossil fuels -- such as Detroit's auto makers -- are now expressing support for action on climate change. Some support legislation to put a price on the carbon-dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming, while others support preserving the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate such greenhouse gases.
The Chamber of Commerce says it supports efforts to fight climate change through federal investments and incentives for power that can be produced without emitting carbon dioxide. But the group has opposed proposals to require companies to pay for the right to emit carbon.
The Chamber, which says it represents three million businesses, says its positions are "mainstream, common-sense views" approved by a majority of more than 100 business leaders who sit on its board of directors.
Some companies -- such as Peabody Energy and ConocoPhillips -- have spoken out against climate legislation passed by the House of Representatives. Others -- such as General Electric Co. and Duke Energy Corp. -- have expressed support for it.
Many companies backing action on climate change stand to gain if the U.S. requires corporations to pay for the right to emit carbon dioxide.
In the past two weeks, three utilities -- Exelon Corp., PG&E Corp. and PNM Resources Inc. -- have quit the Chamber, citing the group's opposition to climate bills. A fourth company, Nike Inc., said Wednesday that it was resigning from the Chamber's board because the group "has not represented the diversity of perspective" held by the board's members on climate change.
GE, which has built a marketing campaign around the clean-energy technology it sells, intends to remain a member despite differences with the Chamber on specific legislation, a spokesman says.
Exelon, the nation's biggest nuclear-plant operator by output, says it sees an annual upside to its revenue of about $1.1 billion if climate legislation approved by the House in June is enacted. Because nuclear plants don't spew carbon dioxide, their operators wouldn't have to pay for the right to emit such gases, giving them an edge over competitors that burn fossil fuels.
Exelon notes that it has spent billions of dollars over the years to reduce its carbon footprint, by investing in nuclear power, and that it decided years ago to sell most of its coal-powered plants.
Last month, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers -- which includes General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. -- joined the Obama administration and environmentalists in opposing an effort to bar the EPA for one year from attempting to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions for power plants and other large sources.
The group says it opposed the measure because it prefers a single, nationwide set of rules rather than a patchwork of regulations by states. It says it feared the one-year prohibition would have delayed the EPA from finalizing an agency proposal to regulate automobile greenhouse-gas emissions, potentially exposing its members to regulation by states.
"It's not a big surprise that the auto industry, which was just bailed out by the administration, would come to their defense," says a spokesman for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska), who wrote the proposal. He notes that the measure said that "mobile" sources, such as cars, could still be regulated by the EPA.
An alliance spokesman says that the group was "sympathetic to the thrust" of Ms. Murkowski's proposal but that eliminating the "inconsistency created by conflicting and overlapping" regulations at the state and federal level has been "the main priority of all auto makers" since 2002.
Environmentalists have cheered the recent defections from the Chamber, hoping they might weaken one of the best-funded opponents of the climate legislation.
The Chamber, in a statement after Exelon's resignation, said legislation capping U.S. emissions and passed by the House "is neither comprehensive nor international," and would spur retaliation from U.S. trading partners.
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