As leaders in Washington obsess about
the fiscal cliff, President Barack Obama is putting in place the
building blocks for a climate treaty requiring the first fossil-
fuel emissions cuts from both the U.S. and China.
State Department envoy Todd Stern is in Doha this week
working to clear the path for an international agreement by
2015. While Obama failed to deliver on his promise to start
a cap-and-trade program in his first term, he’s working on
policies that may help cut greenhouse gases 17 percent in
2020 in the U.S., historically the world’s biggest polluter.
Obama has moved forward with greenhouse-gas rules for
vehicles and new power plants, appliance standards and
investment in low-emitting energy sources. He’s also called for
80 percent of U.S. electricity to come from clean energy
sources, including nuclear and natural gas, by 2035.
“The president is laying the foundations for real action
on climate change,” Jake Schmidt, who follows international
climate policy for the Washington-based Natural Resources
Defense Council, said in an interview in Doha. “Whether or not
he decides to jump feet first into the international arena,
we’ll see.”
Envoys from more than 190 nations are entering their second
week of talks today at the United Nations conference working
toward a global warming treaty. Their ambition is to agree to a
pact in 2015 that would take force in 2020. It would supersede
limits on emissions for industrial nations under the Kyoto
Protocol, which the U.S. never ratified.
Quiet Effort
Obama’s push is being pursued without fanfare as the
administration and Congress grapple to avert a budget crisis and
$607 billion in automatic spending cuts. Unlike 2009, when Obama
failed to prevent the collapse of climate talks in Copenhagen,
the U.S. can point to more concrete actions it’s taking in the
fight global warming.
He has more ammunition at hand. The Environmental
Protection Agency is required under the Clean Air Act to move
ahead with regulations on emissions from existing power plants.
Those are responsible for about a third of U.S. emissions, the
largest chunk.
Measures such as those, along with continued low natural
gas prices and state actions, can cut emissions 16.3 percent by
2020, Resources for the Future, a research firm, estimates.
Emissions already are down 8.8 percent from 2005 levels,
according to Jonathan Pershing, a State Department negotiator
in Doha.
`Stronger Position'
“The U.S. is in a much stronger position going into the
Doha talks despite failure of Congress to pass comprehensive
climate legislation,” said Trevor Houser, a former U.S. climate
negotiator who served during the Copenhagen meeting. “For
countries like China that were able to hide behind a perception
of U.S. inaction, the fact that U.S. emissions are falling helps
increase pressure. It takes away the excuse that action is
stalled because of the U.S.”
A summer of extreme weather also is supporting the U.S.
delegation in the talks by raising public awareness and concern
about the risks of climate change, Pershing said last week in
Doha. So far this year, superstorm Sandy devastated the East
Coast while wildfires raged in the west and a record drought
wrecked crops in the Midwest.
“The combination of those events is certainly changing the
minds of Americans and making clear to people at home the
consequences of the increased growth in emissions,” he said at
a Nov. 26 news conference in Doha.
Increasing Concern
The portion of Americans who say climate change will affect
them a “great deal” or by a “moderate” amount rose by 13
points to 42 percent from March to September, and 68 percent
said global warming will hurt future generations, up from 59
percent in May 2011, according to a poll by Yale University and
George Mason University.
“That number barely budged for four years, then suddenly
jumps,” Andrew Light, coordinator of climate policy at the
Center for American Progress, a Washington-based research group
with ties to the Obama administration. “If you did same survey
today, after Sandy, the number would be even higher.”
Light notes that the number of Americans who believe
climate change is real climbed to 70 percent in September from
57 percent in 2010. The number of people who say global warming
isn’t happening has fallen almost by half, to 12 percent today
from 20 percent over the same period.
Quiet Effort
To date, few of the administration’s programs get attention
away from Washington and the environmental groups following
them.
An EPA rule targeting mercury emissions, for example, would
further boost the cost of burning coal, making cleaner-burning
natural gas more attractive. California, the world’s ninth-
largest economy, has started its cap-and-trade program, covering
85 percent of emissions in the state.
Such policies “are just the beginning,” said Robert Stavins,
director of Harvard University’s Environmental Economics Program
in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He expects the U.S. to meet its goal
of cutting emissions 17 percent. While that’s less than the 40
percent scientists say is needed. European Union’s pledge to
reduce pollutants 20 percent by 2020 and says it will go to 30
percent if others follow.
“The interesting thing is that for the past three UN
climate conferences, the U.S. delegation has never talked about
this,” Stavins said in an interview. “They haven’t been
interested in taking credit internationally for what’s already
in place. When I mention this to other parts of the world,
people are shocked.”
The silence, he said, is understandable in part because the
“last thing” the Obama administration wants is for State
Department officials overseas making it appear as if the White
House was trying to “take an end run around the Congress” on
climate policy.
“It would have been very bad for the president’s re-
election,” he said.
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