Obama stimulus good for climate says Al Gore (naturally)
“We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf and burning it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that has to change.”
Nobel Prize winner, former US Vice-President and long-term climate activist Al Gore addressed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the strong links between the climate crisis, the economic crisis and the war on terror.
Political Journal Swamp Politics has complete text and video of Gore’s presentation with their own commentary. They also cover the question and answer sessions at the end in their transcript.
In order to repower our economy, restore American economic and moral leadership in the world and regain control of our own destiny, we must take bold action now. The first step is already before us. I urge this Congress to quickly pass the entirety of President Obama’s recovery package. The planned unprecedented and critical investments in four key areas — energy efficiency, renewables, a unified national energy smart grid, and the move to clean cars — represent an important down payment and are long overdue. These crucial investments will create millions of new jobs and hasten our economic recovery, while strengthening our national security and beginning to solve the climate crisis.
Quickly building our capacity to generate clean electricity will lay the groundwork for the next major step needed — placing a price on carbon. If Congress acts right away to pass President Obama’s recovery package and then takes decisive action this year to institute a cap-and-trade system for CO2 emissions — as many of our states and many other countries have already done, and as many of the leading Fortune 500 corporations in America are pleading with the Congress to do so they’ll have predictability and the basis to become more competitive in world commerce — then the United States will regain its credibility and enter the Copenhagen treaty talks with a renewed authority to lead the world in shaping a fair and effective treaty.
Al Gore makes the point well saying, in reference to the USA but the ideas apply broadly:
We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf and burning it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that has to change.
Al Gore calls for four major requirements for success at the forthcoming Copenhagen meeting where the climate regime post-2012 will be hammered out into The Copenhagen Protocol or something along those lines. Gore says:
The elements that I believe are key to a successful agreement in Copenhagen include, first, strong targets and timetables from industrialized countries and differentiated but binding commitments from developing countries that put the entire world under a system with one commitment: to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other global warming pollutants that are the cause of the climate crisis.
Two, the inclusion of deforestation, which alone accounts for more than 20 percent of the emissions that cause global warming.
Three, the addition of so-called carbon sinks, including those from soils, principally from farm lands and grazing lands, with appropriate methodologies and accounting. Farmers such as Senator Lugar and ranchers in the U.S. and around the world need to know that they can be a part of the solution.
Fourth, the assurance that developing countries will have access to mechanisms and resources that will help them adapt, to the worst impacts of the climate crisis, and technologies to solve the problem. And finally a strong compliance and verification regime.
Finally the world’s remaining superpower is in the hands of adults, and brainy ones at that. But is nerd-power going to be enough to save us all? Probably not. But it’s a massive start and, with luck, the mallet of common sense will swing for those still preferring to believe that everything is really a-okay, and who simply tune out of the evidence that abounds. — DS
February 21st, 2009 at 7:37 AM
I love your line: “Finally the world’s remaining superpower is in the hands of adults, and brainy ones at that.” The economic stimulus package presents a wealth of opportunity to jump-start the climate change battle. The proposed cap-and-trade program (coupled with Obama’s meeting yesterday with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in which they agreed the two countries must work together for a North America wide environmental framework) will also allow organizations to reduce risk and perhaps one day view carbon offsets as a truly profitable commodity.