Yesterday, millions of Americans voted in record numbers for a dramatic change in our country's direction. After eight years of near-paralysis on the climate front, and in the midst of our biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, the election of Barack Obama and a host of new Members of Congress -- many of whom support clean, renewable energy, green-collar jobs and caps on carbon emissions -- gives us hope that we'll finally get the bold climate leadership we've been looking for in Washington. But if this election is going to bring real change on the climate front, we'll have to hold our new leaders accountable (as we plan to do on November 18) for most of the promises they made on the campaign trail -- and get them to drop some others.
There's much to like in the climate agenda that an Obama administration would put before the new Congress. For example, Obama has called for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050 -- a target in line with what the Nobel Prize winning panel of scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have said we must do if we are to avoid catastrophic climate impacts. While we need to press for much more aggressive short-term targets, such as cutting emissions by at least 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, Obama's long-term target is a good start.
He has also proposed a cap-and-trade policy in which all pollution credits would be auctioned. The proceeds would go towards investments in clean, renewable energy, helping workers affected by this economic transition and helping lower-income families with their energy costs. Obama has also called for 10 percent of our electricity to come for renewable sources by 2012 and 25 percent by 2025, greater investment in energy efficiency, and the creation of five million green-collar jobs (the five1 million green-collar job proposal (PDF) is a direct embrace of 1Sky's policy platform).
Obama is also right in his cautious approach towards nuclear energy. He has warned that, before an expansion of nuclear power is considered, key issues must be addressed, including: security of nuclear fuel and waste, waste storage, and proliferation. Given all the risks nuclear power carries, and the exorbitant cost of building new plants, it isn't a realistic alternative to fossil fuels and we're glad to see the President-elect is cool to the idea.
Now that the heat of the campaign season is behind us, we hope President-elect Obama will stop pretending that so-called "clean coal" is a realistic way to reduce carbon emissions and achieve energy independence. As I've written here before, "clean coal" is nothing but a myth. Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is unproven and exorbitantly expensive. At best, the technology will not be commercially available until 2030, and installing carbon capture systems will nearly double plant costs, which won't provide any relief to Americans' soaring utility bills. We need real solutions, not coal industry myths. As president, Obama should feel free to stop pandering on clean coal and focus on real solutions to our energy and climate crises.
At 1Sky, we have developed a three-pronged approach to solving the climate challenge:
The 1Sky Solutions represent the dawning of a new era for our struggling economy. By shifting to a sustainable, low-carbon economy, we can relieve our dependence on oil, unlock the potential of green industry and usher in a new era of prosperity.
The results of yesterday's election are encouraging for our economy and our planet's future, but we'll only achieve the change we need by pressing our leaders for bold leadership to solve the climate challenge. On Tuesday, November 18, join thousands of climate activists across the country to welcome President-elect Obama and the new Congress by calling on them to make climate an immediate priority in 2009. Volunteers will also ask the President-elect to go to the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Poznań, Poland in December, to re-engage the international community and show the world the he is ready to be a leader on climate. Sign up today, and help us make the most of this historic election.
Follow Gillian Caldwell on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Gillian1Sky
Dingell is fighting a challenge to his chairmanship of the House Energy Committee. He is a stooge of the auto industry and will oppose any movement towards alternative fuels. He killed CAFE standards in that committee.
Rally the troops to tell Congress to side with Henry Waxman. Obama needs legislative allies. That's the only way.
5 million new green jobs? The U.S. currently employs 600,000 people TOTAL in the areas of power generation, supply, and facility/equipment production. A ten-fold increase in the industry size is an INCREDIBLY inefficient resource drain.
Lastly, empirical temperature data shows cooling over the past 10 years, in spite of increased GHG concentrations. Either CO2 is spurring negative feedbacks (not the theoretical positive feedbacks that produce doomsday scenarios) or CO2 concentrations have a negligible impact on temperature. The divergence problem is so obvious that I'm shocked people still buy in to the AGW hypothesis.
Hansen's noted that we need to not only reduce & even to eliminate emissions -- UNEP pushes a goal of net carbon neutrality (ie ZERO net emissions) by 2030, which a number of countries including Norway have adopted, at least in theory -- but to LOWER EXISTING ATMOSPHERIC GHG levels, & that sufficient policies aimed to achieve that (not the achievement itself, nb) need to be in place w/in at most 6 to 8 years from today -- a TERRIBLY BRIEF WINDOW OF TIME -- to maintain a planet that, as he puts it, even remotely "resembles" the world where human civilization first came into being. In particular, Hansen's said present levels of CO2, now an estimated ~387 parts per million (ppm) & rising, MUST be lowered to 350 ppm. An insufficient goal is dangerous -- lulling people into a false sense of security. Movement acivists as well as advocates of the issue in the blogosphere & elsewhere need to be EXTREMELY mindful of this URGENT concern NOW.
"NET NEGATIVE GHG EMISSIONS, & FAST" may not be politically catchy in the short term, but it's NECESSARY, & we who are concerned about this issue the most must insist on this goal, w/ others then picking it
It took a long time to get into this mess and it's messy.
I am with Shiela we need the political backbone to decentralize our rewnewable power generation.
Obama did not win by letting "convential wisdom" run his campaing. I hope that he does not let the conventional wisdom that all we are going to get on climate is some weak and inefective cap and trade policy.
"On some positions, cowardice asks the question, 'is it safe?' Expediency
asks the question, 'is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'is it popular?' But conscious asks the question 'is it right
Martin Luther King
And the word is "conscience" not "conscious"
1. buiiding and maintaining big power lines will emit so many GHGs that no matter how much "renewable" power they link to, they will still exceed acceptable levels of GHGs - so LONG DISTANCE TRANSMISSION IS A TOTAL NON-STARTER.
2. the Mojave and other desert ecosystems (not all of them) are highly effective carbon sinks when left intact, so all commercial activities, including Big Solar and Big Wind need to stay out of our deserts.
3. the people deserve a shot at energy independence after over a century of centralized, monopolized Big Energy hijacking, and the most effective way to stimulate the economy, the job market, participation in the green economy and energy conservation has been proven to be feed in tariffs for clean energy produced at point of use, with excess fed to the grid.
then yes, Obama might help climate change. if he capitulates to the New Breed of Robber Barons in Big Solar and Big Wind, we are all screwed.