Action on carbon is down the drain

29th July 2010

"No matter, smiled Barack Obama and other leaders through clenched teeth: this would not stop the US and its partners moving forward with plans of their own. Oh, really? The whole enterprise, from top to bottom, has now collapsed"

As the Democratic leadership in the US Senate suspends efforts to pass a climate change bill, Clive Crook of the FT [1], traces a story that began with the Kyoto Protocol in 1997:

The Democratic leadership in the US Senate has suspended efforts to pass a climate change bill [2]. It abandoned not only its planned comprehensive cap-and-trade measure, similar to one already passed by the House of Representatives, but also a more modest bill aimed at electric utilities. The Senate will most likely pass an energy bill of some sort [3], but this will barely even pretend to make progress on curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

This surrender concludes a story that began with the Kyoto protocol in 1997 and reached its climax last December at the Copenhagen climate change conference. At that long-anticipated gathering, the world’s governments expected to replace the Kyoto system, which had made no perceptible dent in the problem, with a new and more effective regime. They left with nothing.

No matter, smiled Barack Obama and other leaders through clenched teeth: this would not stop the US and its partners moving forward with plans of their own. Oh, really? The whole enterprise, from top to bottom, has now collapsed. Some will celebrate – they think climate change was a scam [4] to begin with – but that is a far bigger mistake. The cap-and-trade approach, especially as shaped by Congress, left a lot to be desired, but a strong scientific consensus points to the need for speedy action.

Governments have failed. It is important to understand why, and to see what needs to change. In the US, almost everybody is implicated. The Republican party is at fault for refusing to take climate change seriously and for brainlessly opposing tax increases – which meaningful climate change policies demand, one way or another. Under current rules, the Senate needs 60 votes to pass a law; there are 59 Democrats, so they cannot act alone.

The Democrats themselves are divided. They would struggle to muster a bare Senate majority for cap-and-trade. The party has also bungled the case for action. It pretended cap-and-trade could work without making energy dearer – it is not really a tax, they insist. Of course it is and voters can usually tell when they are being conned.

Read the full story here > [1]
 

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The IPCC needs new leadership, a fresh mandate and strong oversight. Governments should stop outsourcing their advocacy role to a supposedly non-political scientific body