President Obama on Tuesday presented a “new climate action plan”. Most of it could have come straight from Brussels. But there are some differences with the European approach. The US is not going to back out of fossil fuels and nuclear power. And it pays serious attention at last to mitigation and adaptation.
Photo: 350.org
Obama’s long-awaited “Climate Action Plan” has three pillars:
- to cut “carbon pollution” by putting in place new emission standards
- to prepare the US for the impacts of climate change (by “helping state and local governments strengthen our roads, bridges and shorelines”)
- to“lead international efforts to combat global climate change and prepare for its impacts”
On this last point, important to Europe, the plan announces that the President intends to things like “enhancing multilateral engagement with major economies”, “expanding bilateral cooperation with major emerging economies”, “negotiating global free trade” and “leading efforts to address climate change through international negotiations”. Did Obama take his cue from the EU? The plan even boasts that “the US has made historic progress in the international climate negotiations during the past four years”. Didn’t Connie Hedegaard claim something like that after Copenhagen?
But there is more to the plan than these three “pillars”. Most of it also sounds quite EU-like. For example, the plan sets a goal to double generation from renewable energy from the current share by 2020. (It already doubled during the first term of his presidency.) It wants to do this by “accelerating clean energy permitting” and “expanding and modernizing the electric grid”. The plan also sets a new, tougher goal for energy efficiency standards and wants to “reduce barriers to investment” in energy efficiency.
A lot of what’s in Obama’s “new” plan is not very new at all. For example, it makes mention of “increasing fuel economy standards”for heavy-duty vehicles”, but those standards were already announced in 2011. The same goes for greenhouse gas emissions in general. In 2009 Obama already made a commitment for the US to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 17% in 2020 compared to 2005. This has been left unchanged in the new climate plan.
What is different from the EU approach is that Obama’s plan unreservedly backs nuclear power, “clean coal”, biofuels and the development of unconventional gas. Clearly the US is not going to back away from nuclear and fossil fuels. What is also striking is that a large part of the plan is devoted to mitigation and adaptation to climate change. This no doubt reflects the extreme weather events that the US has suffered from over the past few years.
Here is a link to the full text.
Christop Frei, Secretary General of the World Energy Council, said in a reaction to the plan that he “welcomes the comments made by President Obama. In particular it is important to recognise that as the world embarks on a massive transformation in its energy system the trade in green goods and services must not be hindered by any trade distortions. Countries and regions need to recognise that we will all benefit from a level playing field in respect of tariffs and subsidies. Such an approach will reduce the massive cost involved in this transformation and encourage the take-up of the much needed new technologies to deliver a more diversified energy mix thus helping to reduce the impacts of greenhoue gas emissions. “
Connie Hedegaard, the EU’s Climate Commissioner, was more muted in her response. She said: “Internationally, the White House plan contains a number of good intentions which have now to be translated into more concrete action”, according to Reuters.
Jeff Michel says
There was a good deal of ironic truth in your recent remark that President Obama’s new Climate Action Plan “could have come straight from Brussels”. That is a polite way of expressing the fact that democratically elected politicians on both sides of the Atlantic remain adept in concealing the effects of climate change and the breadth of social commitment that would be required to exert any measurable effect on CO2 emissions.
President Obama’s speech to cheering students at Georgetown University – who could have been multi-tasking for cheering during the next football season – implied objective substance in leading “international efforts to combat global climate change”. To my knowledge, none of these renewed efforts have been detected in Germany, which continues to adhere to relaxed emissions standards for BMW, Mercedes and Porsche automobiles exported to the USA. The top-of-the-line Porsche Cayenne has 38 percent more horsepower (550 hp) than a US Sherman Tank in World War II.
If President Obama really wanted to take immediate action to reduce the climate effects of established American lifestyles, he could issue a decree that disempowered homeowner associations from enforcing any regulations contrary to climate policy. Under present circumstances, the residents of upscale neighborhoods throughout the United States:
* cannot mount solar panels on their roofs
* are not allowed to use an outdoor clothes dryer
* must keep their lawns looking like a golf green using power lawn mowers and plenty of fertilizer
* cannot lay out a vegetable garden visible from the street.
In some areas of the United States, grass clippings make up more than a third of total garbage collection volumes. Techniques for digesting this fibrous biomass to generate methane have not advanced past the experimental stage. Shale gas continues to undercut the development of such promising technologies that could be used by other countries without comparable natural gas resources.
The President’s implication that the sum or even the multiplication of domestic efforts could impede the progress of global warming is contradicted by the enclosed study that I have downloaded from the White House website. The diagram on page 11 indicates that Arctic ice cover may have disappeared in 2040, or possibly even by 2023.
If you require further proof of America’s ongoing contribution to global warming, have a look at the enclosed curve of coal consumption, essentially all of which will continue without any means of CO2 abatement. The data provided by Arch Coal indicate that US coal exports will be rising throughout this decade.
Jake Smit says
Jeff, relax. it has not warmed for 17 years showing the disconnect between the “models” and reality in regards to CO2.
The Arctic ice will be there in 2100 and beyond.
But there are 2 good reasons, and depending on opinion plenty of others, for pursuing “alternatives”. 1)Clean air, being one of life’s necessities, (and plenty of places don’t have that) and 2)eventually most of the carbon fuels will be used, forcing change upon us one way or another.
Los Angeles is a great example of what can be achieved in regards to clean(er) air policies as is Beijing as an example as to what happens if you do relatively little about pollution.
Unless oil, and by extension why not gas, is abiotic we will eventually run out of carbon fuels but even if it is (they are) it is not realistic to think that the planet will replace our consumption on a daily basis. If it did there would not be a theory about abiotic oil, it would be a certainty (or is that the reason why we keep finding the stuff in places where we never expected it?).
Do current politicians really believe that the human race has come down to a level of “if we can’t show the people that it is urgent now there won’t be an acceptance for change”.
Time and again it is shown that acceptance is highest when the real reasons are explained, fabricated ones (no matter how well intentioned) create nothing but division and polarization, but that is what elected politicians appear best at.
Difficult to see anything real happening, apart from some token gestures to please certain groups, on the basis of something as controversial as “computer models”. We better start telling nature that it has to comply with the digital revolution because as far as the warming theory is concerned model time is running out.
In the meantime we are still flush with carbon fuels.
Come to think of it. We need CO2 and warmth to feed the soon to be 9, if not 10, billion people. A colder and CO2 poorer planet will not do that.