US To Set Binding Climate Goals (just kidding)
![iStock_000004705569XSmall[1]](http://www.talkclimatechange.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/istock-000004705569xsmall1.jpg)
I woke up this morning to find a blockbuster headline on the BBC news website - “US to set ‘binding’ climate goals”. Full of excitement I eagerly scanned through the article looking for more details on what promised to be a ground breaking event in climate negotiations - it’s not every day that an easy blog post lands on your lap.
Not so fast… On reading deeper I was disappointed to find that the story was just another re-hash of the standard position of “we don’t do it unless developing nations do it first”, prompted by a news conference given yesterday by James Connaughton and Daniel Price, environmental and economics advisers to President Bush.
Confirming the impression that this latest announcement is just another great greenwash, Philip Clapp, deputy managing director of the Pew Environment Group suggested:
“It’s become increasingly apparent that the Bush administration is willing to agree to a target that would take effect 40 years from now, and wants to portray that as a major accomplishment.”
“A key question is whether the administration is willing to accept binding targets that take effect before 2020, because a binding commitment that doesn’t take effect for 40 years is really just shuffling the problem off one more time.”
Proving that top decision makers are as lacking in long term vision as ever, and sounding increasingly like a broken record, Bush advisor Daniel Price was quoted as saying “Europe and the US could turn out the lights today, and come 2030 or 2050 we would not have addressed the problem of climate change.”
Putting aside arguments about who caused the high levels of Co2 in our atmosphere in the first place, and who is buying and benefiting from the cheap goods manufactured in developing nations, there are some points we would like to raise in response to the “who goes first” argument:
- Please, United States of America, start to live up to your self proclaimed image as global leaders and moral guardians of the world, and provide some leadership on this issue.
- If you lead, others will be under pressure to follow. If you fail to lead, others will have powerful excuses to continue avoiding the issue.
- You are a rich, successful and technologically advanced nation - you put men on the moon “not because these things are easy, but because they are hard” - if anyone can provide the technology and leadership to solve this problem then it is you.
- We are getting really bored of the “who goes first” argument and would like to start complaining about more interesting things - please move this forward and give us something new to write about.
- Perhaps we are simply being too cynical and too negative, but the consistent signals from the current US Government make a global consensus at the next climate summit look increasingly unlikely - It looks like TalkClimateChange will have to continue talking about the targets deadlock for some time yet..
More information:
Relax my Non-US friends, all three candidates Obama, Clinton and McCain, well 5 if you count Huckabee and Nader, all are promising action on GHG emissions, so only one more year and your dreams will be realized.
So fear not little campers your message of doom has fallen on sympathetic ears. Your environmental policy dreams are about to be answered.
Of course the US could adopt my province’s model that actually rewards consumption with lower taxes and penalizes reductions with higher taxes. It is what my Government calls a Carbon Tax, but I call it a Cold Tax, the colder it is where you live the higher your tax burden.
(heating energy per home in the mild climate cities with most of the population, is 56Gj, for the northern region, same size home 111Gj…that is ‘as close as damn is to swearing’ to being double)
Visit my site by clicking on my name above and try out the Budget Simulator and see how we reward tree-hugging, hemp wearing, city dwelling liberals and penalize the economic backbone of our province.