Obama: "Delay Is No Longer an Option"; U.S. Rep. Waxman Replaces Dingell on Key Energy Committee

This column launched in the euphoric days immediately after November 4. For those working to cajole nations to agree to cooperate in the global effort to tackle climate change and to forge a strong treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, the election of Barack Obama was indeed an earthquake, a moment of realignment toward the new world order Copenhagen Climate Council Founder Erik Rasmussen says is needed in a commentary published this week at the Climate Community.

If U.S. voters triggered an earthquake on November 4, then this week we have felt the aftershocks. On Tuesday, in a 4-minute video address to governors, diplomats, and activists assembled at California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Governors' Global Climate Summit, Obama reaffirmed his commitment to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, and to invest US15 billion annually in alternative energy. He also delivered a powerful message to climate policy stakeholders in the U.S. and abroad.

He would not be present in Poznan, Poland, for COP14, he told the crowd, but his message was clear: "Once I take office, you can be sure that the United States will once again engage vigorously in these negotiations, and help lead the world toward a new era of global cooperation on climate change. Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all. Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high. The consequences, too serious."

Here is Obama's full address:

Observers reacted swiftly and enthusiastically to Obama's remarks. In an interview with William Maclean of Reuters, UNFCCC head Yvo de Boer says Obama's statement "will be seen as a huge signal of encouragement to the international community," and "will have a very positive influence on [international climate] negotiations."

At 350.org, author, climate change activist (and 350.org founder) Bill McKibben praises Obama for finding a clever (and low-carbon) way to re-engage the United States in the UN climate talks without having to get on a plane to Poznan. McKibben's group had gathered nearly 50,000 online invitations asking Obama to attend COP14.

To achieve his ambitious energy and climate agenda, Obama will need help from Congress. On election day, Democrats increased their majorities in each legislative body, and they're inching closer to a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate with each passing day (and each absentee ballot counted in the as-yet-undecided Al Franken race in Minnesota), but a few roadblocks remained.

One, in the person of U.S. Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich), was lifted Thursday as House Democrats voted to replace Dingell as chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee with Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif). Notorious for zealously working to protect jobs in his home state auto industry, Dingell had for years stymied attempts to raise the U.S.' embarrassingly modest fuel-economy standards. Waxman, one of the strongest environmentalists in Congress, now controls the gavel for a committee that will be deeply involved in crafting forthcoming U.S. climate change bills.

A legislator who no doubt will partner with Waxman, U.S. Senator and Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif), announced her post-inauguration plans Thursday. In a statement published at The Daily Green Boxer says she will introduce two bills in January 2009: One, to establish a grant program to reduce GHG emissions by making up to US15 billion available annually for clean energy projects, and the other, to direct the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set up a cap-and-trade system for GHG emissions that meets goals outlined by Obama.

The EPA itself cast in doubt the status of scores of proposed coal-fired power plants in the United States when a review panel last week refused to issue a permit to authorize the expansion of a coal plant near Vernal, Utah. The ruling, writes Alexis Madrigal at the Wired Science blog, means that the EPA must develop a single nationwide standard for dealing with carbon dioxide – a job to be done by the Obama Administration.

The industrialized countries who are obligated to cut emissions under the Kyoto Protocol are on track to meet their targets – GHG emissions down 5% on 1990 levels – reports the Guardian's David Adam. Disturbingly, however, the same former Eastern European countries whose economic decline during the 1990s accounts for that success have now seen their emissions rise 7.4% from 2000 to 2006, according to figures released by the UNFCCC on Tuesday.

That bad news is tempered by EurActiv.com's report that the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC) confidently predicts it can over-deliver on the European Union target to produce 20% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Depending on energy efficiency gains, EREC says it can deliver 33% or even 40%.

Further emissions cuts could come from energy efficiency labeling rules for tires proposed by the EU. At The New York Times' Green Inc. blog, James Kanter writes that if EU drivers select the most efficient tires, they can reduce their fuel bills by up to 10% and prevent carbon emissions equivalent to removing 1.3 million passenger cars from the road annually.

Let's not get too excited. In an interview with EurActiv.com published Wednesday, an anonymous EU member state ambassador cast fresh doubt on the bloc being able to reach agreement on its proposed climate and energy package in December. In Germany, Reuters' Erik Kirschbaum reports that Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief spokesperson said the country wants extensive exemptions for energy-intensive industrial sectors such as steel, glassmaking, cement, paper, ceramic, and chemicals for their carbon emissions caps beginning in 2013. And, in the United Kingdom, the Guardian's Alok Jha writes that University of Manchester climate scientist Kevin Anderson says that without a moratorium on the expansion of all UK airports, the government will be unable to reach its goal of cutting GHG emissions by 80% by 2050.

More good news continues to emerge from China. RenewableENergyWorld.com reports on a new Emerging Energy Research study which finds that China's wind initiatives are so large and so well-supported by the government, that the country's renewable energy goals are likely be met well before the 2020 target. For more on China's leap forward into a low-carbon economy, I encourage you to read the first dispatch from our Climate Director Per Meilstrup's new column, Copenhagen Countdown, titled "China: Going for the Green Gold."

In an interview with Spiegel Online's Christian Schwägerl, Shyam Saran, India's chief climate negotiator says that his country has "accepted a limit on our emissions," and that India's per capita emission "will at no time exceed the average of the per capita emissions of developed, industrialized countries." He adds that India is "encouraged" by Merkel's seeming acceptance of an Indian proposal that global emissions negotiations be handled on a per-capita basis.

In a move that will slash emissions now, GreenPacks.org's Bill Belew writes that 7-Eleven Japan will outfit all of its new stores with light-emitting diode (LED) signboards and outdoor lighting. The LEDs are expected to use 75% less electricity than the fluorescent lights they will replace, and will cut 7-Eleven Japan's GHG emissions by 3%.

Finally, when delegates and stakeholders gather in Poznan next month, a bloc of nearly 40 rainforest nations, the Coalition for Rainforest Nations (CRN), will lobby the UN to establish a single body to coordinate the use of carbon credit trading in an effort to stop deforestation. CRN and others hope to include the UN-backed scheme called REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), in the successor to the Kyoto Protocol, according to a report by Svetlana Kovalyova of Reuters.

Justin Gerdes,

Web Editor