Movement on Climate Change

Politics & Energy A Combustible Mix

By Richard Martin, 11-30-07

There’s encouraging news on the energy-politics front this week, as congressional leaders look set to agree on a long-delayed energy bill, world leaders prepare for a major climate-change conference in Bali, Indonesia, and the federal Energy Information Administration reported a 1.5% drop in total greenhouse-gas emissions in 2006 compared to the previous year.

Even Colorado Republicans got into the act, saying they are readying a slate of environmental bills that will include measures to support the logging of beetle-infested pine trees and encouraging consumers to buy energy-efficient appliances.

Inevitably, these welcome developments come with big caveats. The biggest is that the U.S. Congress will almost certainly not pass a bill this year that will impose a “cap-and-trade” system for limiting carbon emissions by American companies – a first domino that is key to enacting a serious energy policy not only in this country but around the world.

“The hardest part of climate-change mitigation—getting an international agreement which all the big emitters ratify—won’t happen until America adopts serious domestic emissions-control measures,” reported The Economist, in a story about the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that starts in Bali on December 3rd.

It’s a measure of the total abandonment of any responsible role on energy policy by America’s leaders that climate-change activists “will be happy if they manage to stop America, OPEC or the developing countries creating serious roadblocks” at the Bali gathering, The Economist adds.

The bill now making its way through Congress includes domestic fuel-economy regulations for cars of 35 mph, average, by 2020, and mandatory increases in the use of biofuels by utilities and corporations. The 35-mph figure is way below what most analysts consider feasible or helpful in the next 12 years, and under what presidential candidates like Sen. Hillary Clinton are proposing.

While the Bush Administration pointed out that the EIA report on reduced emissions was “the largest annual improvement since 1985,” it’s unlikely that actions taken by politicans on either side of the aisle had much to do with it. The agency reported that “favorable weather patterns … and higher energy prices were the primary causes of lower total energy consumption.” Increased reliance on natural gas over coal, and on non-fossil fuel energy sources, also contributed – proving that decisive action on energy policy can make a significant dent in greenhouse-gas emissions.

I’m one of those who believes that energy policy far outweighs any other issue facing the country right now, and the absence of any political will to mitigate our fossil-fuel addiction becomes more striking by the day. The issue didn’t even arise at the Republican presidential debate on Wednesday night, and while all the Democratic candidates have some form of energy policy, none of those proposals are tough, realistic, or far-sighted enough to make a profound difference.

“There has been a lot of talk about energy policy in the last few years, but far too little about energy politics,” writes energy and strategy consultant Geoffrey Styles on his Energy Outlook blog. With the window for taking significant action to prevent catastrophic climate change narrowing, it’s time for that to change.

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.