Climate Politics

One small step for Republicans on climate, but giant leaps still needed

I've noticed recently that some conservatives -- particularly Andrew Sullivan -- have offered kind words to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for being the only presidential candidate in the Republican field to take the climate change issue seriously.

It's difficult to know what to make of this. On the one hand, the country would be in a much better position to seriously address the crisis if John McCain's environmental views fell in the mainstream of his party, instead of where they actually fall -- radically at odds with the views of his party's leaders, virtually all conservative thinkers, and almost every last pundit on the right. If that's ever going to change, it will probably require more people like Andrew Sullivan to highlight -- and praise -- the fact that McCain isn't a typical right-wing denialist or industry shill.

At the same time, though, this really brings to light just how far behind the issue green conservatives are, and, as a corollary to that, the fact that the party of the filibuster is light years away from accepting the sort of legislation that will be necessary very, very soon if the problem is to be addressed adequately.

The next president needs to move with speed and clear vision on mitigating climate change

This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Bill Becker, Executive Director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.

As I mentioned in a previous post, many of my colleagues in climate-action circles are delighted at the detailed commitments the presidential candidates in the Democratic field are making around global warming. It seems ungrateful to ask them for more. But ask we must.

We need to know what they'll do to act quickly. And we need to hear their unifying vision for the post-carbon world.

On speed: We've all read Jim Hansen's warning that the international community must take significant action within a decade if we wish to avoid the most dangerous consequences of global warming.

Now the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has moved up the deadline. In announcing the IPCC's final report on Nov. 16, Rajendra Pachuari warned, "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment."

Notable quotable

“I know that this president does not harbor any resentments. Never has.” — White House press secretary Dana Perino, on President Bush’s private meeting with Nobel laureate Al Gore

Australia elects prime minister who wants to ratify Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol climate treaty may soon welcome a new industrialized country to the fold. Australia’s newly elected prime minister, Kevin Rudd, has announced he will act in the next few weeks on a campaign promise to have Australia ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which would make the United States the only industrialized country in the […]

Grist presidential climate forum: full transcript and video

Last week, I offered my impressions of the candidates at our presidential forum on climate. Now the complete transcript (PDF) and full video are available. Make your own judgments and share your own impressions in comments. (This video will be permanently available here.) You can embed the videos on your own site: If you’d like […]

How egregious are farm subsidies?

So egregious that they make the Bush administration look reasonable. I repeat my contention that completely eliminating this boondoggle that trashes the environment, increases incentives for obesity, and distorts the entire global agricultural trade should be a high priority for environmentalists. Step #1: call it what it is -- corporate welfare.

Australian prime minister goes down to decisive defeat

Global warming takes down its first major political victim:

Conservative Prime Minister John Howard suffered a humiliating defeat Saturday at the hands of the left-leaning opposition, whose leader has promised to immediately sign the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

Why the stunning loss? A key reason was Howard's "head in the sand dust" response to the country's brutal once-in-a-thousand year drought. As the UK's Independent reported in April:

... few scientists dispute the part played by climate change, which is making Australia hotter and drier ... Until a few months ago, Mr Howard and his ministers pooh-poohed the climate-change doomsayers.

You can read about Howard's lame attempt to change his position rhetoric on global warming here.

Asian countries sign on to vague climate pact

Leaders of 14 Asian countries, along with Australia and New Zealand, have signed onto a climate pact that says — well, nothing in particular, really. Maybe it’s the thought that counts, but setting specific goals for addressing a rather important global crisis would count for a hell of a lot more. In our humble opinion.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown makes ambitious climate speech

In his first major speech on the environment, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has suggested that Britain could aim to cut its greenhouse-gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. To accomplish said goal, Brown promised that all new dwellings in Britain will be zero-carbon by 2016, and that free insulation, low-energy light bulbs, and efficient appliances […]

Revenue insurance is a promising option for farm aid

This is a guest post from Britt Lundgren, an Agricultural Policy Fellow at Environmental Defense. It is part of a recent conversation on agricultural policy.

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Fixing farm policy, which has been the single largest influence on the shape of agriculture in the U.S. since the Dust Bowl, is not easy. "Not easy" will seem a drastic understatement to anyone who has followed the endless debate on the Senate floor over the past two weeks, which has produced much hand-wringing and rhetoric about our "safe and abundant food supply," but no actual Farm Bill.

Tom Philpott has argued in recent posts that farm subsidies are a symptom of the problems associated with modern agriculture rather than the cause, and that efforts to end subsidies are bad policy. In his view, overproduction is the true culprit, and unless farm bill reforms include a mechanism to control supply we will continue to have problems.

It's easy to blame everything on overproduction, but it is just not accurate. Prices for corn, soybeans, and many other commodity crops are higher than they've ever been right now. Prices don't rise when there's too much of a commodity, they rise when demand exceeds supply.

I do agree with Mr. Philpott on one point: simply ending farm subsidies is not going to immediately end all of the environmental problems caused or aggravated by agricultural production.

But farm subsidy reform advocates are not talking about ending subsidies. We don't want to pull the rug out from underneath farmers. Instead, we want to exchange the wall-to-wall shag carpet for something more modest -- a safety net for farmers that is less market-distorting and costs less than $9 billion a year. A better safety net will do far less to amplify problems caused by agricultural production than current farm policy does, and will also free up funds that can be used to address these problems.