international politics

Gore recites climate woes in speech at U.N.

Al Gore's address to the U.N. General Assembly today was a much darker affair than I assumed it would be. Given that the stated goal today is to lay the groundwork for international institution-building and unity of vision, I expected he'd take a more inspirational approach. Instead, about three-quarters of his speech was a thorough enumeration of the effects global warming is already having on the planet.

Included in his litany of woes:

• The faster-than-expected melting of Arctic ice, the million of years it will take for the caps to reform if they melt entirely, and the pressure the melting puts on the Greenland shelf.
• The potential six-meter rise in sea levels associated with such melting.
• Glaciers retreating all over the planet.
• The total disappearance of Lake Chad.
• Stronger typhoons, cyclones, and hurricanes making landfall worldwide.
• Record floods in India, Bangladesh, and elsewhere.
• 35,000 people killed in 2003 European heat wave.

Goodness.

White House behind lobbying campaign to undermine California auto-emissions plan, Waxman charges

Arnold Schwarzenegger, who gave a rather good speech today here at the U.N. climate summit, is famously attempting to cut California's greenhouse-gas emissions. Now come accusations that the White House is behind a lobbying effort to get the U.S. EPA to reject Schwarzenegger's plan to regulate GHGs from cars and trucks.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chair of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, got wind of the situation. Writes Jesse Lee in "The Gavel," Speaker Pelosi's blog:

Chairman Waxman has obtained internal e-mails which show that Transportation Secretary Mary Peters personally directed a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign approved by the White House to oppose EPA approval of California's landmark standards reducing greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.

Bush’s climate summit promises no change in U.S. stance

Bush may be hosting a climate summit this week, but "what he will not do, officials said, is chart any shift in policies." Specifically, the Washington Post reports:

Top Bush administration officials said the president is not planning to alter his opposition to mandatory limits on greenhouse gases or to stray from his emphasis on promoting new technologies, especially for nuclear power and for the storage of carbon dioxide produced by coal plants.

This is straight from the Frank Luntz playbook on how to seem like you care about the climate when you don't: Technology, technology, technology. Yada. Yada. Yada. Delay, delay, delay.

Leaders of Chile, Austria, Ecuador, and other countries talk about the climate challenge

Here at today's U.N. Climate Summit in New York, everyone seems to agree that bringing America into a leadership role on climate change is a necessary condition for forestalling the climate change crisis. From my perspective, then, the success or failure of this summit should be judged by its ability to make progress on that front.

We've heard from -- among others -- Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and Federal Chancellor of Austria Alfred Gusenbauer, both of whom delivered passionate speeches about the pressing need for mitigation but without really explaining why countries (and America in particular) are hesitant to mitigate their emissions or how to upend that hesitance. We've heard about California's inspiring example, without hearing how crucial it is for that example to influence the greater United States. And on and on.

Bush parallel climate meetings intended to avoid binding treaty

Bush is blowing off the U.N. climate meeting happening this week, choosing instead to focus on his parallel international climate meetings. I ask you to savor the multiple absurdities embedded in this paragraph in the NYT: Mr. Bush’s aides say that the parallel meeting does not compete against the United Nations’ process — hijacking it, […]

Iraq flushes Blackwater: Time for a real debate on troop levels?

When Gen. Petraeus faced down Congressional questioners last week, few of his interlocutors were impolite enough to ask about what I have called the "rent-a-soldier surge": the some 180,000 private contractors, many of them heavily armed, now serving in Iraq at the pleasure of President Bush, on the dime of the U.S. public. To put […]

Conservative economists agree: Taxes rule!

Stalwart Republican, former Bush advisor, and Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw makes the case for the carbon tax. He also thinks a carbon tax is the most achievable global policy: A global carbon tax would be easier to negotiate. All governments require revenue for public purposes. The world’s nations could agree to use a carbon […]

A strange and old-fashioned way to start a hip, cutting edge conference

I’m in a session about “Energy, Climate Change & Resource Nationalism” with General Bruce Wright, commander of U.S. Air Force in Japan, and Dr. Liam Fox, Shadow Secretary of State of Defence and Member of Parliament in the UK. These are old-school guys, fairly conservative, and they’re painting a grim picture. China is ravenous, buying […]

German Chancellor Merkel focuses on climate change

In Germany, when the going gets tough, the tough go green:

Chancellor Angela Merkel seems to have realized that, contrary to the song lyrics, sometimes it's quite easy being green.

Mrs. Merkel has shied away from the biggest fight at home: the deep economic restructuring she advocated during her campaign two years ago. And on the matter of the suspected terrorist plot in the heart of Germany, she has remained in the background, apparently happy to cede the limelight to her interior minister, Wolfgang Schäuble.

But in the past month Mrs. Merkel could be found inspecting glaciers in Greenland and calling for new measures to combat global warming at a conference in Kyoto, Japan. It was as if Ronald Reagan had turned into Al Gore after being elected. But the voters loved it, awarding her the highest approval ratings any chancellor has enjoyed since World War II. [my emphasis]

The fact that a center-right politician can ride eco-campaigning to popularity could be a lesson for U.S. Republicans. Though Fred Thompson recently ridiculed global warming, polls show doing so might not be the smartest political move. The environment is the one issue on which Republican politicians are most out-of-step with the Republican base. According to a recent Pew study, 65 percent of Republicans want stricter environmental laws (though it's questionable how much of a voting priority it is). Ultimately, however, Merkel's ability to pull off a green hat trick shows the importance of creating bipartisan support for environmental protection.