Obama climate plan ignites Washington

Environmentalists hailed President Obama’s plan to force existing power plants to reduce C02 emissions,as a long overdue, just-in-time action to stop global warming now expected to easily cross the 2 degree Celsius threshold that nations had agreed was dangerous. Obama is to speak on the issue at 1:30 EST at Georgetown University. Electric power plants are responsible for 40 percent of the nation’s CO2 emissions, mostly from old coal-burners.

Andrew Steer, president and CEO of World Resources Institute, said on a conference call Monday with other environmentalists that a recent report by the International Energy Agency shows current policies have the earth on track to warm between 3.6 and 5.3 degrees Celsius, levels well beyond the danger level. Steer said the last time the earth was 3C warmer, sea level was more than 20 meters higher than it is today. “We are failing,” Steer said. “The world desperately needs refreshed U.S. leadership.”

Coal-fired power plants are the largest source of CO2 emissions in the U.S. and world. They also emit large amounts of other air and water pollutants, which would drop in tandem with CO2 emissions. Obama promised executive action on climate change in his second inaugural, following Congress’s failure in 2009 to to pass cap and trade legislation. The Environmental Protection Agency has an obligation under a Supreme Court ruling that the agency is obligated to regulate CO2 emissions under the Clean Air Act. The move on existing coal-fired power plants is considered the biggest single action Obama could make on climate.

Asked about the economic costs, David Hawkins, director of climate programs for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said, “What’s in it for the rest of the economy? Everything.” He said the economy and “modern human civilization…is a product of a hospitable climate. Policymakers tend to “underestimate the degree to which human well being depends on the climate we’ve enjoyed for the last 20,000 years. We are tinkering with a system that is literally our life support.”

Hawkins said policies by California and Northeastern states to rein in greenhouse gas emissions would probably count against new federal emissions targets with minor tweaks.

Republicans announced a war on the new policy, which , pouncing on a concession by the administration that is a “war on coal” is what’s needed to attack climate change. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell called the policy a war on jobs.

Local activists from Citizens Climate Lobby, after a pep talk from climate scientist James Hansen, swarmed Capitol Hill Tuesday pushing for a carbon tax, using President Obama’s plan to cut CO2 emissions from power plants as an argument to Republicans to accept a free-market alternative to regulations to address climate change. Putting a price on carbon is widely seen as the most efficient way to control emissions.

Citizens Climate Lobby is pushing the “fee and dividend” approach advocated by Hansen and several prominent GOP economists that would remit the revenues from the tax back to consumers. Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.,are pushing a version that would remit 60 percent (versus the 100 percent Hansen and other propose) of the revenue to consumers.

Steer said it is “indisputable” that putting a price on carbon “would be helpful,” but “we all understand the politics.” He said it is nonetheless important to make the case to conservatives that a “Pigovian tax” on bad stuff like carbon pollution is far preferable to the current system that taxes “good things like labor and jobs.” He noted that even China is experimenting with carbon taxes, along with a dozen other countries.

Some GOP think tanks are debating the idea (see the recent R Street forum). But for now, Republicans, at least currently serving officials, are sticking with climate change denial.

Carolyn Lochhead