Despite Economy, Obama Vows to Press Green Agenda; "a President who understands the fierce urgency"

[DeepModem Mom]

TIME: Despite the Economy, Obama Vows to Press Green Agenda
By Bryan Walsh
Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2008

The only political move more quixotic than attempting to pass sweeping environmental legislation during economic boom times may be trying to do so in the middle of the biggest economic maelstrom in decades. But President-elect Obama apparently is not dissuaded. At an international conference on climate change convened Nov. 18 by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Obama told the audience in taped remarks that he intended to stick to the aggressive carbon-reduction targets he promised before the election, beginning with a federal cap-and-trade system that would put the U.S. on course to reduce emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020, then cut them by another 80% by 2050. He also reiterated a campaign promise to invest $15 billion a year in low-carbon energy, including solar, wind, nuclear and next-generation biofuels.

"Few challenges facing America — and the world — are more urgent than combating climate change," said Obama. "My Presidency will mark a new chapter in America's leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs."

The move reassured doubtful greens. Concern for the environment, the conventional wisdom goes, is the first thing thrown overboard when the economic seas get rough. That's what appeared to have happened in June when the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, the first national bill to mandate greenhouse gas emissions caps to receive a full vote in the Senate, went down in defeat, in part because critics exploited fears that the bill would raise already record-high energy prices.

Obama's green promise also sent an unvarnished signal to some of the most influential climate negotiators in the world — including representatives of China and Indonesia, who will be vital to completing a new Kyoto Protocol — that he intends to take climate change head on. And his statement may well buoy the flagging global momentum on climate change. The European Union, which has long led the world in aggressively addressing global warming, has lately gotten cold feet about its own ambitious carbon targets, with poorer members like Poland arguing that such goals are unaffordable in a depressed global economy. Big developing nations like China, India and Brazil, which will be responsible for the majority of future carbon emissions, have meanwhile remained reluctant to do much about climate change as long as the U.S. stayed on the sideline. "Obama signaled to the world that there is a true recognition that the global challenge of climate change requires U.S. leadership," says Jake Schmidt, the international climate policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council....

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America finally has a President who understands the fierce urgency of climate change. "Delay is no longer an option," Obama said. "Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high. The consequences, too serious."

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1860431,00.html?xid=site-cnn-partner