Pro, con: Should Congress address climate change?

U.S. must model action we wish to see from others

By Michael E. Kraft, McClatchy-Tribune News Service

GREEN BAY, Wis. — In its most recent assessment released this fall, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that warming of the Earth’s climate system is both unequivocal and unprecedented, a conclusion that rests on multiple and independent sources of data.

The authoritative IPCC study also found that it was “extremely likely” that human influence, particularly our reliance on fossil fuels, has been the dominant cause of climate change.

At the same time, international meetings — such as the Climate Change Conference just concluded in Warsaw, Poland — struggle to devise broadly acceptable agreements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that pose grave risks to the world’s economy, its environment and public health and well-being.

A major reason for the slow pace of global action is the posture of the United States. As the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases on a per-capita basis, we simply haven’t stepped up to a leadership position.

Nor, for that matter, has China, whose surging economy has pushed it to the No. 1 spot in total greenhouse gas emissions.

What might the United States do to demonstrate convincingly that it is finally prepared to play a leading role in slowing the rate of global climate change and minimizing its effects?

Passing comprehensive national climate change legislation would be a good start.

The United States has hardly been standing still on the issue. More than half of the states and more than a thousand U.S. cities have adopted a diversity of policies that should substantially reduce the release of greenhouse gas emissions. These include innovative actions on renewable fuels, energy efficiency, public transportation, building efficiency and more.

Much has happened at the federal level too. The Obama administration has invested tens of billions of dollars in cutting-edge research on promising renewable energy technologies.

The administration also brokered historic agreements with the auto industry that will raise fuel economy standards for passenger vehicles to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. The new standards translate into impressive savings in use of fossil fuel.

Equally important, the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency are developing regulations for new and existing coal-fired power plants that promise to begin shifting the nation away from use of coal to other energy resources that emit far fewer greenhouse gases.

Yet the new regulations and policy initiatives are not sufficient to tackle climate change. They also come with no national political commitment that might prod reluctant nations around the world to do their own part. And some actions, notably the EPA power plant regulations, are certain to be challenged in court by the fossil fuel industry.

National climate change policy would send a different and more definitive signal to the world that the United States takes climate change seriously and that it is prepared to step out in front on the issue.

This would be true even with the expected political compromises, such as those evident in the climate change legislation that the House of Representatives approved in 2009.

How likely is it that a highly partisan and polarized Congress can enact climate change legislation? It is certainly not likely at present nor as long as Republicans continue to deny the existence of climate change and defend the fossil fuel industry at all costs.

Nonetheless, it is imperative that Congress at least try to design and approve a national climate change policy — and do so soon. It needs to draft legislation, hold hearings, hear experts and other witnesses, review the evidence, and debate the issue at whatever length is necessary to build support.

Congress should explore all reasonable policy tools, including those that appeal to Republicans and conservatives, such as use of market incentives and reliance on the private sector. Clearly, this will be an uphill battle, but it is imperative to try.

Michael E. Kraft is professor emeritus of political science and public and environmental affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Any sacrifice we make will be lost in China’s smog

By Andrew P. Morriss, McClatchy-Tribune News Service

XIAN, China — Congress should not waste time debating a comprehensive climate change legislation in the coming year.

First, the combination of the natural gas revolution created by fracking and the economic doldrums we are stuck in have already cut our emissions of greenhouse gases dramatically without Congress doing anything at all. If they did jump in, they’d be as likely to screw that up as make things better.

In addition, we should wait because the current proposals on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are all expensive and will be cheaper in the future as technologies improve.

Consider the change in cell phone technology and prices over the past 20 years. When the director of Wall Street wanted to emphasize Gordon Gekko’s power and wealth, he portrayed him holding a brick-size cell phone.

Today, even schoolchildren carry iPhones, which are orders of magnitude more powerful — and much cheaper. That same innovative process will make both emissions reduction technology and mitigation efforts cheaper and better in the future.

The United States alone can do next to nothing about greenhouse gas emissions alone and we should not burden our economy to attempt to do so.

China and India are growing so rapidly that their additional greenhouse gas emissions swamp any reductions possible in the U.S. today.

For example, Chinese car ownership today on a per-capita basis is not even equal to U.S. car ownership in 1920.

When — not if — Chinese consumers close that gap, they’ll be driving more than 20 times the number of cars they are driving today. Chinese electricity consumption is similarly rapidly too, with new coal-fired power plants opening like clockwork.

Unilaterally cutting U.S. emissions would be pointless and would handicap negotiators in any effort to reach an agreement with developing economies like China and India.

Those nations will certainly insist on reductions from the developed world as part of the price of any reductions in greenhouse gas emissions they agree to.

If we’ve already unilaterally cut our emissions in advance of an agreement, we will have to make even more painful cuts to persuade developing countries to sign on.

Finally, this particular Congress is going to be unable to reach agreement on any major legislation before the 2014 elections.

The leaders of the House and Senate are barely on speaking terms with each other. There’s plenty of blame to go around, of course, and neither party is innocent.

A serious approach to climate change is going to require legislation touching on many aspects of Americans’ daily lives, since reducing greenhouse gas emissions is ultimately going to require substantial changes in our energy consumption.

Since energy touches every aspect of our lives, this is a subject that requires careful consideration and extended debate. We need candidates putting forward specific proposals and debating their merits on the campaign trail so voters can make an informed choice about the type of approach they want to see. That hasn’t happened yet and debating something this important requires more deliberation than we’ve had yet.

Moreover, as the members of Congress gear up for the 2014 election cycle, their attention will be on fundraising.

Starting a new debate on such a significant issue at this point in the election cycle is a recipe for really bad legislation: to suggest writing a major bill that will touch on virtually every sector of the U.S. economy in an election year will be inviting every special interest in the country to a party where the taxpayers get to play the role of the piñata. Deliberation, not speed, is what we need.

Andrew Morriss holds the D. Paul Jones Jr. and Charlene A. Jones Chair in Law and professor of business at the University of Alabama.