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Media
The 2008 Presidential Election: What It Means for Global Warming
The election is over and the results are in: Barack Obama will be the 44th president of the United States.
What does that mean for global warming and the carbon market?
President-elect Obama’s platform included a much-needed plan of action to combat global warming (see our article from the last issue), including setting a goal of reducing U.S. carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and by 80 percent by 2050 through the use of a cap-and-trade system, and funding a 10-year research renewable energy research program to the tune of $150 billion.
Obama pledged not to wait for developing economies like China and India to act on global warming, but would insist they must not be far behind making their own binding commitments, according to statements made by his aides to Nature, the British science journal.
However, the President-elect faces challenges to his plans, the largest of which is the poor state of the economy. Obama will face enormous pressure to take steps to alleviate a growing recession, and action on global warming may have to take a backseat.
In addition, despite mounting evidence that the transition to a clean energy economy will create jobs and increase business efficiency, a perception remains that carbon markets will raise prices for electricity and other energy sources. To avoid vulnerability on the economic front, Obama may have to shy away from critical climate change legislation that would bring the US in line with the rest of the developed world in time for the global summit in 2009 in Stockholm to enact a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.
The good news is that there are steps we can all take now to combat global warming, regardless of when or how the government acts. First, we can each reduce our carbon footprint as much as possible. And second, we can use high-quality, third-party verified carbon offsets to neutralize the rest.
(Photo by Flickr user mountaineerpics)
