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Obama’s national and international evironmental platform
President Barack Obama’s rhetoric and actions on the issues of climate change and global warming are in stark contrast to that of the previous administration, though it is not as aggressive as many environmental groups would like.
According to this article on NPR, Obama doesn’t shy away from the issue of reducing greenhouse gas emissions or reducing America’s dependency on foreign oil, but his environmental message has largely focused around jobs. He mentioned the creation of green jobs in his 2008 Democratic National Convention speech and in an earlier weekly radio address.
Some environmental groups, such as Greenpeace, are bothered that Obama never addresses the issue in pure environmental terms.
“You do not see the president doing what he has done on healthcare: going out into the public and explaining the problems of climate change, and demanding from the Congress a science-based policy commensurate with the risks we face,” Damon Moglen with Greenpeace is quoted in the article. “So, we need to see much more leadership from Mr. Obama.”
President Barack Obama looks out over the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. Nov. 17, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Still others think the Obama Administration tactic is a huge shift from the Bush Administration.
“It’s interesting to consider that, I think, were the previous administration still in office, we would be debating the science of climate change, we would be debating whether even to send a delegation to Copenhagen,” said U.S. Senate, Colorado Democrat Mark Udall. “Under this administration, we’re fully participating.”
The United Nations Climate Change Conference is Dec. 7 through 18 this year.
This week, on Obama’s first trip to the United States largest creditor, China, he touched on a number of global issues with the country’s president Hu Jintao, including human rights issues and climate change, promising “vigorous response” to the latter to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“The major challenges of the 21st century, from climate change to nuclear proliferation to economic recovery, are challenges that touch both our nations, and challenges that neither of our nations can solve by acting alone,” Obama said.
Obama said the United States may offer a target for carbon emission cuts to boost climate negotiations in Copenhagen if China offers its own proposal.
“There can be no solution to this challenge without the efforts of both China and the United States,” President Obama said.
Seven joint initiatives were also announced by Obama and Hu to strengthen cooperation between the United States and China on clean energy. This includes a joint clean-energy research center, with a $150 million budget to be equally split between the two countries. Other initiatives announced are cooperation on energy efficiency, renewable energy, clean coal and electric vehicles.
Last Friday, at the start of Obama’s eight-day Asia trip, he released a joint statement with Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama that describes their aim to reduce carbon emissions in Japan and the U.S. by 80 percent by 2050.
Obama and Hatoyama also said they “endorse a global goal of reducing emissions by 50 percent by that year.”
Nationally, Obama has pledged to invest in clean energy jobs that cannot be outsourced.
He has said the United States will invest $150 billion during the next 10 years in energy research and development to transition to a clean energy economy.
“So we have a choice to make. We can remain one of the world’s leading importers of foreign oil, or we can make the investments that would allow us to become the world’s leading exporter of renewable energy,” Obama said in a March 2009 speech. “We can let climate change continue to go unchecked, or we can help stop it. We can let the jobs of tomorrow be created abroad, or we can create those jobs right here in America and lay the foundation for lasting prosperity.”
As progress, the Obama Administration cites the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which includes more than $80 billion in clean energy investments to jump start clean energy jobs.
The administration’s goal is to untie the country’s dependability on foreign oil markets and make the United States more energy independent by producing more energy at home and promoting energy efficiency in the transportation electricity, industrial, building and agricultural sectors that reduce energy bills.
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Allen Taylor