Entangled Alliances

It’s crunch time on capital hill as the Obama administration puts its political capital on the line for the House to pass the Waxman-Markey bill. For those of you who don’t know, the Waxman-Markey bill is the first Climate Change bill to be introduced in the US ( on a federal level).

So what does it promise? (See here for a more comprehensive overview)

• To reduce US emissions on 2005 levels by 17% by 2020
• To bring US emissions down by 80% by 2050
• 25% of US energy by 2025 must be renewable
• A Cap and Trade system, 85% of permits will be auctioned off
• 2 Billion tons worth of carbon offsets
• A whole host of other measures from building efficiency, fuel standards and even a new technology bank!

Ok it’s been watered down, see Kelly McManus’ coverage at Climatico to,how its been watered down. Worse the Senate will be an even tougher battle with a smaller Democratic majority, and still no Al Franken *sigh*, but make no mistake, this bill is a game changer.

For a long time, I’ve had a list of things I would like Obama to do ( not including saving the US economy):

1. Health care
2. Climate Change bill
3. Immigration Reform
4. Gay rights

That isn’t a definitive list but if he got those down, that would do for me. Although far from perfect, this Climate Change bill is the only realistic chance of success in combatting Climate change, not simply because the US is the world’s second largest polluter but because it is the world’s superpower and the largest economy. If the US  was not willing to take serious action against Climate Change, China India and the rest will never get on board. As we head towards crucial Climate negotiations at the end of this year and the beginning of the next this is probably the only chance the US has of passing a serious Climate Change bill in time, to show it is willing to take serious leadership

And to be honest, the Democrats won’t have it this good for a long time, at best they will keep a hold in the 2010 mid terms, there is a small chance they’ll be able to expand and a good chance they will slip a little bit. They have a large majority in the house and IF Franken were ever seated would be looking at filibuster proof majority in the Senate. The time really is now.

So if it passes what then? Well if it passes, it still ahs to go and get watered down in the Senate, but if it survives that and the Republicans don’t use the fillibuster than a framework has been set for the US to reduce Climate emissions. With luck this will change the nature of debate for further incremental legislation to strengthen the legislation, critical to this will be:

• Proven success of green jobs, already a growing number of economists and think tanks ( e.g. Pew Research) have come out in support – that green can be good for the economy.
• An economic upturn in general, weakens the hand of those who oppose the bill purely on economic grounds.
• The continual reduction in climate sceptics as evidence already insurmountable continues to pile over, until Republicans realise that opposing near total majority of world scientific research is ridiculous, this could take a long time, but if enough of the American public are convinced, Republicans may eventualyl change their tune. Then the debate will be about the type of policy rather than the exisitence of Carbon Dioxide :-p

The House votes tommorow, fingers crossed.