Washington, 5 August 2010

A group of climate policy experts laid out a “Plan B” for the US president to combat GHG emissions. A new report by the Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP), a group of researchers and former lawmakers, outlined five steps President Barack Obama can take to address climate change ahead of the UN climate summit in Cancun this November.

The group said the failure of the US Congress to pass legislation this year that puts a price on carbon has made “proactive presidential leadership more important than ever”.

In the lead-up to Cancun, the PCAP recommended that Obama:

• Work with states and local governments to create a “national roadmap” to a clean energy economy;

• Promote wide-scale energy efficiency;

• Reinvent national transportation policy

• Eliminate fossil fuel energy subsidies;

• Establish ecosystem restoration as a “climate action strategy”.

The PCAP said that even if Congress has not passed a bill codifying the 17 per cent below 2005 GHG reduction target that Obama pledged in Copenhagen, he should not back away from the US commitment.

Presidential power

The report said the president should actually “strengthen his national energy and climate goals to meet or exceed the commitment in the Copenhagen accord”.

The group said the president should use a presidential proclamation to “elevate these goals to the status of national policy”.

The report said since 1937, US Congress has delegated to the executive branch around 112 statutory delegations of authority and 370 executive orders related to the environment.

This means the president has “significant authority, without further action by Congress” to implement various aspects of climate change policy.

States lead the way

They said that working with state and local governments is vital to achieving greenhouse gas reductions as federal legislation stalls in Congress.

The group suggested that the president assemble a council for clean energy economy that consists of governors, mayors, Cabinet secretaries and private sector experts.

The council would help the president develop a framework of a “national economy transition plan” and establish “energy transition” partnerships between state and federal agencies.

“State and local governments have the authority to influence the top three drivers of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions – transportation, buildings and electric power generation,” the report said.

It pointed to the fact that more than 30 states that represent two-thirds of the US population have implemented their own climate action plans, including regional carbon markets.

Efficiency is key

The group also recommended to the president that he should launch a national campaign to make the US the most energy-efficient industrial economy in the world by 2035.

It pointed to data from the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy that said the US wastes 87 per cent of the energy it consumes.

“Because fossil energy costs will inevitably rise -- with or without national policy that prices carbon -- energy efficiency is an important strategy for insulating consumers and the economy from the price and supply volatility of finite resources,” the report said.

The PCAP, which presented its first comprehensive action plan to Obama’s transition team in November 2008, is working on a new set of proposals for the second half of his term in January.

Ends --

By Valerie Volcovici, Point Carbon Thomson Reuters

www.pointcarbon.com