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The governor’s actions often work against his tough talk on pollution.
Evan Halper, Los Angeles Times
As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger travels the world exhorting countries to act quickly to reduce harmful gas emissions, his administration is helping California’s construction industry stall tough new air quality rules at home.
In public hearings and private negotiations, administration transportation officials are working to slow a planned crackdown by regulators on aging diesel construction equipment — among the state’s most noxious machinery and a major source of greenhouse gases.
The officials successfully lobbied a board appointed by the governor to delay voting on draft regulations for dealing with the polluters. The officials argued that the new rules, years in the making, were too tough on the construction industry — which is a major Schwarzenegger donor.
Last week, the governor fired the board’s chairman, who said he was let go after pushing ahead with aggressive pollution curbs. The administration said the chairman was fired because he wasn’t tough enough — a claim environmentalists find dubious. On Monday, the board’s executive officer quit with a sharply worded criticism of the administration.
The departed air board officials said they were frustrated by administration meddling in both the diesel construction equipment crackdown and the implementation of landmark legislation the governor signed last year to curb global warming.
It is not the first time the governor has made bold promises on the environment while his administration dragged its feet behind the scenes.
(3 July 2007)
Governor Schwarzenegger has gotten great public relations from his environmental initiatives. Will he resist pressures to water them down? Only if the issue is kept before the public. -BA
Related:
Governor accused of playing politics on warming rules (SF Chronicle)
Blowup over global warming: Air board director quits after governor fires her boss (Sacramento Bee)
Calif. air board leader quits in dispute (Associated Press)
Moving Beyond Kyoto
Al Gore, New York Times
…we should demand that the United States join an international treaty within the next two years that cuts global warming pollution by 90 percent in developed countries and by more than half worldwide in time for the next generation to inherit a healthy Earth.
This treaty would mark a new effort. I am proud of my role during the Clinton administration in negotiating the Kyoto protocol. But I believe that the protocol has been so demonized in the United States that it probably cannot be ratified here — much in the way the Carter administration was prevented from winning ratification of an expanded strategic arms limitation treaty in 1979. Moreover, the negotiations will soon begin on a tougher climate treaty.
Therefore, just as President Reagan renamed and modified the SALT agreement (calling it Start), after belatedly recognizing the need for it, our next president must immediately focus on quickly concluding a new and even tougher climate change pact. We should aim to complete this global treaty by the end of 2009 — and not wait until 2012 as currently planned.
If by the beginning of 2009, the United States already has in place a domestic regime to reduce global warming pollution, I have no doubt that when we give industry a goal and the tools and flexibility to sharply reduce carbon emissions, we can complete and ratify a new treaty quickly. It is, after all, a planetary emergency.
A new treaty will still have differentiated commitments, of course; countries will be asked to meet different requirements based upon their historical share or contribution to the problem and their relative ability to carry the burden of change. This precedent is well established in international law, and there is no other way to do it.
There are some who will try to pervert this precedent and use xenophobia or nativist arguments to say that every country should be held to the same standard. But should countries with one-fifth our gross domestic product — countries that contributed almost nothing in the past to the creation of this crisis — really carry the same load as the United States? Are we so scared of this challenge that we cannot lead?
Our children have a right to hold us to a higher standard when their future — indeed, the future of all human civilization — is hanging in the balance. They deserve better than a government that censors the best scientific evidence and harasses honest scientists who try to warn us about looming catastrophe. They deserve better than politicians who sit on their hands and do nothing to confront the greatest challenge that humankind has ever faced — even as the danger bears down on us.
We should focus instead on the opportunities that are part of this challenge. Certainly, there will be new jobs and new profits as corporations move aggressively to capture the enormous economic opportunities offered by a clean energy future.
But there’s something even more precious to be gained if we do the right thing. The climate crisis offers us the chance to experience what few generations in history have had the privilege of experiencing: a generational mission; a compelling moral purpose; a shared cause; and the thrill of being forced by circumstances to put aside the pettiness and conflict of politics and to embrace a genuine moral and spiritual challenge.
Al Gore, vice president from 1993 to 2001, is the chairman of the Alliance for Climate Protection. He is the author, most recently, of “The Assault on Reason.”
(1 July 2007)
Contributor Rick Dworsky writes:
Time has never been more of the essence…
to see beyond our own lives.
For most, that is alien territory.
Exxon Mobil: A proud oil giant comes to the climate change policy table
Tobias Webb, Climate Change Corp.
The world’s largest company by revenue is determined to make its mark on global climate change policy. But is it too little too late? Some critics think so.
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Ken Cohen, Exxon Mobil’s public affairs vice-president, is a sharp-looking former lawyer. He’s also head of the company’s political action committee in the US and chairman of the company’s foundation.
But Cohen is the man Greenpeace says is the architect of Exxon’s funding of organisations that oppose the mainstream agenda of trying to curb manmade climate change. Greanpeace and other environmental groups also say that Exxon has no interest whatsoever in developing renewable energy facilities.
After years of public and private fighting over oil spills and, more recently, climate change, it is today plain to see that Exxon and Greenpeace simply loathe each other.
Exxon says it funds all kinds of groups within the public policy debate, not just climate change policy groups, and does not always agree with everything said by the groups it funds.
On renewable energy, Exxon is unapologetic about its absence from the sector since the 1980s, citing the International Energy Agency’s forecast that 80% of the world’s rapidly growing energy needs will be met from traditional fuel sources over the next 20 years. Instead of renewable energy, the company says new technology and efficiencies, encouraged by emissions capping and trading, are the key to tackling global environmental threats.
Exxon denies that it has ever opposed the science of climate change.
(3 July 2007)
