Federal climate policy progress will take a series of favorable events to come to fruition, especially regarding the President.
Step 1: The issue must be high enough in the positive public consciousness to win the attention and campaign promises of Presidential candidates. Check: Obama said he would set in motion a cap and trade bill to get US emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and then 80% lower by 2050 and he emphasized the potential this sustainable energy transition has to create five million green-collar jobs.
Step 2: The issue must get the honor of joining the post-election message board. Check, as of yesterday: Obama spoke by video to an governors conference on climate change held in California on Tuesday. He renewed his campaign pledges on climate, and said the US would “help lead the world toward a new era of global cooperation on climate change.”
This is an excellent start for our country and the health of our Earth’s climate. But now we get to three more difficult steps (as detailed in John Kingdon’s “Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies“) that are in the recipe for US climate progress…
1. Keep climate change at the forefront of people’s minds
Political theorist John Kingdon called this pillar of progress the “problems” stream. The public has only a few problems at a time that it focuses its attention on, and energy/climate must stay high on the public’s list of concerns for Obama & Co. to spend their political capital on climate change bills. With energy prices lower than the records of mid-2008, it will take work from climate and energy advocates to keep “Joe Sixpack” from forgetting about the Southeast’s gasoline shortages in September, the $4+ per gallon pump prices experienced just a few months ago, and the hotter, more erratic climate we are creating at our current rate of fossil fuel consumption. The key will be to show that climate progress will make us richer (cutting energy costs through efficiency and creating new jobs in renewables development, manufacture, and deployment). Only if climate advocates craft and publicize a bill that can help us recover from our recession (like an efficient cap and trade system) that converges the economy and energy/climate problems streams, will the US move forward in 2009.
2. Build political alliances to pass a climate bill
Kingdon called this pillar the “politics” stream. With Democrats generally more environmentally-inclined than their colleagues on the right, the election seems to have aligned the stars for climate progress in 2009. But alliances across regions of the US must be forged to ensure a majority of representatives in the House and a filibuster-proof critical mass of 60 Senators are on-board. For instance, the bill must show that one region will not benefit and leave the rest of the country with the costs. Increased support for research centers that help each region develop their unique resources (such as wind in the Great Plains, solar in the Southwest, and bio-mass in the East) can help gather the political support necessary.
3. Refine the policy proposal to actionable form
The Lieberman/Warner-style bill of 2007 (which I discussed last week here) will evolve through a committee process in each chamber over the next several months before it is ready for passage. While the bill’s general framework is understood (from its successful application in a 1990 Clean Air Act Amendment to mitigate acid rain from coal plants), there are numerous details to be determined. Federal officials will decide a percentage of the emission permits they would like to auction rather than give away and how exactly they will administer the revenue generated from the auction. Climate advocates will need to regularly engage this federal “policy” stream to ensure compromises among policymakers and lobbyists do not dilute the bill to ineffectiveness.
Once these three streams of problems, politics and policy converge, a window of opportunity will arise for climate progress. There is a danger that we may put off climate mitigation because of short-term economic concerns. Therefore, those of us who understand the devastating impact of runaway climate change must raise our voices. Our letters-to-the-editor, Op-Eds, YouTube videos, and public events are necessary to keep the low cost of action today from preventing us to address the high costs of inaction in the years ahead.
Stay tuned for more info to help us achieve a sustainable energy transition…
Tags: cap and trade, climate change, Obama, transition