U.S. Lagging in Climate Change Leadership

IndustryThe Copenhagen summit is just 100 days away and countries around the world are making commitments and passing national legislation toward cutting emissions and battling climate change.

Among the big players, the EU is clearly leading the way, and China is making a lot of commitments to reducing their emissions in the coming decades. The U.S., for all of the clean power and sustainability initiatives and talk, has passed little legislation toward any kind of meaningful change. Couple that with the lack of signing the most recent Kyoto Agreement and you have a country that is a major emitter with no plan in place for how to deal with climate change in the future.

That could prove problematic in the negotiations and conversations at the Copenhagen meetings.  

"How are we going to be able to move other nations in the same direction we want to move on trade issues or on fighting extremists if we can't deliver on climate change, when the rest of the world is moving forward?”said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

His message rings true and echoes questions I have brought up before. If we, as one of the major leading countries in the world can’t commit to cuts and have a plan in place, how can we ask other countries to make cuts and commitments?

"The United States needs to set a very firm and clear example if we are to be successful in getting the other countries to be equally aggressive in addressing climate change," said U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.

The words of these two officials need to be heeded closely by the senate when they come back from the August break. With health care reform and Obama’s national health care initiative in the pipeline for debate, the stage is set for a busy and contentious fall. While there is certainly time to get two bills into and through the senate, the possibility of animosity between the parties that could lead to one or both of the bills not making it through is very real. Politics could get in the way of progress.

The House version of the bill that passed last June called for a 17% cut below 2005 levels by 2020. While this is a difficult and imposing number to reach, it still lags behind other cuts promised and proposed by leaders in the EU.

"We think it is important for the president to be empowered to be able to say to the rest of the world that America stands ready to lead on this issue," said Vilsack .

That will be difficult to say whether legislation passes or not. But it will be next to impossible if it does not.

There has been much opposition from almost all fronts in the U.S. as industry lobbyists and policy-people have rallied to battle the rises in costs and challenges that would accompany any kind of climate change- battling bill. While this is true that it will create challenges and definitely cost money, the fact remains that there is no way around it. There needs to be U.S. leadership in the world on this debate and issue and that leadership needs to start at home.