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The McCain Global Warming Plan: Like Bush, More of the Same--Putting Interests of Polluters over the People

Laudable Goals but Fails to Reach Them

By Carl Pope
Executive Director
Sierra Club

While Senator McCain deserves credit for his work on early global warming legislation in the Senate and for bringing attention to the need for urgent action, his plan is driven by yesterday's solutions and they won't solve tomorrow's problems. The science on global warming has changed dramatically over the last five years and Senator McCain's proposals are outdated and fail to provide the big changes Americans are demanding.

Like President Bush, McCain's policies on global warming offer more of the same, by putting the interests of polluters over the people and failing to invest in building a clean energy economy that will create new jobs and opportunities at a time when an economic boost is sorely needed. Americans want real change--investment in clean, renewable energy instead of Big Oil, Nuclear power and other polluting industries. We need more windmills not windfalls. Unfortunately Senator McCain's plan is designed to fail.

Any credible global warming plan, including Senator McCain's should adhere these basic principles:

First, the targets and timetables must be sufficient to do what the science demands in both the near and long terms to reduce the negative impacts of climate change to the maximum extent possible. This will require reductions in total emissions on the order of 80 percent by 2050 and 20 percent by 2020.

Next, permits to emit carbon must be used for public benefit, not private windfalls. Pollution allowances are a public trust. All allowances should be auctioned or otherwise used to benefit the public, not to generate windfall profits for polluting industries. Free allocations, if any, must be limited in size and restricted to a short transition period.

Revenue raised by the bill should be used to promote a clean energy future by investing in the highest-value solutions for emissions reductions first. These funds should not be used to perpetuate dirty, expensive, outdated technologies like coal and nuclear energy. Allowances and auction revenues should be used to accelerate deployment of the clean energy technologies we have today and to develop the ones we need for tomorrow. Funds should be invested only in the cleanest, cheapest, safest, and fastest means of reducing emissions.

Finally, the bill must ensure a just transition for workers, protect vulnerable groups, and help induce world action. Allowances and auction revenues should be used to protect low- and moderate-income citizens from rising energy costs and other negative economic impacts, create new jobs, ensure fair treatment for affected workers and their communities, and drive technology transfer to help achieve emissions reductions around the world. We must also take care of communities that suffer the impacts of global warming we were too late to avoid.

Numerous studies have shown that we can achieve these goals and meet our energy needs with the cleanest energy sources and efficiency and without relying on dirty power. If Senator McCain wants to have a credible and feasible plan for addressing global warming, he must demonstrate a commitment to these principles and have a plan that adds up to what science tells us the world needs. Senator McCain should also join other Senators to end outrageous subsidies to polluters like Big Oil as they continue to rake in record profits. Unfortunately, even as Senator McCain urges America to shower the nuclear energy industry with billions in subsidies, he has criticized money for biofuels and failed to support incentives for clean renewable energy like wind and solar power.

Carl Pope was appointed Executive Director of the Sierra Club in 1992. A veteran leader in the environmental movement, Mr. Pope has been with the Sierra Club for nearly thirty years. During Mr. Pope's tenure as Executive Director, Sierra Club added 150,000 new members, growing to 700,000.

Posted on May 12, 2008

Comments

Treating CO2 as pollution when carbon from industrial sources makes up less than 1% of the annual global budget is insane. That's why it continues, the big lie gets repeated louder and louder until there is a following of true believers. The American philosopher, Eric Hoffer, summed up the angst of modern life, facsism, cults, and eco-as-religion in his little book by that name in 1951. It's a good read if you believe in freedom from dogmatic cults.

Posted by: Dr. Francis T. Manns at May 12, 2008 05:27 PM

Dear Mr. Pope,

I'm as pro-environment as the next guy but I have a few questions/comments.

Could you please elaborate, if only briefly on the dramatically changing science on global warming. What changes? Has science given up trotting after the corporate dollar and come back to trying to help the public? Are there any practical solutions being offered that are being witheld from us?

Wind has it's merits, but don't you find that the number of windmills it takes and the land required to hold them rather prohibitive as far as land use goes? Particularly if you consider how hard it seems to be to get and keep land these days.

All of the stats and demands in the world don't make a bit of difference without practical solutions. Airy-Fairy wishes and "Pie-in-the-Sky" goal setting often seem to be all the critics considering themselves "progressive" on almost every harsh reality – have to offer.

As an example, your declaration that care of communities that suffer the impacts of global warming we were too late to avoid being our responsibility completely ignores the fact that it is a global problem thus must be a global solution.

Go talk to China and India and once they are in the program (up and functioning), come and see us again. Us meaning your fellow citizens - already suffering the consequences of a market overcome by greed, a medical community taken over by the business world and a large number of leaders and advisors that like you, care about everyone but them.

I'm sorry if I seem hostile to you in this letter. It's not you at all. It's just that America and Americans need hard, practical solutions to serious problems. If we are to be what we are capable of, it's going to take every damn one of us. That means operating with our feet on the ground, all of us. Even you.

Sincerely,

The Political Stray

Posted by: ThePoliticalStray at May 13, 2008 02:10 PM

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