Roses are red, violets are blue, here’s a climate change bill for you.
On Valentine’s Day, Senators Boxer and Sanders introduced S. 332, the Climate Protection Act of 2013. Senator Sanders also introduced his Sustainable Energy Act. The outlook for the package isn’t exactly rosy. The bills will have a tough time passing the Senate and would be pretty much DOA in the House.
In this blog, I’ll let others do most of the talking. For a clear conservative position on climate change, let’s turn to last week’s address on climate and development by Andrew Mitchell, the Conservative Secretary of State for International Development in the new British government. This government, you will recall, is headed by David Cameron, another real-live conservative. Secretary Mitchell gave a gem of a speech, and it’s worth digesting in full.
Development advocates hoping for an equitable as well as efficient global agreement on climate change ought to be deeply depressed about the results of a recent FT/Harris poll. What is depressing is the way the question was framed (and that does matter): “Do you agree that, since China is the biggest carbon emitter, it should cut its emissions the most?” In most G-7 countries including the U.S., more than 60 percent of respondents agreed.
Countries importing Chinese goods should be responsible for the heat-trapping gases released during manufacturing, a top Chinese official said yesterday…. "As one of the developing countries, we are at the low end of the production line for the global economy. We produce products, and these products are consumed by other countries.... This share of emissions should be taken by the consumers, but not the producers."
-Associated Press, March 17, 2009
Todd Stern, the chief U.S. climate negotiator, said at a Capitol Hill symposium yesterday that passing U.S. climate legislation before the international conference on climate change in Copenhagen in December would be the best way to ensure global action to slow global warming.