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Os EUA e a Agenda Climática: urgências, inconveniências e... contingências

"Climate of doubt" via Frontline / PBS

Ao contrário do que sucedeu na campanha eleitoral americana de 2008, em que tanto Barack Obama como John McCain elegeram a questão das Alterações Climáticas uma prioridade nacional, o assunto praticamente se eclipsou do debate, na corrida à Casa Branca em 2012. Em nenhum dos três frente-a-frente televisivos entre Obama e Romney a questão foi aflorada, não obstante as pesquisas indicarem que essa é uma preocupação cara aos eleitores.
Por ironia, a questão mais silenciada pelos dois candidatos ao longo da campanha, acabou por dominar as atenções, nos EUA e no Mundo, justamente na recta final da disputa eleitoral, por conta da passagem trágica do furacão Sandy pelo país e pelas Caraíbas. A posição de ambos sobre o assunto transformou-se, aliás, num elemento determinante, confessado por muitos eleitores para decidir o voto. Depois de meses a ignorarem a matéria, Obama e Romney foram surpreendidos pela situação e, ao arrepio do que tinham nos planos, viram-se forçados a dar o tudo por tudo com a matéria no comando das acções eleitorais.
A marcha à ré no debate e na acção, todavia, não é de agora e acentua-se desde que a 'agenda verde' de Obama esbarrou nos primeiros obstáculos, logo no início do seu primeiro mandato. Mais: o fervor de consciência ambiental, que Al Gore (Prémio Nobel, dois óscares com "Uma Verdade Inconveniente") teve a capacidade de colocar no topo das urgências mundiais, foi-se diluindo e cedendo à contra-campanha organizada por aqueles que veêm na responsabilização da acção humana sobre a Natureza o obstáculo a uma exploração económica que querem livre e desregulada. Aproveitando o cenário de recessão mundial, cavalgaram a onda da crise financeira e acenaram com o fantasma do desemprego, associaram a defesa do clima a uma perda generalizada de postos de trabalho, capitalizaram o pavor social e foram neutralizando as demandas globais de intervenção em favor do Planeta. 
A demissão e o impasse gerado pelos EUA face ao Protocolo de Kyoto, a sua sistemática recusa num acordo de redução nas emissões de carbono e, por fim, a ausência da Cimeira Rio+20, são apenas os ganchos mais flagrantes do abandono da agenda climática tão obstinadamente defendida por Obama até à eleição de 2008.
A reportagem em baixo ajuda a perceber os tentáculos que minaram a agenda climática nos EUA, pervertendo o debate, mais pela combinação de interesses de circunstância do que através de objecção com fundamento científico, culminando num processo contaminação da opinião, de contornos no mínimo escusos, que atende pelo nome de 'Climategate'. 


Seguem dois artigos de Coral Davenport, correspondente do The National Jornal para as questões da energia e do ambiente: um, publicado no final de Outubro, sobre o silêncio de Obama a respeito da matéria, durante a campanha eleitoral; outro, publicado em Setembro, à data da Convenção Nacional do Partido Republicano, no âmbito das referências críticas e irónicas que o tema das Alterações Climáticas mereceu no discurso de Mitt Romney. Numa dessas intervenções, Romney arrancou gargalhadas à plateia, contrapondo:
”President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans. And to heal the planet. My promise is to help you and your family.”

As declarações valeram-lhe a simpatia da ala céptica da sociedade americana, que despreza as preocupações ambientais, mas a vantagem eleitoral que aparentemente renderam acabaram por se voltar contra Romney ainda antes das urnas. A calamidade provocada pelo furacão Sandy recolocou as preocupações climáticas no topo das prioridades dos eleitores. Confrontado com os efeitos reais do problema, o candidato foi obrigado a engolir o desdém de que se vangloriara um mês antes.
A incongruência - entre a ausência de discurso político, o interesse manifesto dos cidadãos e as evidências incontornáveis da realidade - que o Sandy veio expor é de tal forma flagrante que os EUA discutem agora, a poucos dias da eleição, a forma a vitória de um ou outro candidato se pode vir a decidir em torno de uma política para as Alterações Climáticas.

A este respeito, e a par com os dois artigos referidos, vale ainda ler uma entrevista de Coral Davenport ao "Frontline", da PBS, onde ela analisa a inversão abissal do Congresso sobre o assunto e explica que opções políticas ainda estão sobre a mesa, para aqueles que defendem a necessidade de acção urgente neste domínio.

[ENTREVISTA]

In 2008, Obama campaigned pretty actively around the issue of climate change, proposing a cap-and-trade system that would put a ceiling on carbon dioxide emissions. What’s behind his quieter stance this election?

… In this campaign, the public perception has shifted so much. The Republican Party has shifted so far to the right that it has denied the science at all.
Another reason is the biggest issue in this campaign: the economy and jobs. Republicans have sold climate regulation as something that will hurt jobs, that it will probably increase the price of fossil fuels. So within the Obama campaign there’s a sense that [this is a losing battle].
[Obama] campaigned on this aggressive, detailed [cap-and-trade] plan, and they torpedoed it. It passed the House, just barely, and died in the Senate. And in the midterm elections, Republicans campaigned on cap-and-trade to the point where it became politically toxic. …
Part of Obama’s campaign promise was to pass cap-and-trade and use that money for the government to invest heavily in clean energy research; $150 billion was his campaign pledge.
What ended up happening was that in 2009, soon after Obama was elected, Congress passed the stimulus, with $50 billion … to invest in clean energy. The first big solar company to get funds was Solyndra, which later went bankrupt. And so this campaign promise of clean energy spending became politically toxic, it became something [used] to attack the idea of clean energy spending.
Democrats who had supported cap-and-trade retreated. It became fodder for campaign ads. It was portrayed as an energy tax that would hurt the economy. And then a lot of Democrats who supported cap-and-trade ending up losing their jobs [in the midterm elections].

So if cap-and-trade is no longer an option, what options does Obama have to address climate change if he’s re-elected?

He doesn’t have a lot of options. He cannot go back to cap-and-trade; that has no chance of passing.
One thing he could and probably will do is use the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] to roll out new rules limiting coal-fired power plants that would require coal plants to rein in their pollution of C02 emissions.
It’s very unpopular. He’d probably not want to talk about this on the campaign trail because it could lead to the closure of coal plants in Ohio, Virginia, Colorado and Pennsylvania — all swing states. …

What are the chances Congress would take up the issue, and in what way?

Cap-and-trade is dead, but there is one policy that does have some bipartisan support. It’s kind of a long shot, but it’s a carbon tax. Economists say the most effective way to address the issue is to put a tax on greenhouse emissions. Republicans like the idea in exchange for an end to other taxes they don’t like.
In the next year, Congress is expected to take up a sweeping tax code reform to clean up the tax code and help the federal deficit. So a lot of old tax policies will be on the table.
So if they frame this as not an environmental issue, but as a good tax policy, as part of the mix, as good fiscal policy, that could be one opening in the next year or so that would be tremendous environmental policy that economists say would be the most effective.

What’s Mitt Romney’s campaign stance on climate change?

… Mitt Romney has had several positions on this issue. As a governor, he pushed climate change policies, pushed his government on the issue, promised to close coal plants. In his book, he said he supports this idea of this carbon tax, like McCain.
But when he started running in the Republican primary this year, where he was attacked by those on the right, like Perry, who denied climate change, [Romney] also went to the right and walked back his former views. He’s indicated he’s not sure what causes climate change. In this speech at Republican National Convention, he mocked the issue, telling the crowd: ”President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans. And to heal the planet. My promise is to help you and your family.” That was a laugh line.

In Congress, who’s leading on climate change issues? Who isn’t doing anything?

In the Republican-majority House, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Fred Upton, is now supposed to undercut climate change, undercut EPA regulations, which is an awkward position for him because for most of his career, he was a real moderate on this issue. He used to say it was a problem. He sponsored legislation to mandate energy-efficient light bulbs with lower emissions.
Within the House, the other big leaders are Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, charged with leading investigations into the executive branch. He’s made this a big issue. [Congressman] Joe Barton, a Republican from Texas, is known as one of the biggest skeptics. And in the Senate, Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.). They used to be out in the cold. …
As for leaders on the left pushing for change, there’s Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and he was the leading sponsor of House cap-and-trade bill that passed, and which led to a lot of his Democratic colleagues losing their jobs [in the 2010 midterm elections]. He’s the stalwart environmentalist not backing down.

Among Republicans, is there anyone pushing to address climate change?

Outside of Congress, there are a lot of Republicans who are very concerned in the way their party talks about climate change. They’re afraid the Republicans will end up on the wrong side of history, and this view will come back and hurt them badly. So they’re outside the political process having conversations on how to push the issue.
The Energy and Enterprise Initiative is made up of Bob Inglis of South Carolina, who lost his job in part for support of climate change and is working with conservative economist Art Laffer, with the support of Romney adviser Greg Mankiw to push for this idea of the carbon tax.
There is also the Young Conservatives for Energy Reform, a Christian Coalition linked up with [Young Republicans], that fears that the party is morally on the wrong side of the issue.
So there’s a growing conversation of Republicans who aren’t in public office, who are worried, who want to tell Republicans that if they go back to a moderate place on this issue, we will still support them.
But a much more powerful voice is fossil fuel groups and SuperPACs. They haven’t had nearly as much of a voice as the SuperPACs, like Americans for Prosperity, or the coal groups, like the American Coalition for Clean Coal and Electricity, which are spending very heavily to influence the campaign and make sure Republican candidates don’t move on the issue.

Are there economic costs to not addressing the issue? What are the costs for American taxpayers?

The economic costs are adding up. One thing scientists say is that we’re already starting to see increased floods, and so there are increased insurance rates in areas where there are more floods, stronger hurricanes or increased drought.
We had record drought this year, which sent up food prices. So climate change is already starting to have an impact on bottom lines. Former Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, who lost his Republican primary, said that even if Republicans aren’t going to come to the table [on the issue of climate change], they better be prepared to pay for the results of it, the taxpayer damage. This is going to keep coming and driving up costs. …

How much do voters care about the issue?

It’s interesting because a couple of years ago we saw polls showing that fewer and fewer people were convinced by climate science or believed in climate change.
Now we have extreme droughts, record weather damage, on the taxpayer’s dime, and we’re starting see voters change. [A Pew study released last week] showed that in the last year, an increasing number of Americans say the earth has been getting warmer over the last few decades and that the rise in the earth’s temperature is mostly because of human activity.
This is an issue for independent voters who say that where a candidate stands on climate change change can influence their vote, and they want to see a candidate who will do something on climate change. So that’s a new dynamic that we’re starting in the hump stretch of this election season. Part of it has to do with the extreme weather of this summer, when we saw food prices go up. Extreme drought is something that can be directly tied to climate change. Voters tend to respond to dynamics that are most directly affecting them. It’s fresh in voters’ minds.


e ainda:

Outros documentários:




 Obama's Climate-Change Silence
by Coral Davenport

The president is finally talking about global warming again, but his best chance of actually doing something about it may come if he keeps quiet.

Climate change is slowly returning to the campaign conversation. After essentially ignoring the issue all year, President Obama has finally begun to explicitly address the dangers of fossil-fuel emissions warming the atmosphere, a phenomenon that an overwhelming majority of scientists agree will have grave consequences—some of which are already evident in the form of extreme droughts, increased flooding, and more-devastating storms. At an Oct. 11 rally in Miami, Obama said, “And, by the way, my plan will reduce the climate pollution that’s heating our planet. Because climate change is not a hoax … it’s a threat to our children’s future.”
The problem with the president’s plan is that there isn’t one. He hasn’t offered any specifics on how he would combat climate change should he win a second term. During the 2008 campaign, Obama talked about the issue frequently. Then, in soaring rhetoric, he promised to slow the rise of the oceans. And in a detailed policy proposal, he laid out exactly how he would do that: Urge Congress to pass a cap-and-trade plan that would limit emissions of carbon pollution, make polluters such as coal plants and oil refineries pay the federal government for permits to pollute, and set up a market in which companies could buy and sell the pollution permits.

The plan, of course, was torpedoed in Congress. Cap-and-trade became politically toxic, and when the solar company Solyndra went bankrupt and faced an FBI probe after receiving $535 million in federal loan guarantees, the well was poisoned for any major new government spending on clean energy.

So if those two strategies are nonstarters, what is it exactly that Obama could do in a second term to combat climate change? The options are limited—and also fraught with political risk.

After Congress failed to pass cap-and-trade, Obama took matters into his own hands. He used the executive authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to roll out regulations to force polluters such as coal plants to limit their emissions, and he struck a deal with auto companies requiring them to build new cars with much higher fuel efficiency and less tailpipe pollution. The regulations will help the U.S. lower its carbon emissions (although not, scientists warn, enough to stave off environmental disaster). But they came at a steep price: EPA became the top target in GOP fusillades against government regulation, and the “war on coal” has emerged as a potent campaign theme that could cost Obama the election.

Nonetheless, it’s almost certain that if he does win a second term, the president would continue to use EPA to lower the nation’s carbon pollution, and the agency would probably act even more aggressively than it already has. Earlier this year, EPA proposed regulations that would force companies to slash carbon pollution from any new coal-fired power plants—an action that has helped to freeze construction plans for such plants.

In a second Obama term, EPA would be expected to put out a second round of rules, this time limiting pollution from existing plants. Those regulations would have a major real-world economic and environmental impact, forcing some coal plants to invest in expensive new technology to cut pollution, and they could even force companies to shut down some plants. But given the importance of coal mining and cheap coal-powered electricity in the crucial 2012 swing states of Colorado, Ohio, and Virginia, it’s not surprising that neither the White House nor EPA has offered details about the agency’s next round of climate rules.

In Congress, which will likely remain divided between a Democratic Senate and a Republican House, the chances of moving any kind of comprehensive climate-change legislation appear, at first blush, to be nil. But advocates say they see one big opportunity in the coming year: Congress is expected to take up a sweeping tax-reform proposal. And as conversations around Washington start revving about what will be included in that deal, one idea keeps popping up: a tax on carbon pollution, paired with a cut somewhere else, such as the payroll tax or income tax.

Environmentalists love the idea because putting a price on carbon drives consumers and industry away from polluting energy and toward low-carbon energy. And conservative economists like it, too: Gregory Mankiw, an adviser to Mitt Romney’s campaign; Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the economist who advised John McCain’s presidential campaign; and Art Laffer, a senior economist with the Reagan administration, are all big fans. Many Republicans wouldn’t embrace a new tax on pollution, but they would love to lower taxes on income. A September report from the Congressional Research Service, meanwhile, found that a carbon tax on its own could reduce the federal deficit between 10 and 50 percent.

Political strategists say, however, that the surest way for Obama to doom the carbon tax is to talk about it, especially as climate policy. For the idea to have any chance of survival in Congress, it will probably have to come from a Republican and be dressed up as fiscal, not environmental, reform.

“The ideal starting point is for it to be a Republican idea,” said former Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., who supports climate policy and now lobbies his onetime colleagues on environmental issues. “The president has to walk gingerly. The sell has to be done very carefully. The wrong thing for the president to do would be to warmly embrace the idea at the start.”

Early in President Clinton’s first term, Vice President Al Gore unsuccessfully pushed for a tax on each Btu, or British thermal unit, of energy consumed. “When Gore tried the Btu tax on climate grounds, it was a disaster,” said Paul Bledsoe, a policy consultant who served as communications director of the White House Climate Change Task Force under Clinton. “A carbon tax has to be sold on economic, fiscal, and budget grounds—not as climate policy.”

For Obama to get a policy solution he really wants on global warming, he may have to stay—in public, at least—as far away from the conversation as possible. In this case, the man who promised change can’t be its agent.

published in the Saturday, October 20, 2012 edition of National Journal



Conventions Revive Climate-Change Debate
by Coral Davenport

After being left out in the cold all year, global warming is making a reappearance on the campaign trail.

President Obama, who campaigned aggressively in 2008 on the promise of fighting climate change, has barely mentioned the subject during this campaign, despite a summer of record heat and drought and news reports linking such extreme weather events to increases in greenhouse gases.
But on Thursday night, under the spotlight at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, just two months from the general election, Obama made his most high-profile mention of the controversial issue this year.
“And yes, my plan will continue to reduce the carbon pollution that is heating our planet—because climate change is not a hoax,” Obama said. “More droughts and floods and wildfires are not a joke. They’re a threat to our children’s future. And in this election, you can do something about it,” he said, to a sustained ovation.

Until now, Obama’s advisers calculated that in a campaign centered on the economy, a pledge to save the environment by cutting carbon pollution would fall flat—and create a target for Republican attacks. But Thursday’s remarks could signal a new willingness to address a crucial public-policy issue which both campaigns have until now avoided.

Credit Republican nominee Mitt Romney with putting the spotlight back on the issue, when, during his speech last week, he essentially mocked Obama’s climate agenda. “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet,” he said in his acceptance speech for the party’s presidential nomination, drawing a laugh from delegates at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. “My promise is to help you and your family.”

The jab cried out for a response. Republican advisers said that Romney was not mocking climate change per se, but rather Obama’s lofty rhetoric in a 2008 speech, when he said, “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” But the remark was widely interpreted as a reinforcement of the extreme right-wing view, espoused by Republicans like Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, that climate science is hoax.

Despite conventional campaign wisdom that talking about climate change during economically tough times is a losing issue, some experts say that Romney’s climate jab may have hurt him, while creating a new opening for Obama to win over independent voters. While questioning climate change may have helped Romney win in primaries, polls show that the majority of general-election voters accept climate science.

An August poll from Yale University found that 55 percent of voters say they will consider candidates’ views on global warming when deciding how to vote, and that 88 percent support U.S. action to reduce global warming, even if it has economic costs. The authors of the poll presented their findings to the White House this spring, noting that it ran counter to conventional campaign wisdom.

Anthony Leiserowitz, coauthor of the Yale poll, said of Romney’s convention jab, “He was throwing red meat to the base. It may have been a laugh line, but those who aren’t part of his conservative base may have been shocked that he would mock this. He will be forced to pay for it in some fundamental way with moderates and independents.”

Meanwhile, Obama has faced a growing urgency from his own base to take a stand on climate. All week in Charlotte, youthful protestors in the streets and campaign donors in backrooms have ratcheted up the pressure on Obama to address the issue.

Even if Obama wins a second term, however, it will be difficult for him to advance a climate-change bill. He’ll face either a divided or heavily Republican Congress, in which climate-change legislation stands little chance of advancing. Instead, he’s likely to continue to use the executive authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to roll out new climate regulations, such as rules requiring that coal-fired power plants slash their carbon emissions—a deeply unpopular tactic.

“If you take a step back and look at what this administration’s done to invest in clean energy and double down on energy efficiency initiatives, we’ve made it clear that we are going to look strategically at how we use our existing authorities,” Heather Zichal, Obama’s deputy energy and climate-change adviser, told reporters on Thursday. “We will continue to focus on that in next administration, and obviously the big issue will remain engagement with Congress.”


published in the September 6, 2012 edition of National Journal


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Em adenda: sobre o Caso 'Climategate' 

Em resumo:

The e-mails appeared in In November 2009, just weeks before the United Nations Conference on Climate Change held in Copenhagen in December 2009.
At the time, many climate change experts claimed the files were stolen in an attempt to undermine the talks. After its completion, the December Copenhagen climate conference was widely seen to have failed in its aim of agreeing a global deal on climate change.
Independent review published in July 2010 cleared scientists of wrongdoing.
While the inquiry may have given the all clear to the scientists, the controversy may have done more harm than good to the cause. A poll from April 2010 by Rasmussen Reports show that the number of likely voters who believe global warming is a serious problem is on the decline:  the 'climategate' scandal changed public opinion of global warming.

Para ler:

Para assistir:

Climate-gate debate  | December 8, 2009
The scandal over leaked e-mails on climate change data adds fuel to the fire in a heated climate change debate.
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/12/07/tsr.inhofe.climate.change.cnn

Climategate 101 | December 7, 2009
Stolen e-mails and documents fuel the debate over climate change and could overshadow the climate conference in December.
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2009/12/07/allen.climategate.101.cnn

Scientist blasts 'Climategate' | December 7, 2009
The head of the UN climate change panel discusses 'climategate' and how it's trying to undermine the group's findings.

 

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