2. Unhitching financial infrastructure from commodities infrastructure looking more likely
3. I think in this article there are some good examples of how political regimes get realigned around commodity politics. Many of these examples show a state attempting to reorient its formal policy to insulate it from dominance by private finance. I was unaware that India has already 'unhitched' five commodity markets from futures markets. Interesting. Perhaps a type of policy idea that could be applied elsewhere?
-----------------------
Germany in call for ban on oil speculation
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Last Updated: 12:53am BST 27/05/2008
German leaders are to propose a worldwide ban on oil trading by speculators, blaming the latest spike in crude prices on manipulation by hedge funds.
It is the most drastic proposal to date amid escalating calls from Europe, the US and Asia for controls on market forces, underscoring the profound shift in the political climate since the credit crunch began. India has already suspended futures trading of five commodities.
Car lights are seen streaking past an oil rig extracting petroleum
Speculators are split, with some betting that oil will fall
Uwe Beckmeyer, transport chief for Germany's Social Democrats, said his party would call for joint measures by the G8 powers to prohibit leveraged trading on energy contracts.
"It's an extreme step but it has to be done," he told the Berlin media.
Mr Beckmeyer said the last 25pc rise in the price of oil to $135 a barrel had nothing to do with underlying supply and demand. “It’s pure speculation,” he said.
# George Soros: rocketing oil price is a bubble
Oil has doubled in price over the past year and the concerns are echoed on Washington’s Capitol Hill where irate Democrats want rules compelling traders to take delivery of crude oil, a move which would paralyse the market.
There is now broad support in Germany for a clampdown on “locust” funds. President Horst Köhler said modern capitalism had turned into a “monster”, bringing the entire financial system to the brink of collapse this spring.
The Social Democrats form part of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition. Her own Christian Democrat Party shares concerns that funds are causing a fresh bubble in commodities, risking further havoc for the real economy and society.
In the long run, any scheme to ban futures trading would be extremely hard to enforce as the markets would tend to move offshore. Hedge funds are probably not the culprit in any case. [?]
Speculators are split, with some betting that oil will fall. The mass of money coming into the commodity indexes is mostly from pension funds and long-term investors.
Oil markets are likely to shrug off the moves as political posturing, instead focusing on Norway’s suspension of crude output at three platforms, cutting supply by 138,000 barrels a day.
The news comes as Lloyd’s Marine Intelligence reported Opec oil shipments fell by 1m barrels per day in the four weeks to May 4, confirming suspicions that the market has been chronically short of supply.
[Then there was that 'smart pig' that stopped the whole Alaskan pipeline in the USA during high summer in 2006 as another infrastructural example of how different systemic areas of society can influence the relative prices of a commodity without reference to market behavior by altering the 'consumptive flows' capacities themselves, and seemingly, intentionally.]
Ex-diplomat encourage youth to fight against yellow dust
This is an article based on interview with a diplomat turned environmentalist. In this article, former Korean ambassador to china, Byong-hyon, 69 has expressed his serious concern on Yellow dust and its effect on environment. He is urging to every citizen to be responsible to the man made desertification. Also, he has encourage the Youth of both countries china and Korea to lead the motion of forestation. Further article describe the effort mad e my ambassador to establish a relationship between china and Korea to fight against yellow dust jointly. During my four year stay in Korea I am suffered from yellow dust twice a year. The old diplomat initiation to work with young generation is sounds good.
Ex-Ambassador Fights Yellow Dust
By Kang Shin-who Staff Reporter
A former Korean ambassador to China has been fighting the yellow dust phenomenon for 10 years. Kwon Byong-hyon, 69, chairman of Korea-China Culture & Youth Association (Future Forest), said desertification is certainly man-made and everybody should take responsibility for it in an interview with The Korea Times, Monday.
As part of his efforts, Kwon has been sending Korean college students to China on tree-planting projects and environmental seminars since 2002 along with the establishment of Future Forest, an environmental organization. The organization has annually invited Chinese students highly recognized by the Communist Youth League of China, a renowned group of top students in the country, to Korea.
``Korean and Chinese youngsters should take the lead in protecting our environment against rapid desertification. I believe future leaders should be concerned about problems in the environment. This is why I launched exchange programs for elite students from both countries,’’ Kwon said.
When Kwon arrived Beijing as the new ambassador to China in 1998, he immediately experienced a terrible yellow dust day and realized the threat desertification posed in China and the Korean Peninsula as well. In the wake of the environmental problems, he proposed the Chinese government cooperate with Korea on combating the yellow dust phenomenon and the two countries agreed on a tree-planting project.
At the same time, the former ambassador suggested the Communist Youth League of China exchange 500 students every year to boost the relationship between the two countries. However, large-scale student exchange programs were impossible due to a shortage of funds from the government.
``Back in Korea, I found the government was only able to send 40 students and decided to set up the civil organization run by private funds. This is how Future Forest was established,’’ Kwon said.
Now Future Forest organizes the exchange of 100 students and holds environmental seminars and events for a week. This year the organization sent Korean students on a green environment project in spring and invited Chinese students last week to the first Korea-China elite forum from Oct. 26 - Nov. 1.
As a result of Kwon’s ambitious efforts on the yellow dust problem, a ``Green Great Wall’’ consisting of trees in the northern part of China has been established. Kwon plans to develop the zone into a ``Green Ecological Park’’ for which he hopes to reach an agreement with the Chinese government soon.
Kwon joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1962 and was acting head of the Korean negotiation delegation for normalization of relations with China in 1992. He served as ambassador to China between 1998 and 2000 and headed the Overseas Koreans Foundation until 2003.
2. Ex-diplomat encourage to ight against yellow dust
3. This is an article based on interview with a diplomat turned environmentalist. In this article, former Korean ambassador to china, Byong-hyon, 69 has expressed his serious concern on Yellow dust and its effect on environment. He is urging to every citizen to be responsible to the man made desertification. Also, he has encourage the Youth of both countries china and Korea to lead the motion of forestation. Further article describe the effort mad e my ambassador to establish a relationship between china and Korea to fight against yellow dust jointly. During my four year stay in Korea I am suffered from yellow dust twice a year. The old diplomat initiation to work with young generation is sounds good.
Ex-Ambassador Fights Yellow Dust
By Kang Shin-who Staff Reporter
A former Korean ambassador to China has been fighting the yellow dust phenomenon for 10 years. Kwon Byong-hyon, 69, chairman of Korea-China Culture & Youth Association (Future Forest), said desertification is certainly man-made and everybody should take responsibility for it in an interview with The Korea Times, Monday.
As part of his efforts, Kwon has been sending Korean college students to China on tree-planting projects and environmental seminars since 2002 along with the establishment of Future Forest, an environmental organization. The organization has annually invited Chinese students highly recognized by the Communist Youth League of China, a renowned group of top students in the country, to Korea.
``Korean and Chinese youngsters should take the lead in protecting our environment against rapid desertification. I believe future leaders should be concerned about problems in the environment. This is why I launched exchange programs for elite students from both countries,’’ Kwon said.
When Kwon arrived Beijing as the new ambassador to China in 1998, he immediately experienced a terrible yellow dust day and realized the threat desertification posed in China and the Korean Peninsula as well. In the wake of the environmental problems, he proposed the Chinese government cooperate with Korea on combating the yellow dust phenomenon and the two countries agreed on a tree-planting project.
At the same time, the former ambassador suggested the Communist Youth League of China exchange 500 students every year to boost the relationship between the two countries. However, large-scale student exchange programs were impossible due to a shortage of funds from the government.
``Back in Korea, I found the government was only able to send 40 students and decided to set up the civil organization run by private funds. This is how Future Forest was established,’’ Kwon said.
Now Future Forest organizes the exchange of 100 students and holds environmental seminars and events for a week. This year the organization sent Korean students on a green environment project in spring and invited Chinese students last week to the first Korea-China elite forum from Oct. 26 - Nov. 1.
As a result of Kwon’s ambitious efforts on the yellow dust problem, a ``Green Great Wall’’ consisting of trees in the northern part of China has been established. Kwon plans to develop the zone into a ``Green Ecological Park’’ for which he hopes to reach an agreement with the Chinese government soon.
Kwon joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1962 and was acting head of the Korean negotiation delegation for normalization of relations with China in 1992. He served as ambassador to China between 1998 and 2000 and headed the Overseas Koreans Foundation until 2003.
2. Process of changing oil-addicted infrastructure
3. Global warming requests radical changes to social infrastructure. This article is about a bill which will bring this kind of change in USA. The focus of the bill is a plan cap the production of greenhouse gases , force polluters to buy permits to emit carbon dioxide. It is not likely to be passed in this time but many people expect that will bring ripe time of political time. This kind of change always bring resistance. However, once this get it done, it will greatly influence other country since US greatly influeces world economy. _________________
June 3, 2008 Senate Opens Debate on Politically Risky Bill Addressing Global Warming By JOHN M. BRODER WASHINGTON — The Senate on Monday opened a raucous debate over climate change legislation even though it will put supporters of the bill, including all three presidential candidates, on the spot — essentially forcing them to come out in favor of high energy costs at a time when American consumers are paying record fuel prices.
While the three candidates are on record favoring legislative action on global warming, the Bush administration opposes a far-reaching bill.
The measure’s sponsors say the nation must take immediate action to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and cut carbon emissions, but many senators in both parties see the legislation as an expensive long-term plan that would do little to solve today’s energy supply and price problems. In fact, the legislation is not expected to pass in the Senate this year.
The debate, which could last all week, will force senators to take a stand on some of the most difficult, expensive and potentially life-altering questions the world will face in coming decades.
And lawmakers on Monday embraced the challenge, voting 74 to 14 in favor of the first of several procedural steps needed to bring the bill to the Senate floor.
Thirteen Republicans, including the minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, voted in opposition as did one Democrat, Robert C. Byrd, from the coal-producing state of West Virginia.
Proponents say the nation cannot afford to wait until fuel prices come down to begin to deal with these problems. Opponents argue that the bill would direct the largest changes in the American economy since the 1930s and should not be rushed through without painstaking debate.
“There’s a great feeling all across America by people in small villages and towns to large cities to state legislatures and others: we must move and move now,” Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia and a co-sponsor of the bill, said as debate opened on the floor. “Do something. Doing nothing is not an option. Let us do something.”
But critics of the bill said it would do more harm than good.
“Any action has to provide real protections for the American economy and jobs, and we must protect the American families,” said Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma. “Any action should not raise the cost of gasoline or energy to American families, particularly the low-income and elderly who are most susceptible to energy costs.”
The debate is shaping up as both a landmark moment and an opportunity for both sides to score political points. Opponents could pay a price for voting to block legislation that is intended to slow and ultimately reverse production of greenhouse gases that scientists warn are exacting an increasingly heavy environmental toll.
Even though high energy prices and an overheated political climate pose serious obstacles to such a far-reaching bill this year, whatever the Senate does will set the terms of the debate when a new Congress and president take office next January.
The heart of the bill is a plan to cap the production of greenhouse gases that scientists blame for the warming and, for the first time, force polluters to buy permits to emit carbon dioxide. For better or worse, putting a price on those emissions could be a wrenching change.
All three major presidential candidates have expressed support for the cap-and-trade concept that underlies this legislation, but all have said they would like to see changes in the current bill. The Democratic candidates, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, would like to see its pollution targets strengthened, while Senator John McCain, a Republican, is demanding that it provide more help for the nuclear power industry.
All three candidates said that their schedules for the week were in flux but that they would participate in debates and votes if they were in Washington.
The bill’s chief promoter, Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, said that the Bush administration had failed to address either energy costs or global warming and that Congress had to step into the breach now.
“There were a lot of voices saying, ‘Why do this now? Why do we have to do this now?’ ” Mrs. Boxer said, opening the Democrats’ argument for the bill. “Because it is, in fact, one of the greatest challenges of our generation and we have to respond with a landmark bill, and it will take us awhile and we must get started.”
The bill is a revision of a plan proposed last year by Mr. Warner and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut.
The measure would reduce American production of climate-altering gases by nearly 70 percent from current levels by 2050. It would provide billions of dollars in subsidies for energy conservation and environmentally clean technologies, creating millions of jobs, proponents say.
The sale of the permits would raise more than $5 trillion for the government in the coming decades, money that the bill proposes to distribute to affected industries, consumers and local governments in one of the biggest programs of redistribution of American wealth in history. The bill’s proponents say the money would help pay for a technological leap that would create millions of new jobs while cleaning the atmosphere.
Given the timing and the range of opposition, it appears unlikely that the bill will pass the Senate. (Similar efforts are under way in the House.) President Bush has stated opposition to the mandatory emissions limits and numerous other provisions.
But history shows that far-reaching environmental legislation often gets off to a slow start, then passes both houses of Congress and is signed into law when the political time is ripe. “If we get a majority or even close, we will be that much closer to addressing global warming and passing legislation in the next Congress, whoever the president is,” said David Doniger, director of climate policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We may not get it done this year, but if not we start next year just a few steps from the finish line.”
Senator Bob Corker, a freshman Republican from Tennessee, said in an interview that he favored a cap-and-trade program in theory but found serious flaws in the bill. He will be among those seeking to derail it.
“This bill is not going to become law,” Mr. Corker said. “It has no chance, none.”
Mr. Corker is proposing a string of amendments that Democrats characterize as “poison pills” that would undermine the purpose of the legislation. His amendments would return more of the receipts from the carbon permits directly to taxpayers, eliminate the issuance of free permits and do away with the ability of American companies to meet their emissions targets by buying offsets overseas.
One of the major points of contention arises from the bill’s treatment of goods from developing countries that are among the world’s biggest carbon emitters, including China, India, Brazil and Mexico.
The measure directs the president to negotiate agreements with those countries to ensure they are imposing binding limits on carbon emissions on their own industries. If they fail to do so, the United States will impose unspecified tariffs on carbon-intensive products like steel, paper, concrete and glass from those countries. The provision was included at the behest of labor unions and American companies in those industries who would not support the bill without such a cost equalizer.
In a speech on global warming in mid-May, Mr. McCain endorsed a similar carbon tariff, then backed away from it because of objections from the free-trade wing of the Republican Party. Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama, courting labor support, favor tough carbon-based tariffs.
Frank Ackerman, an economist at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University, said that the nation had lost crucial time in not addressing climate change and that other nations were bypassing the United States in the development of alternative energy technologies. Mr. Ackerman acknowledged that the conversion to a low-carbon economy will be costly for many industries and consumers, but said that the cost of inaction is many times greater.
“How do you price the increased deaths, the losses of endangered species and unique habitats, the increased damages from hurricanes that are becoming more intense?” he asked. “Those numbers dwarf any reasonable estimate of the cost of doing something about climate change. The choice is a no-brainer.”
A very down to earth* kind of guy. I'm an environmental sociologist interested in establishing material and organizational sustainability worldwide. I'm always looking for interesting materials/technologies, inspiring ideas, or institutional examples of sustainability to inspire others to recognize their choices now. To be fatalistic about an unsustainable world is a sign of a captive mind, given all our options.
*(If "earth" is defined in a planetary sense, concerning comparative historical knowledge and interest in the past 10,000 years or so anywhere...) See both blogs.
4 comments:
1. Mark Whitaker
2. Unhitching financial infrastructure from commodities infrastructure looking more likely
3. I think in this article there are some good examples of how political regimes get realigned around commodity politics. Many of these examples show a state attempting to reorient its formal policy to insulate it from dominance by private finance. I was unaware that India has already 'unhitched' five commodity markets from futures markets. Interesting. Perhaps a type of policy idea that could be applied elsewhere?
-----------------------
Germany in call for ban on oil speculation
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 12:53am BST 27/05/2008
German leaders are to propose a worldwide ban on oil trading by speculators, blaming the latest spike in crude prices on manipulation by hedge funds.
It is the most drastic proposal to date amid escalating calls from Europe, the US and Asia for controls on market forces, underscoring the profound shift in the political climate since the credit crunch began. India has already suspended futures trading of five commodities.
Car lights are seen streaking past an oil rig extracting petroleum
Speculators are split, with some betting that oil will fall
Uwe Beckmeyer, transport chief for Germany's Social Democrats, said his party would call for joint measures by the G8 powers to prohibit leveraged trading on energy contracts.
"It's an extreme step but it has to be done," he told the Berlin media.
Mr Beckmeyer said the last 25pc rise in the price of oil to $135 a barrel had nothing to do with underlying supply and demand. “It’s pure speculation,” he said.
# George Soros: rocketing oil price is a bubble
Oil has doubled in price over the past year and the concerns are echoed on Washington’s Capitol Hill where irate Democrats want rules compelling traders to take delivery of crude oil, a move which would paralyse the market.
There is now broad support in Germany for a clampdown on “locust” funds. President Horst Köhler said modern capitalism had turned into a “monster”, bringing the entire financial system to the brink of collapse this spring.
The Social Democrats form part of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition. Her own Christian Democrat Party shares concerns that funds are causing a fresh bubble in commodities, risking further havoc for the real economy and society.
In the long run, any scheme to ban futures trading would be extremely hard to enforce as the markets would tend to move offshore. Hedge funds are probably not the culprit in any case. [?]
Speculators are split, with some betting that oil will fall. The mass of money coming into the commodity indexes is mostly from pension funds and long-term investors.
Oil markets are likely to shrug off the moves as political posturing, instead focusing on Norway’s suspension of crude output at three platforms, cutting supply by 138,000 barrels a day.
The news comes as Lloyd’s Marine Intelligence reported Opec oil shipments fell by 1m barrels per day in the four weeks to May 4, confirming suspicions that the market has been chronically short of supply.
[Then there was that 'smart pig' that stopped the whole Alaskan pipeline in the USA during high summer in 2006 as another infrastructural example of how different systemic areas of society can influence the relative prices of a commodity without reference to market behavior by altering the 'consumptive flows' capacities themselves, and seemingly, intentionally.]
---
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/05/26/cnoil126.xml
Ex-diplomat encourage youth to fight against yellow dust
This is an article based on interview with a diplomat turned environmentalist. In this article, former Korean ambassador to china, Byong-hyon, 69 has expressed his serious concern on Yellow dust and its effect on environment. He is urging to every citizen to be responsible to the man made desertification. Also, he has encourage the Youth of both countries china and Korea to lead the motion of forestation. Further article describe the effort mad e my ambassador to establish a relationship between china and Korea to fight against yellow dust jointly.
During my four year stay in Korea I am suffered from yellow dust twice a year. The old diplomat initiation to work with young generation is sounds good.
Ex-Ambassador Fights Yellow Dust
By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
A former Korean ambassador to China has been fighting the yellow dust phenomenon for 10 years. Kwon Byong-hyon, 69, chairman of Korea-China Culture & Youth Association (Future Forest), said desertification is certainly man-made and everybody should take responsibility for it in an interview with The Korea Times, Monday.
As part of his efforts, Kwon has been sending Korean college students to China on tree-planting projects and environmental seminars since 2002 along with the establishment of Future Forest, an environmental organization. The organization has annually invited Chinese students highly recognized by the Communist Youth League of China, a renowned group of top students in the country, to Korea.
``Korean and Chinese youngsters should take the lead in protecting our environment against rapid desertification. I believe future leaders should be concerned about problems in the environment. This is why I launched exchange programs for elite students from both countries,’’ Kwon said.
When Kwon arrived Beijing as the new ambassador to China in 1998, he immediately experienced a terrible yellow dust day and realized the threat desertification posed in China and the Korean Peninsula as well. In the wake of the environmental problems, he proposed the Chinese government cooperate with Korea on combating the yellow dust phenomenon and the two countries agreed on a tree-planting project.
At the same time, the former ambassador suggested the Communist Youth League of China exchange 500 students every year to boost the relationship between the two countries. However, large-scale student exchange programs were impossible due to a shortage of funds from the government.
``Back in Korea, I found the government was only able to send 40 students and decided to set up the civil organization run by private funds. This is how Future Forest was established,’’ Kwon said.
Now Future Forest organizes the exchange of 100 students and holds environmental seminars and events for a week. This year the organization sent Korean students on a green environment project in spring and invited Chinese students last week to the first Korea-China elite forum from Oct. 26 - Nov. 1.
As a result of Kwon’s ambitious efforts on the yellow dust problem, a ``Green Great Wall’’ consisting of trees in the northern part of China has been established. Kwon plans to develop the zone into a ``Green Ecological Park’’ for which he hopes to reach an agreement with the Chinese government soon.
Kwon joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1962 and was acting head of the Korean negotiation delegation for normalization of relations with China in 1992. He served as ambassador to China between 1998 and 2000 and headed the Overseas Koreans Foundation until 2003.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/special/2008/05/178_12884.html
1. Madhabi Bhatta
2. Ex-diplomat encourage to ight against yellow dust
3. This is an article based on interview with a diplomat turned environmentalist. In this article, former Korean ambassador to china, Byong-hyon, 69 has expressed his serious concern on Yellow dust and its effect on environment. He is urging to every citizen to be responsible to the man made desertification. Also, he has encourage the Youth of both countries china and Korea to lead the motion of forestation. Further article describe the effort mad e my ambassador to establish a relationship between china and Korea to fight against yellow dust jointly.
During my four year stay in Korea I am suffered from yellow dust twice a year. The old diplomat initiation to work with young generation is sounds good.
Ex-Ambassador Fights Yellow Dust
By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
A former Korean ambassador to China has been fighting the yellow dust phenomenon for 10 years. Kwon Byong-hyon, 69, chairman of Korea-China Culture & Youth Association (Future Forest), said desertification is certainly man-made and everybody should take responsibility for it in an interview with The Korea Times, Monday.
As part of his efforts, Kwon has been sending Korean college students to China on tree-planting projects and environmental seminars since 2002 along with the establishment of Future Forest, an environmental organization. The organization has annually invited Chinese students highly recognized by the Communist Youth League of China, a renowned group of top students in the country, to Korea.
``Korean and Chinese youngsters should take the lead in protecting our environment against rapid desertification. I believe future leaders should be concerned about problems in the environment. This is why I launched exchange programs for elite students from both countries,’’ Kwon said.
When Kwon arrived Beijing as the new ambassador to China in 1998, he immediately experienced a terrible yellow dust day and realized the threat desertification posed in China and the Korean Peninsula as well. In the wake of the environmental problems, he proposed the Chinese government cooperate with Korea on combating the yellow dust phenomenon and the two countries agreed on a tree-planting project.
At the same time, the former ambassador suggested the Communist Youth League of China exchange 500 students every year to boost the relationship between the two countries. However, large-scale student exchange programs were impossible due to a shortage of funds from the government.
``Back in Korea, I found the government was only able to send 40 students and decided to set up the civil organization run by private funds. This is how Future Forest was established,’’ Kwon said.
Now Future Forest organizes the exchange of 100 students and holds environmental seminars and events for a week. This year the organization sent Korean students on a green environment project in spring and invited Chinese students last week to the first Korea-China elite forum from Oct. 26 - Nov. 1.
As a result of Kwon’s ambitious efforts on the yellow dust problem, a ``Green Great Wall’’ consisting of trees in the northern part of China has been established. Kwon plans to develop the zone into a ``Green Ecological Park’’ for which he hopes to reach an agreement with the Chinese government soon.
Kwon joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1962 and was acting head of the Korean negotiation delegation for normalization of relations with China in 1992. He served as ambassador to China between 1998 and 2000 and headed the Overseas Koreans Foundation until 2003.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/special/2008/05/178_12884.html
1. yoonjung kim
2. Process of changing oil-addicted infrastructure
3. Global warming requests radical changes to social infrastructure. This article is about a bill which will bring this kind of change in USA. The focus of the bill is a plan cap the production of greenhouse gases , force polluters to buy permits to emit carbon dioxide. It is not likely to be passed in this time but many people expect that will bring ripe time of political time. This kind of change always bring resistance. However, once this get it done, it will greatly influence other country since US greatly influeces world economy.
_________________
June 3, 2008
Senate Opens Debate on Politically Risky Bill Addressing Global Warming
By JOHN M. BRODER
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Monday opened a raucous debate over climate change legislation even though it will put supporters of the bill, including all three presidential candidates, on the spot — essentially forcing them to come out in favor of high energy costs at a time when American consumers are paying record fuel prices.
While the three candidates are on record favoring legislative action on global warming, the Bush administration opposes a far-reaching bill.
The measure’s sponsors say the nation must take immediate action to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and cut carbon emissions, but many senators in both parties see the legislation as an expensive long-term plan that would do little to solve today’s energy supply and price problems. In fact, the legislation is not expected to pass in the Senate this year.
The debate, which could last all week, will force senators to take a stand on some of the most difficult, expensive and potentially life-altering questions the world will face in coming decades.
And lawmakers on Monday embraced the challenge, voting 74 to 14 in favor of the first of several procedural steps needed to bring the bill to the Senate floor.
Thirteen Republicans, including the minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, voted in opposition as did one Democrat, Robert C. Byrd, from the coal-producing state of West Virginia.
Proponents say the nation cannot afford to wait until fuel prices come down to begin to deal with these problems. Opponents argue that the bill would direct the largest changes in the American economy since the 1930s and should not be rushed through without painstaking debate.
“There’s a great feeling all across America by people in small villages and towns to large cities to state legislatures and others: we must move and move now,” Senator John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia and a co-sponsor of the bill, said as debate opened on the floor. “Do something. Doing nothing is not an option. Let us do something.”
But critics of the bill said it would do more harm than good.
“Any action has to provide real protections for the American economy and jobs, and we must protect the American families,” said Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma. “Any action should not raise the cost of gasoline or energy to American families, particularly the low-income and elderly who are most susceptible to energy costs.”
The debate is shaping up as both a landmark moment and an opportunity for both sides to score political points. Opponents could pay a price for voting to block legislation that is intended to slow and ultimately reverse production of greenhouse gases that scientists warn are exacting an increasingly heavy environmental toll.
Even though high energy prices and an overheated political climate pose serious obstacles to such a far-reaching bill this year, whatever the Senate does will set the terms of the debate when a new Congress and president take office next January.
The heart of the bill is a plan to cap the production of greenhouse gases that scientists blame for the warming and, for the first time, force polluters to buy permits to emit carbon dioxide. For better or worse, putting a price on those emissions could be a wrenching change.
All three major presidential candidates have expressed support for the cap-and-trade concept that underlies this legislation, but all have said they would like to see changes in the current bill. The Democratic candidates, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, would like to see its pollution targets strengthened, while Senator John McCain, a Republican, is demanding that it provide more help for the nuclear power industry.
All three candidates said that their schedules for the week were in flux but that they would participate in debates and votes if they were in Washington.
The bill’s chief promoter, Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, said that the Bush administration had failed to address either energy costs or global warming and that Congress had to step into the breach now.
“There were a lot of voices saying, ‘Why do this now? Why do we have to do this now?’ ” Mrs. Boxer said, opening the Democrats’ argument for the bill. “Because it is, in fact, one of the greatest challenges of our generation and we have to respond with a landmark bill, and it will take us awhile and we must get started.”
The bill is a revision of a plan proposed last year by Mr. Warner and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut.
The measure would reduce American production of climate-altering gases by nearly 70 percent from current levels by 2050. It would provide billions of dollars in subsidies for energy conservation and environmentally clean technologies, creating millions of jobs, proponents say.
The sale of the permits would raise more than $5 trillion for the government in the coming decades, money that the bill proposes to distribute to affected industries, consumers and local governments in one of the biggest programs of redistribution of American wealth in history. The bill’s proponents say the money would help pay for a technological leap that would create millions of new jobs while cleaning the atmosphere.
Given the timing and the range of opposition, it appears unlikely that the bill will pass the Senate. (Similar efforts are under way in the House.) President Bush has stated opposition to the mandatory emissions limits and numerous other provisions.
But history shows that far-reaching environmental legislation often gets off to a slow start, then passes both houses of Congress and is signed into law when the political time is ripe. “If we get a majority or even close, we will be that much closer to addressing global warming and passing legislation in the next Congress, whoever the president is,” said David Doniger, director of climate policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We may not get it done this year, but if not we start next year just a few steps from the finish line.”
Senator Bob Corker, a freshman Republican from Tennessee, said in an interview that he favored a cap-and-trade program in theory but found serious flaws in the bill. He will be among those seeking to derail it.
“This bill is not going to become law,” Mr. Corker said. “It has no chance, none.”
Mr. Corker is proposing a string of amendments that Democrats characterize as “poison pills” that would undermine the purpose of the legislation. His amendments would return more of the receipts from the carbon permits directly to taxpayers, eliminate the issuance of free permits and do away with the ability of American companies to meet their emissions targets by buying offsets overseas.
One of the major points of contention arises from the bill’s treatment of goods from developing countries that are among the world’s biggest carbon emitters, including China, India, Brazil and Mexico.
The measure directs the president to negotiate agreements with those countries to ensure they are imposing binding limits on carbon emissions on their own industries. If they fail to do so, the United States will impose unspecified tariffs on carbon-intensive products like steel, paper, concrete and glass from those countries. The provision was included at the behest of labor unions and American companies in those industries who would not support the bill without such a cost equalizer.
In a speech on global warming in mid-May, Mr. McCain endorsed a similar carbon tariff, then backed away from it because of objections from the free-trade wing of the Republican Party. Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama, courting labor support, favor tough carbon-based tariffs.
Frank Ackerman, an economist at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University, said that the nation had lost crucial time in not addressing climate change and that other nations were bypassing the United States in the development of alternative energy technologies. Mr. Ackerman acknowledged that the conversion to a low-carbon economy will be costly for many industries and consumers, but said that the cost of inaction is many times greater.
“How do you price the increased deaths, the losses of endangered species and unique habitats, the increased damages from hurricanes that are becoming more intense?” he asked. “Those numbers dwarf any reasonable estimate of the cost of doing something about climate change. The choice is a no-brainer.”
David M. Herszenhorn contributed reporting.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/03/washington/03climate.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
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