Der Spiegel: Obama Has Failed the World on Climate Change

[G_j]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,661678,00.html


Obama Has Failed the World on Climate Change

By Christian Schwägerl

US President Barack Obama came to office promising hope and change. But on climate change, he has followed in the footsteps of his predecessor, George W. Bush. Now, should the climate summit in Copenhagen fail, the blame will lie squarely with Obama.

The folder labeled "climate change" that George W. Bush left behind for his successor on the desk of the Oval Office in January likely wasn't a thick one. Although Bush once said that America is overly dependent on oil, he never got beyond that insight. He was too busy waging war on Iraq and searching for a legal basis for extraordinary renditions to pay much attention to the real threat facing humanity. "Forget the climate" seems to have been Bush's unofficial motto.


But few people expected that Barack Obama, of all people, would continue his predecessor's climate change plan. When he took office at the beginning of 2009, it was clear that the success of the UN Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen in December depended almost entirely on the US -- that America needed to take a clear leadership role on a problem that could shake civilization to its very core.

Only if the US manages to reduce its excessive energy consumption, commit itself to mandatory CO2 emission reduction targets and help finance poorer countries' move away from oil is there still a chance that countries like China and India will do the same and that a dangerous warming of the Earth can be stopped. On the weekend, Obama announced that there would be no agreement on binding rules in Copenhagen. It was the admission of a massive failing -- and the prelude to a truly dramatic phase of international climate policy.

<snip>

Barack Obama cast himself as a "citizen of the world" when he delivered his well-received campaign speech in Berlin in the summer of 2008. But the US president has now betrayed this claim. In his Berlin speech, he was dishonest with Europe. Since then, Obama has neglected the single most important issue for an American president who likes to imagine himself as a world citizen, namely, his country's addiction to fossil fuels and the risks of unchecked climate change. Health-care reform and other domestic issues were more important to him than global environmental threats. He was either unwilling or unable to convince skeptics in his own ranks and potential defectors from the ranks of the Republicans to support him, for example, by promising alternative investments as a compensation for states with large coal reserves.

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[Imajika]

1. Oh please...

Obama has a crap ton of stuff on his plate. He and Speaker Pelosi already forced many vulnerable Democrats to stick their necks out and vote in the House on a climate bill which is DOA in the Senate. A lot of Dems may lose their seats for that vote, a vote taken to show the world that we were serious, a vote taken on a bill that most knew wouldn't go anywhere in the Senate.

What can Obama do when the American public simply isn't willing to sacrifice much in the name of combating climate change? He can't change minds overnight. He can't fight every battle at once. The President is doing what he can. Europeans are playing a clever game, they pay lip service to all sorts of dramatic action they know they will never have to abide by. They know the US public is pretty much opposed to any climate bill with real teeth, so Europeans can declare they are for the most drastic of actions knowing full well they will never need to abide by much of anything because no actual, binding agreement will be reached anytime soon.

Obama has moved the debate on climate change forward as much as he can. Push too hard on something this unpopular before the American public has come onboard and the President will wind up with a GOP congress. What good would that be to anyone?

Healthcare comes first. Financial regulations follow. Something on climate may happen in 2011. The President will use the time between now and then to move the American public towards being more agreeable to a real commitment that involves some sacrifice.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. You already posted this earlier this morning.

Ironically from the same source that also just published global warming denialism. Which is also posted in GD.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

3. A Climate bill would be the impetus for all the

green jobs everyone is screaming for. Once again the American public shoot's itself in the foot.