Obama’s excellent energy and climate plan
Presidential candidate Barack Obama has released his energy and climate plan — and it is first-rate (PDF here and HTML here). The plan will:
- Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the level recommended by top scientists to avoid calamitous impacts. [Obama will require carbon emissions to be “80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050” through cap & trade (with 100% allowance auction!) starting with a mandate “of reducing emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.”]
- Invest $150 billion over the next ten years to develop and deploy climate friendly energy supplies, protect our existing manufacturing base and create millions of new jobs.
- Dramatically improve energy efficiency to reduce energy intensity of our economy by 50 percent by 2030.
- Reduce our dependence on foreign oil and reduce oil consumption overall by at least 35 percent, or 10 million barrels of oil, by 2030
- Make the U.S. a leader in the global effort to combat climate change by leading a new international global warming partnership.
I wonder if Shellenberger & Nordhaus endorse it — they get their huge clean energy fund, but they have to swallow all those mandates and high carbon prices they claim are politically untenable.
Obama definitely understands that you need smart regulations and government mandates to get clean energy technologies into the marketplace — and to stop traditional coal plants from being built. His plan includes:
- Establish a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard.
- Require 25 Percent of Electricity to Come from Renewable Sources by 2025.
- Flip Incentives to Energy Utilities … by ensuring companies get increased profits for improving energy efficiency, rather than higher energy consumption.
- Implement legislation that phases out traditional incandescent light bulbs by 2014.
- Double fuel economy standards within 18 years
- Mandate All New Vehicles are Flexible Fuel Vehicles
- Increase Renewable Fuel Standard
- Obama will use whatever policy tools are necessary, including standards that ban new traditional coal facilities, to ensure that we move quickly to commercialize and deploy low carbon coal technology.
Kudos to Obama and his staff — they have set the bar high for candidate energy and climate plans.
Gristmill’s take on this is here.
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October 10th, 2007 at 10:07 am
This is yet another reason I hope that Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States. We desperately need the kind of leadership he brings to the table. While I’m a Clinton fan, I don’t think we need another dynastic presidency (the Bush dynasty hasn’t worked out so well for the country and the world…).
Thanks for highlighting this, Joe. You’re one of the people I rely on to point me to the best info out there on global warming and how to address it.
October 10th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Joe, you don’t support S&N’s call for 300 billion in technology investments over 10 years, but you do support Obama’s 150 billion, is that right? So is the issue with you and S&N just the size of the fund?
As I’ve read it, while S&N don’t think that all the other mandates, carbon trading, etc. will be enough to get us to 80% reduction by 2050, I don’t think they are opposed to having them. It seems they just feel like what we have is not enough. Not sure I agree with them about that, but Obama’s proposal seems to fall somewhere between what you would desire and what they would desire.
October 10th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
I’ve never been opposed to spending the money. I just don’t think it’s the most important thing (or one of the three most important things) we need to do — nor do I believe it will be as politically popular as they think. I have called S&N out on Obama’s proposal — we’ll see what they say.
October 11th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
i’m a big supporter of obama’s but why in the hell does this plan (or at least the summary) completely ignore land use? why aren’t we talking about rebuilding our cities? why isn’t there anything about reviving the rails or building a new high-speed passenger rail system?
October 11th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
ok, the HTML fact sheet at Grist does mention land use and our transport system. my bad. still the focus on rebuilding metropolitan infrastructure would be helpful from a rhetorical standpoint…
January 4th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Joe,
DeSmog Blog has a different take on Obama:
http://www.desmogblog.com/obama-named-smogmaker-of-2007
Do you have thoughts on their reservations…
January 5th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Robert - DeSmog has joined the delayers. So what? Some wise person once said ‘it only takes a few, dedicated people to change the world’ or something like that I am paraphrasing.
Barack Obama’s plan is good one, my only worry is making it happen politically, with lawsuits tying it up, etc. We dont have the time for that. I think we really do need a world war II -style effort. American’s have survived rationing before, how about rationing gasoline, energy use? Right out of the gate we can begin to see reductions. Take over some temporary control of some carbon-intensive industries and make the changes happen that need to happen. How about a temporary national sales tax, the money to go directly into developing clean energy and creating jobs? In world war II we re-tooled for a massive war effort, in 2008 we can start re-tooling for a massive attack on the problem of global warming. People grumbled at the beginning of the war too, but in the end the effort made America greater and the world a better place.