Barack Obama won't be attending the next round of international climate talks next month in Poland, nor is he in Los Angeles today for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's conference on climate change. But the president-elect insists that his administration will be a leader in the effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
"While I won't be president at the time of your meeting and while the United States has only one president at a time, I've asked members of Congress who are attending the conference as observers to report back to me on what they learn there," Obama said in a taped message this morning to attendees gathered for the Schwarzenegger event at the Beverly Hilton Hotel (also posted on YouTube and the official transition Web site).
"I promise you this: When I am president, any governor who's willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House," he continued.
His list of promises largely reiterated what he called for on the campaign trail: a federal cap-and-trade system, emissions cuts to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, and $15 billion a year for clean energy. He also said that he will "tap nuclear power, while making sure it's safe" and "develop clean coal technologies."
These programs, Obama said, will help address the economic crisis -- a subject that Schwarzenegger emphasized in his opening remarks this morning here in Los Angeles. "It will not only help us bring about a clean energy future, saving our planet," said Obama. "It will also help us transform our industries and steer our country out of this economic crisis by generating five million new green jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced."
Here's the entirety of Obama's brief address:
Let me begin by thanking the bipartisan group of U.S. governors who convened this meeting.
Few challenges facing America -- and the world -- are more urgent than combating climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We've seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season.
Climate change and our dependence on foreign oil, if left unaddressed, will continue to weaken our economy and threaten our national security.
I know many of you are working to confront this challenge. In particular, I want to commend Governor Sebelius, Governor Doyle, Governor Crist, Governor Blagojevich and your host, Governor Schwarzenegger –all of you have shown true leadership in the fight to combat global warming. And we've also seen a number of businesses doing their part by investing in clean energy technologies. But too often, Washington has failed to show the same kind of leadership. That will change when I take office. My presidency will mark a new chapter in America's leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs in the process.
That will start with a federal cap and trade system. We will establish strong annual targets that set us on a course to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional 80 percent by 2050. Further, we will invest $15 billion each year to catalyze private sector efforts to build a clean energy future. We will invest in solar power, wind power, and next generation biofuels. We will tap nuclear power, while making sure it's safe. And we will develop clean coal technologies.
This investment will not only help us reduce our dependence on foreign oil, making the United States more secure. And it will not only help us bring about a clean energy future, saving our planet. It will also help us transform our industries and steer our country out of this economic crisis by generating five million new green jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced.
But the truth is, the United States cannot meet this challenge alone. Solving this problem will require all of us working together. I understand that your meeting is being attended by government officials from over a dozen countries, including the U.K., Canada and Mexico, Brazil and Chile, Poland and Australia, India and Indonesia. And I look forward to working with all nations to meet this challenge in the coming years.
Let me also say a special word to the delegates from around the world who will gather at Poland next month: your work is vital to the planet. While I won't be president at the time of your meeting and while the United States has only one president at a time, I've asked Members of Congress who are attending the conference as observers to report back to me on what they learn there.
And once I take office, you can be sure that the United States will once again engage vigorously in these negotiations, and help lead the world toward a new era of global cooperation on climate change. Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all. Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high. The consequences, too serious.
Stopping climate change won't be easy. It won't happen overnight. But I promise you this: When I am president, any governor who's willing to promote clean energy will have a partner in the White House. Any company that's willing to invest in clean energy will have an ally in Washington. And any nation that's willing to join the cause of combating climate change will have an ally in the United States of America. Thank you.
Denmark’s Hedegaard urges G8 to push ahead on climate talks
Comments View as Flat
sindark Posted 6:24 am
18 Nov 2008
Congress, and making good on promises
Hopefully, he will get the necessary support to get a cap-and-trade system through Congress within the first year of his presidency.
a sibilant intake of breath
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WWAGD?! Posted 7:09 am
18 Nov 2008
Obamabot Programming Has Begun
Obamabot must have been in some sessions at Guantanamo with Gore.
They slapped Climate Change ideology into him.
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GlobalWarmingInc Posted 8:56 am
18 Nov 2008
Cap and Trade is BS
Talking about a money-laundering scam! How will companies trading "credits" help ANYTHING, when there's nothing to fix?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinio ...
Plus, where is the mention of oil? We're all happing sheep now that we have a new president and oil prices are low again, but that won't last, and they'll get way higher than they ever were if we don't address drilling domestically for oil.
I guess if the tree-huggers have their way, we'll all be forced to sell our cars for carbon credits and have to bike or walk everywhere we go. Let's wreck the USA completely to save the melting glaciers -which have been melting since the beginning of time. That's what they do: MELT. See all those valleys in the high mountains? They were carved out by glaciers; they're just not here anymore -they melted.
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christophersj Posted 10:51 am
18 Nov 2008
Now I feel differently about the Trolls
Now I feel differently about the Trolls in the comments above. Just a month ago I used to worry about them having some sway in our country, or even to a casual viewer of this site.
But now I just see them as sad little men in their cold garages, listening to little AM radios hanging from a tool hook, working on their warplane model kits and inhaling glue fumes, wondering aloud about a world they sincerely do not understand.
Now, they are only a curiosity, like a ship in a bottle. Now its so easy to look up from that bottle, peer out the window at the horizon, and see Copenhagen 2009.
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WWAGD?! Posted 11:24 am
18 Nov 2008
Demo-Barnacles
I too feel differently about the barnacles.
I feel that so Obama promised so many different things to people that he will be unable to deliver.
He says he's for coal...or against it...or both.
In fact, that's his stand on almost everything.
On 60 Minutes President Obama compared himself to Lincoln.
So how he forgot Lincoln's words:
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David Roberts Posted 11:52 am
18 Nov 2008
Christophersj,
Very well put. I rather enjoy thinking of, e.g, jabailo (see above!) as kind of a site pet, a quirky little dog that runs around peeing in the corner and attacking sofa cushions. Kinda cute, really.
Sit, jabailo, sit!
grist.org
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DidierVdM Posted 7:33 pm
19 Nov 2008
What will drilling domestically for oil deliver?
The same as drilling faster, and more. Yes, prices will drop temporarilly. Great news, isn't it. But the Oil existing will be consumed faster, more ineffective, and at a certain moment the oil will be gone. And then???
You can look at domestic drilling as a way to span the transition to better fuels, renewable fuels, instead of hort term dropping prices. Now is not yet the time to drill domestically.
America would better start to switch to European level of cars, consuming down to only 30% of average american monsters. That is what is killing your car industry today, your jobs and your economy.
Prices of oil will drop because you consume less.
You would have to buy less gasoline at a lower price. Wouldn't that be a win-win situation?
At the same time transition to renewables is key, if not you will in 20-30 years be condamned to walk or take the bike, because you were too stuburn to work at new fuels and used all the oil which can be gained at affordable prices.
Maybe tree-huggers are the smarter ones here.
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CR Posted 11:47 pm
19 Nov 2008
Green energy
Green energy is the way to go, and I hope it is how we recover from this economic downturn. In every decade it seems there is a recession, then economic growth based on some new industry. In the 80s it was computers and cell phones. In the 90s it was the internet and the development of e-businesses. In the 2000s it was financial services and housing (Oops, that didn't work out too well. Smart bankers figuring out how to bilk people out of their equity didn't create much long-term value for society!) As we climb out of this recession, it will be time to rebuild our energy system, and that -will- create long-term value.
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plusaf Posted 5:05 am
20 Nov 2008
re: cap and trade....
last i read about cap and trade, the real market for cap and trade had deteriorated to the point where the credits didn't trade and had essentially zero market value: a clear indicator that, in the real world, the concept has failed.
please do a reality check before suggesting a process that just may have already been proven to not work.
yeah, you too, Barack... things that look good, sound good, and you think should be good... just might not be.
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