Congress will undoubtedly revisit the targets and timetables for U.S. climate policy over the next four decades

well right now it looks more like congress will revisit the targets for maybe the first two decades and then the work will be outsourced to the biosphere itself.

and any bill should require that based on science.

especially when the bill is based on conservative summaries of science that were drafted under the watchful eyes of the politicians who will be setting the targets. you wouldn't want to embarrass anyone.

Delay only means steeper cuts, higher costs, and lower chances to achieve either of those goals.

this is cut-and-paste material from ten years ago. we've already reached the "lower chances" moment.

except those higher costs are offset by the fact that we need to fix a lot of infrastructure anyway and the fossil fuel costs are flying. one way or the other we're investing in big new ways. there's never been a better time to make a clean break.

Energy Comm thinks it has Fossil 10 and Obama (see senior staff) in its pocket for next year

plan is to gut 2020 caps in L-W, among other things

senior staff cliques are strong

count more than ephemeral slogans

Having read Ken Ward's widely emailed critique of EDF's deteriorating climate policy, I came back here to read Tony Kreindler's original post. It appears that as EDF drifts farther and farther from the science of global warming, its explanations of its positions necessarily become more and more obtuse. It appears EDF can no longer engage in honest discourse, because such discourse would reveal the fundamental inconsistencies of its position.

Kreindler tells us to support the woefully inadequate Lieberman-Warner bill because we need action now and can't wait for an adequate bill. This argument might make some sense if L-W had significant chance of passing. But L-W was declared impassible by its supporters (including EDF) prior to the battle, and even now EDF says it is unlikely to pass in 2009. So supporting a weak bill that won't pass, won't get you quick action on global warming? All it will do is set the bar low for the next bill. It would have been far wiser to support a good bill in 2008, thus setting a high bar for the next round. All EDF's position has done is confuse the public about the science of global warming and lower the political bar.

Kreindler tells us that had L-W passed, its target level of 488 ppm (EPA is certainly optimistic on this projection by the way) is not incompatible with reducing to 350 ppm. Tellingly, he gives no explanation of the emissions pathway that puts on a L-W course then divert to a 350 ppm. That is because there is no pathway. Jim Hansen's recent research shows that if we don't enact much steeper short-term cuts than L-W, we can not get to 350 ppm anytime in the next hundred years and we will likely pass into runaway global warming over which we have no control. Kreindler's hand waving on this central point indicates that he is more concerned about  protecting EDF's image that stopping global warming.

Here are a few predictions for you:

EDF will in every case support any major greenhouse gas policy put forth by the Democratic leadership regardless of how weak it is. This will necessitate it invoking increasingly obtuse explanations. And because cracks will always develop in such a rhetorical strategy, EDF will fairly regularly contradict itself and flat out lie.

EDF will work with energy corporations to develop general principles which sound good but are entirely unenforcable. It will run to the press expounding its win-win, capitalists-like-it victory. Then, as an enforcible bill approaches, even one weaker than the supposed corporate agreement, those energy companies will refuse to support it. EDF will not respond by criticize its corporate partners or pointing out the contradictions. Then will reenact the play over again.

EDF will continue to have energy corporations on its board of directors.

This will all occur because EDF is not fundamentally an environmental group. Its mission is to work with corporations to incrementally improve corporate citizenship. When that mission collide with environmental needs, the environment is tossed and media hacks like Kreindler will fan out to "explain" EDF's policies while EDF's scientists quietly cry in their cubicles.