Like any Hollywood actor, and like any politician, Arnold Schwarzenegger likes to talk a good game. And on climate, he talks a lot. He loves to promote inconsequential gab-fests like the Governors Global Summit on Climate Change. But when the rubber hits the road, will he actually, you know, do anything about it?

Whether a bill on his desk gets a signature will tell us whether he is real or all puffery.

That bill is SB 406, by state Senator Mark Desaulnier. SB 406 would allow regional planning organizations to impose a $1-2 extra vehicle license fee in order to assist in regional planning under California’s smart growth law, SB 375.

This is critical, because California cannot meet its emissions-reduction goals unless it reduces emissions from the transportation sector; it cannot reduce emissions from the transportation sector unless it gives transportation dollars to those cities and counties whose land use plans reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT); and those cities and counties cannot change their land use plans unless they have the personnel to do so, which requires cash. Most cities have substantially slashed their planning staffs because of budget cuts: Los Angeles’ visionary planning director, Gail Goldberg, has had to lay off dozens of people and put on hold her agenda for redoing community plans throughout the city.

Predictably, the right-wing crazies are screaming that a one-dollar-per-year fee increase will mean the end of the Republic.

So what’s it going to be, Governator? Whose side are you on? The Tea Partiers’ or the planet’s? Photo-ops like the Climate Summit don’t mean a damn thing in comparison.

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Energy and climate scramble the usual left-right political divisions. Many of the big fights are not among parties but among regions and levels of government.

In the U.S. Congress, to be sure, the Republicans=obstructionists formula holds with virtually no exceptions save a tiny handful of remaining Senate "moderates." Republican obstructionists are joined in the House and -- more problematically -- the Senate by a group of Democrats from states with energy-intensive industries. Depending on how they’re counted, there are up to 15 such Senate Dems, more than enough to assist Republicans in a filibuster.

At the state and local level the partisan picture is far more complicated. Some of the leading governors on the issue are Republicans, notably California’s Arnold Schwarzenegger and Florida’s Charlie Crist. Some of the most problematic are Democrats from energy states like West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Virginia’s Tim Kaine. The city-level picture is even more muddled. At last count, 935 mayors have signed the U.S. Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, from every political party and every state in the country.

Ultimately, the political battle over climate and energy is how to manage the transition from a high-waste, high-pollution, cheap-energy economy to … the opposite. Those vulnerable to being hurt by the transition span political parties and demographics, and getting over the chasm will require fresh thinking.

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HANOVER, Germany—California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger kicked off the world’s biggest high-tech fair Tuesday, telling executives to seize the economic crisis as a moment to shape up and go “green”.

Schwarzenegger, this year’s guest of honor at the sprawling CeBIT fair in this northern German city, toured stands with Chancellor Angela Merkel as the six-day event opened under a cloud of financial gloom.

Dropping by IBM’s giant space, Schwarzenegger said that as the information technology sector’s carbon footprint grows larger by the year, now was the time to promote more energy efficiency to cut costs as well as reduce emissions.

“The only way we can move forward is not just with the will but with the technology,” the Austrian-born governor said, adding it was up to industry innovators to lead the way.

California is the honorary guest at this year’s CeBIT and Schwarzenegger has come to the fair with around 50 firms from his state, most from ailing Silicon Valley.

The German press had hoped the “Governator” would give the event a shot in the arm.

Some 4,300 firms from 69 countries are displaying the latest netbooks, handsets, navigators and software solutions at the fair—a quarter fewer than last year due to the global economic slump.

That contrasts with the more than 8,000 exhibitors that attended in 2001 in the heyday of the “new economy.” Organizers said small hardware and telecommunications suppliers from China, Taiwan and South Korea had pulled out in droves.

Hot topics at this year’s fair include “green” gadgets, “e-health” using the internet to revolutionize patient care, electronic books and “cloud computing”, an efficiency tool in which applications or data are stored online instead of being installed and maintained on users’ machines.

Schwarzenegger’s message fit with another key theme at the show: using the global economic meltdown as a chance to promote cost-saving, energy-efficient products and harness technology for long-term business restructuring.

Giant signs on the sides of the fairground buildings show the word “crisis” crossed out, replaced with the word “opportunity”.

Environmental pressure group Greenpeace launched an “IT Climate Leadership Challenge” at the fair calling on high-tech sector executives to “turn climate change into a business opportunity”.

The group sent a letter to the CEOs of companies including Cisco, Dell, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Nokia, Sony, Toshiba, Fujitsu and Sharp urging the firms to slash their own emissions and throw their weight behind an international climate pact at a U.N. meeting in Copenhagen in December.

“Companies that take the lead in this challenge will see a massive increase in their market share as top-line support for a strong climate deal can only be good for the bottom line of the ICT industry,” Greenpeace campaigner Tom Dowdall said.

While in Hanover, Schwarzenegger also picked up an award from the American Chamber of Commerce in Germany for “his exceptional commitment to the global issues of environment and energy” in California.

At a CeBIT opening ceremony, Merkel joined Schwarzenegger in urging executives to develop better “green” technology and states to improve high-tech infrastructure.

“I think there is such a thing as truly safe investments in the future,” Merkel said citing innovation in information and communications technology.

Germany’s technology industry lobby, BITKOM, said Monday that it expected to weather the downturn relatively unscathed with turnover to hold steady at about €145 billion ($183 billion), thanks in part to new public investment in broadband networks and school computers.

The CeBIT runs until Sunday.

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PARIS, Dec. 8, 2008 (AFP) -- California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger told U.N. delegates locked in climate talks Monday that the world economic crisis should not slow down the fight against global warming.

"There are some people who say that we can't afford the fight against global warming while our economies are down, but the exact opposite is true," he told some 10,000 delegates in Poznan, Poland in a video message.

"The green rules and regulations that will help save our planet will also revive our economies," he said.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is charged with hammering out for a new global climate pact by the end of next year.

"There is far more economic risk in the status quo -- wasting energy, burning fossil fuels and destroying forests -- than there is in fighting climate change by developing clean, renewable energy and saving forests," the governor said.

Schwarzenegger announced he would attend the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen next December, the deadline set for reaching a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, whose provisions expire in 2012.

"States and provinces have long been at the forefront of developing green technologies and protecting our economy so that they are setting great examples for our federal counterparts," he said.

Thirty-two other U.S. states had already forged their own plans to reduce the greenhouse gases that drive global warming.

If it were a country California would be the world's fifth largest economy and 12th biggest emitter of carbon dioxide.

Though a Republican, like President George W. Bush, Schwarzenegger has aggressively sought to implement measures in the spirit of the Kyoto Protocol that Bush rejected shortly after taking office.

This week, California is finalising work on climate legislation aimed at cutting state emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 -- the same goal targeted by the European Union.

Copyright 2008 -- Agence France-Presse

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As part of a package aimed to address California's $11.2-billion budget deficit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday proposed a 9.9 percent tax per barrel on oil drilled in the state. The proposal, a flip-flop from the Governator's opposition of a similar measure that failed two years ago, immediately garnered the ire of oil companies and Republicans and applause from Democrats and environmentalists.

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California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) has announced plans to host a climate-change summit in Los Angeles in November in an attempt to form an international climate alliance of local, regional, and world leaders ahead of United Nations climate talks in Poland in December. The summit invitees include governors from all 50 states, as well as officials from Australia, Canada, China, Europe, India, Mexico, and more. "The real action for any new ideas is always on the local level. This is how we can push the agenda," Schwarzenegger said. "We are not waiting for the federal government." Schwarzenegger announced the summit a day ahead of the second anniversary of California's landmark climate law that aims to cut the state's emissions 25 percent by 2020.

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