Obamas ‘all of the above’ climate action plan sidesteps Congress to force US action
President Obama’s much anticipated Climate Action Plan, launched this morning, introduces a spate of new regulations to help the US cut greenhouse gas emissions. Congress failed to pass climate legislation in Obama’s first term, forcing the President to find other ways to get the US to act on climate change.
The new plan outlines how Obama’s administration intends to increase support for clean energy, improve energy efficiency, lead the international community, and make the US more resilient to climate threats. But while it starts with a strong statement of intent – urging the US to take up its “moral obligation to act on behalf of future generations” – the measures it outlines are pretty limited.
So what’s in Obama’s plan? And does this really signal the start of the US taking climate change seriously?
Clean energy
First, the plan encourages cleaner electricity generation, but not necessarily from renewable sources.
Obama is pushing the national government to act as an example for the rest of the nation. Federal buildings will be required to get 20 per cent of their energy from renewable sources by 2020, according to the plan.
More importantly, it directs the Department of Interior – the US’s equivalent of a Department of Environment – to permit another 10 gigawatts of renewable energy projects on public lands by 2020. 10 gigawatts was permitted in 2012 alone, however. If this is far as it goes, it would be something of a slow down.
The President is also ramping up support for carbon and capture storage (CCS) technology, which can be fitted to fossil fuel plants to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions, with $8 billion available from the federal budget for research and development.
The emphasis on cleaning up generation rather than abandoning fossil fuels leaves the door open to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline which would carry tar sands oil from Alberta to Texas. Extracting energy from tar sands is very carbon intensive, with environmental groups saying it would be hypocritical for Obama to approve the pipeline while promising to address climate change.
It’s not all good news for the fossil fuel industry, however: Obama is also going to seek to cut fossil fuel subsidies in his 2014 budget. But that’ll need Congress’s approval – a tough sell.
So fossil fuels still have a role to play in Obama’s ‘all of the above’ energy policy – but he wants them to be cleaner and doesn’t think they deserve a government handout.
Climate impacts
A spate of extreme weather events including Hurricane Sandy and the Oklahoma tornado mean increased attention is being paid to how the US can insulate itself from the worst effects of climate change. The plan’s big money goes to programmes to help the US prepare for climate change impacts.
The Department of Transport will give $7.5 billion to four of the regions worst affected by Hurricane Sandy areas to fix their transit systems, of which $1.3 billion will go towards making them more robust in the face of future extreme weather events.
The Department of Interior has $100 million of grant money to offer anyone who can work out how to make wildlife and green spaces more resilient to extreme weather events. Another $250 million has been set aside for similar projects in coastal regions.
Finally, the US Army Corps of Engineers – which Obama oversees as Commander in Chief – is conducting a $20 million study to come up with strategies to deal with extreme storms and floods.
The pledges show Obama’s shift from setting abstract future emission reduction goals to encouraging pragmatic action to address very real and immediate climate change impacts. In other words, the US is thinking less about what climate impacts might be and more on how to combat them.
International action
Obama has been much more committed to international climate negotiations than his predecessor, and this looks set to continue. The plan says the US is intending to push for an “ambitious, inclusive, and flexible” climate deal in 2015. It says any deal:
“… needs to be ambitious to meet the scale of the challenge facing us. It needs to be inclusive because there is no way to meet that challenge unless all countries step up and play their part. And it needs to be flexible because there are many differently situated parties with their own needs and imperatives, and those differences will have to be accommodated in smart, practical ways.”
The US will continue to push for meetings with a handful of other countries at a time. Secretary of State, John Kerry, recently made a deal with China to phase out harmful hydrofluorocarbons, and encouraged India to reiterate its commitment to cut emissions. The US has historically preferred to conduct its climate change negotiations in this way, away from the glare of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) circus.
The plan implies that while the US will participate in the international negotiations, it’s not putting all its eggs in the United Nations’s basket just yet.
Follow the leader?
The media whipped itself into a frenzy of anticipation over Obama’s new plan, but is it really that big a deal?
Symbolically, perhaps. It shows the President is willing to act without the support of Congress and pledge chunks of money to combatting climate change even when the budget is tight.
But Congress’s refusal to address climate change has forced Obama into a corner – there’s only so much he can do with his constitutional powers and money already available. If the US is serious about tackling climate change it needs all government branches, not to mention the public and industry, to start to get on board.
Obama’s action plan will probably only have a limited impact on the US’s greenhouse gas emissions, but at least it will start to push the US towards serious climate action. The climate action plan is ultimately based on the hope that where Obama is heading, the rest of the government may follow.