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Climate action on firing line in US elections
2010-10-27 04:53:35.927 GMT
Oct. 27 (AFP) -- Unlike many fellow members of President
Barack Obama's Democratic Party, Senate candidate Joe Manchin
does not support climate legislation restricting carbon
emissions.
In case voters do not understand his point, Manchin is
airing television commercials in which he loads a gun and
shoots a copy of the bill taped to a tree. (He is also making a
point about gun rights.)
Manchin, now a governor, is running in next Tuesday's
elections for a Senate seat from West Virginia, where coal is a
major industry and criticism of environmentalists runs deep.
But climate efforts are facing attack across the United
States during the election, likely making prospects for action
by Congress even bleaker.
In California, which has been on the vanguard of US action
against climate change, voters will decide in a referendum
whether to freeze an ambitious plan mandating cuts in carbon
emissions blamed for global warming.
Prominent candidates from the Republican Party, which
polls indicate will make gains in the election, reject the
broad consensus among the world's scientists that human
activity is contributing to climate change.
Sharron Angle, who is mounting a strong challenge in
Nevada to the Senate's top Democrat, Majority Leader Harry
Reid, has rejected the "man-caused climate change mantra of the
left."
Wisconsin businessman Ron Johnson, running against
Democratic Senator Russ Feingold, has suggested that
meteorological changes are the result of sunspots.
"My point is because it's not settled science, it would be
incredibly damaging to our economy to try to tax energy,"
Johnson said in a debate.
The political mood has shifted from just a year ago when
the House of Representatives approved a bill to restrict carbon
emissions -- a first for the only major industrial nation to
reject the Kyoto Protocol.
But Reid in July gave up on finding votes to bring
accompanying legislation before the Senate, where opponents can
block a measure if it does enjoy support of 60 of the chamber's
100 members.
Representative Henry Waxman, a lead author of last year's
climate bill, admitted the process has been "very difficult"
and argued that the legislation would have created millions of
jobs by spurring a new green economy.
"The legislation in the United States was a jobs bill. It
would have also been a catalyst for united, international
efforts," the California Democrat said.
International negotiations have bogged down on a successor
to the Kyoto Protocol, with top carbon emitter China rejecting
any binding commitments without greater action by the United
States.
A report by UN scientists in 2007 found that climate
change was already hurting the planet and warned of rising
natural disasters without action. Three years later, some
experts link climate change to floods that ravaged Pakistan.
William Antholis, managing director of the Brookings
Institution and co-author of the book "Fast Forward: Ethics and
Politics in the Age of Global Warming," voiced confidence that
a large number of Americans trusted science and supported
action on climate change.
"But as you approach the 60 to 70 percent of the public
who are somewhat concerned about climate change, their
willingness to act in tough economic times solely for the
reason of climate change is diminished somewhat," he said.
Supporters of climate action hope to shift the tide by
focusing on the benefits of clean energy rather than speaking
abstractly about climate change.
Green groups have thrown their resources behind a number
of candidates who have embraced clean energy such as
Representative Tom Perriello, a Democrat in a tough race in
Virginia.
A survey released Tuesday by the Civil Society Institute
found that 62 percent of Americans believed climate change "is
already a big problem" and that the United States "should be
leading the world in solutions."
"There is much that unites all political groups on clean
energy," said Pam Solo, the president of the institute.
"This polarized debate around the climate science in fact
is getting in the way and masks the amount of consensus that we
have for concrete change," she said.
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-0- Oct/27/2010 04:53 GMT
