NEWS

Candidates warm to climate change

03/21/2007

Candidates warm to climate change
 
Topic could come to fore in N.H. primary
 
 

By Chelsea Conaboy

Concord Monitor staff

Thousands of New Hampshire voters were talking about it last week at town meeting. Hollywood was talking about it before and after Al Gore won an Oscar. But is the next president of the United States talking about it?

All the Democrats running for president believe that global warming is a reality. Some of their Republican counterparts aren't so sure.

If a poll of New Hampshire voters is any indication, even the GOP fence-sitters might do well to propose energy reforms.

In November and December, the Mellman Group surveyed likely Republican and Democratic voters, 400 of each, for two climate awareness groups: Clear the Air and the New Hampshire-based Clean Air-Cool Planet. Seventy percent of Republicans and 94 percent of Democrats called global warming a serious threat, though smaller majorities in both parties said they believed it was a human byproduct. Ninety-six percent of Democrats and 82 percent of Republicans said the United States should take action now to reduce emissions.

As of yesterday, 143 New Hampshire communities had approved language calling on Washington to take action to slow U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide. Eight towns had rejected it and at least 25 have yet to vote.

Climate change has never been a "top tier" issue in campaigns, said Ted Leach, the Republican co-chairman of the Carbon Coalition. This time around, it won't trump the Iraq war, he said, but it will be a "single-digit issue, in New Hampshire and going beyond."

Whose issue is it?

When the Carbon Coalition, a collection of businesses, community leaders and environmental groups, first formed to discuss how to push the next president to have a plan for addressing climate change, the founding members wanted to make the group nonpartisan.

"Some members of the Democratic Party feel they own this issue," said Roger Stephenson, associate director for external affairs at Cool Air-Clean Planet and Carbon Coalition member. "It's not going to go anywhere without sustained bipartisan support over many years."

Last week, as the number of New Hampshire towns passing the call to action grew, several Democratic candidates sent out their own word on this issue.

Sen. Chris Dodd outright endorsed the warrant article, saying in a press release that he would make dealing with climate change "a top priority" in the White House. Former North Carolina senator John Edwards announced that he will make his campaign "carbon neutral" by purchasing credits to support renewable energy and offset the emissions generated by travel and energy use. From New Mexico, Gov. Bill Richardson said he had signed a law requiring utilities in his state to produce 15 percent of their power from renewable sources.

Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have signed on as co-sponsors to the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act of 2007, written by Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman. The bill proposes cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 to about a third of what they were in 2000. Clinton has also said she would reintroduce a bill proposing a "strategic energy fund," rolling back tax breaks to oil companies and investing $50 billion in renewable energy research.

Last May, Sen. Joe Biden co-sponsored a resolution that the Senate approved calling for the United States to engage in international negotiations on climate change.

Frank Maisano, an analyst and lobbyist in the energy industry, said such statements don't mean much.

"For the first three months of the year here, they have talked a lot about climate change, but very minimally have they talked about the solutions and the impact of those solutions," he said. "That's because those are not fun answers."

Maisano, who has lobbied for oil companies, utilities and renewable energy producers alike, said climate change needs to be addressed, if only to protect the U.S. economy.

"The question is no longer . . . is it happening and why is it happening," he said. "What is important is to know how much it will cost, and how will you address it?"

GOP conundrum

But how do you talk about climate change without acknowledging it?

When former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, a Republican candidate, announced his state's first climate action plan in 2004, he told reporters that he didn't want to talk about "is there global warming or is there not, and what's causing it," according to the Boston Globe. Citing concern over economic impacts, he later pulled out of negotiations on a first-of-its-kind plan to control carbon dioxide emissions in the Northeast that was led by then-New York Gov. George Pataki, a Republican.

Romney talks often about a need for energy independence but rarely about climate change. In a statement last month, he criticized Republicans for "embracing the radical environmental ideas of the liberal left."

"Republicans should never abandon pro-growth conservative principles in an effort to embrace the ideas of Al Gore," he said.

Romney spokeswoman Sarah Pompei couldn't clarify his stance. She said last week that Romney "thinks it's likely human activity is contributing to the environment, but is not sure how much." When asked to be more specific about his opinions on climate change, Pompei declined.

"Great bodies of evidence on either side of the debate suggest different answers to the question," she said.

But, she said, Romney thinks that the United States should take action to lessen dependence on foreign oil, create incentives for renewable fuels and conserve energy.

Stephenson called this the "no regrets" policy - taking action even without being certain of the science on global warming. He said he's okay with that position.

Carbon dioxide "has become a proxy for saving money," he said. "It's become a proxy for cleaner air. It's become a proxy for high-tech, or new-tech jobs."

Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee takes a similar stance. Like Romney, Huckabee supports drilling in the Arctic and advocates for renewable energy sources. In his book From Hope to Higher Ground, he says that being a conservative means protecting what "God created and gave to us to use responsibly and carefully manage."

"I don't pretend to be a scientist, but I do know that whether humans create climate change or not, we want to preserve our natural resources," he said during a visit to New Hampshire last week.

McCain might sit at the opposite end of the Republican field on this issue. He has been pushing legislation that would impose limits on emissions from power generators since 2003. Some say McCain's advocacy increased significantly after New Hampshire environmentalists questioned him during the 2000 primary.

Somewhere between McCain and Romney are candidates like former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas.

Giuliani last month further raised the ire of conservative bloggers - already high due to his support for abortion rights, gun control and same-sex unions - when he told a business group in California, "I do believe there's global warming," according to a San Francisco Chronicle account. He said an "overwhelming number of scientists" cite "significant human cause." But Giuliani criticized Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth for frightening people without offering solutions, though he hasn't yet presented policy objectives of his own.

Brownback traded his SUV in for a hybrid car and is an advocate for ethanol, biodiesel and nuclear power. He's made climate change a local issue, proposing legislation, which was stalled in committee, to give farmers in Kansas and elsewhere tax subsidies for preserving open space and capturing carbon in the soil.

Leach said he won't be looking for candidates to give a "point-by-point scenario" on fixing the problem but wants to see a promise to lead.

"That's what's missing right now," he said.

He said many of the Republicans haven't become leaders on climate change, but he thinks some are "tiptoeing toward it." The votes at town meeting could push them to move faster, he said.

"If I was a Romney or a Giuliani or somebody, and I'm in New Hampshire looking for New Hampshire votes . . . I'd pay attention," he said.

"The old rule in politics is, you never take a stand on anything until you absolutely have to because you will offend somebody," Leech said. "They're going to have to take a position on this."

(Monitor staff writer Melanie Asmar contributed to this article.)