NEWS

Climate heats up White House race

05/31/2007

by Stephen Collinson

Agence France-Presse

The 2008 White House race is bringing American global warming politics in from the cold, as candidates churn out complex plans on an increasingly key campaign issue.

Past US candidates paid lip service to climate change, but the 2008 field is targeting the dubious US record as the world's single largest producer of greenhouse gases, raising hopes the next White House will be the greenest ever.

"There is no doubt that energy and global warming are making a bigger imprint on this election than in past elections. (They) are now among the top tier issues," said Navin Nayak, Global Warming Project Director at the League of Conservation Voters (LCV).

Chided abroad as hooked on gas-guzzlers and myopic energy consumption, Americans now favour, by a majority, government action to head off a looming climate crisis, polls show.

Al Gore, former vice-president turned environmental crusader, believes climate change politics is set to become dominant.

"I know it seems like an unrealistic goal right now, but I will wager that by the time the elections of November 2008 come around, it will be the number one issue in both parties," he told National Public Radio last week.

Democrats including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards so far have more developed strategies than Republicans - save Senator John McCain - reflecting views of each party's core voters.

A poll by the Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press in January, found 55 percent of Americans wanted government action on global warming. Forty-eight percent of Democrats thought it should be a priority - compared to only 23 percent of Republicans.

A political minefield

Though global warming is generating political heat, there is no guarantee of follow-on action - US politics is littered with forgotten election promises.

A new president, having made global warming a campaign issue, may be able to claim a mandate for action - but may also face a heavy political price for mandating emission cuts.

A Gallup poll in April found 65 percent of Americans wanted the government to launch a research effort on new energy sources, and 60 percent agreed government office buildings should be made to use renewable energy.

But favourable numbers dipped below 50 percent when voters were asked about measures that would carry a financial cost, like surcharges on utility bills and bans on gas thirsty cars.

But, Nayak said, the price of inaction should trump short-term political costs.

"The clock is really ticking ... if the next president doesn't make this a priority, we are looking at some very, very severe consequences for the planet," he said.

Global warming's ascent as a political issue has been driven by a clutch of concurrent events.

Fearsome Hurricane Katrina, which drowned New Orleans in 2005, drove home the price of possible future climate catastrophes, while Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" thrust climate change onto the political stage.

Surging global energy prices, which have hit Americans used to cut-price fill-ups, have meanwhile sparked pressure for a rethink of energy policy.

Climbing on board

In California meanwhile, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has launched his own climate crusade, grabbing national attention.

Democratic 2008 hopeful Edwards sums up the place of global warming in his campaign, with a graphic on his website: "To do list: Iraq, Health Care, Global Warming, Poverty."

The former senator tells supporters around the country: "this is an emergency ... the President of the United States should ask Americans to be patriotic about something other than war".

Implicit in the 2008 debate is a rebuke for President George W. Bush's administration, slow to accept a human role in global warming, and locked in a new row this week in talks in Germany on the best way to meet climate change.

Todd Stern, policy advisor to Clinton, said at a forum at the Brookings Institution last week that she would reassert US leadership on the issue at home and abroad.

"We have a genuine moment of challenge and opportunity with respect to the climate and energy issue," he said.

Obama meanwhile raised eyebrows in May when he castigated US auto giants in their Detroit fortress.

"The age of oil must end in our time," he said, for the sake of US "security, our economy, our jobs and our planet".

Most Democratic candidates support reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent or more, by 2050.

John McCain, who has introduced several bids in Congress to cut emissions, supports 65 percent cuts by 2050, according to LCV.