NEWS

Group Hopes Donors Can Raise Profile Of Warming Issue

10/03/2007

ENVIRONMENT - Group Hopes Donors Can Raise Profile Of Warming Issue

Darren Goode
© National Journal Group, Inc.

The League of Conservation Voters Education Fund has unveiled a plan to enlist wealthy donors to upgrade global warming as an issue in the 2008 presidential campaign.

The effort—dubbed the Presidential Leadership Network—includes close to 250 donors, including Robert Redford, Laurie David, former Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., and Teddy Roosevelt IV.

They will brief candidates in private meetings, fundraisers, house parties, letters and phone calls, LCV officials say.

The network has so far led to conference calls with two Democratic presidential candidates—New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C.—with several dozen donors participating on each call, LCV President Gene Karpinski said.

Coincidentally or not, Richardson and Edwards have the two most aggressive and comprehensive climate change policies of the presidential candidates so far, according to Karpinski. The group has invited all the presidential candidates in both parties to participate, he said.

The donor network is part of a broader LCV effort to make global warming a more prominent issue in the 2008 elections and has employed more than 1,000 volunteers in four early voting states—Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.

Several groups—including LCV, the Center for American Progress and the Natural Resources Defense Council—are trying to hold a forum for presidential candidates on global warming in November.

The ideal date is Nov. 17, a LCV spokesman said. While candidates would not necessarily debate one another, they would be asked questions by a moderator and have the opportunity to lay out their positions.

The LCV spokesman said the groups are trying to line up a media sponsor and are "talking to a couple of high-profile moderators."

While global warming has risen to the top of environmental issues that candidates and voters consider, the environment as an issue still generally ranks low.

"It depends on how you frame the question," Karpinski said. If global warming is merged with energy independence "it’s right up there," he said.

Last week, the administration held a two-day summit on global warming that included 17 countries and focused on using technological advances to reduce greenhouse gases.

The conference, the first in a series of meetings, is designed to help countries at the United Nations reach a global consensus in 2009 on how to address global warming, President Bush said last week.

The National Environmental Trust, the United Nations Foundation and the Royal Institute of International Affairs hosted a parallel summit in Washington last week on global warming, which included environmentalists and nongovernmental organizations from industrialized countries.