The Political Climate: an ongoing commentary on the NH Primary and Climate Change

For day two of the calm before the Labor Day weekend candidate storm, NHPR ran the second half of their two part radio story that detailed the Presidential candidates’ positions on climate change and energy.  Wednesday Amy Quinton focused on the Republicans and yesterday wrapped up the Democratic candidate positions on climate and energy.

Throughout the radio piece, Bruce Clendenning measured the candidates using the LCV framework which tracks candidate positions on carbon caps, fuel efficiency targets, renewable energy standards, energy conservation targets and candidates’ positions on new coal plants.  Clendenning felt that Edwards was the first candidate to lay out a plan on all five of the LCV elements but stated: “After that was Senator Dodd and Governor Richardson and three of them have all five of those across the board, they’ve got very specific proposals.”  

Clendenning felt that Clinton and Obama did not have specific proposals for all of the LCV elements, but that does not mean that the two are indistinguishable.  ”Obama talks more strongly about fuel efficiency standards,” said Clendenning, but ”Senator Clinton is talking a great deal about how we get our country more efficient, not just cars but in building structures and things like that.” 

Not one candidate has committed to, let alone articulated, a comprehensive climate action plan.  While it is promising that the candidates are talking about this issue, most of them are Senators and are accustomed to legislative action.  The climate change solution can not solely come in the form of a legislative fix.  Beyond legislation, there are six other benchmarks that comprise a comprehensive climate change plan.

Turning now from the NHPR story, Joe Biden’s joined Grist.org as the last of the Democratic candidates engage in their environmental interview series “How Green is Your Candidate?”  Biden cited his foreign policy experience as giving him a leg up on the other candidates to engage the international community around a climate change agreement.  International cooperation is an important non-legislative part of a climate action plan.  The Grist interviews are an excellent tool for those interested in examining the candidates on climate change.