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

Concerned citizens showed up at the State House last night to share their energy priorities and ideas with the Governor’s Climate Change Task Force.  After listening to two brief presentations from DES about NH specific climate change indicators, projected impacts and task force goals, NH citizens talked back and gave the task force an earful, including:

- Transition to renewable energy
- More public transportation
- More park and rides
- More walk-able communities
- Incentives for solar panels, wind turbines, hybrid cars etc.
- Increased access to alternative fuels
- Education via schooling and public campaigns
- Increased “green jobs”
- Better access to recycling programs
- Citizen involvement!

How the task force organizes all these suggestions is a mystery to me.  Read the article in today’s Concord Monitor for more details on the hearing or check out the Task Force homepage for more information.

I ran into a new employee for the Coal Industry last night.   For nine day’s worth of work, this individual is going to be paid $3,000 to try and convince Ohio citizens that coal is “clean” and a good choice for our energy future.  Even though the shyster-in-training seemed to be aware that the campaign is misleading American voters, he couldn’t refuse the hefty paycheck.  (Maybe his employers know the job is heavy lifting … even in Ohio.)

Check out this blog or this Washington Post article for more information about the Coal Industry’s astroturf campaign. 

With most of the candidates in Iowa, John McCain basically has the Granite State to himself until the January 4th mad-dash back to New Hampshire.  McCain touched upon three issues at each of his town halls this weekend: Pakistan, Iraq, and climate change.

In a crowded church basement in Dover McCain allowed questioners to follow up in what was a very conversational Q&A session.  A questioner asked McCain not to list new energy technologies when asked about R&D for clean energy but rather to speak about the specifics of an R&D program.

“First of all,” McCain started, “I totally agree with you on the approach: pure R&D on the part of the government, but then let the free enterprise system take over and not have the government continue after you do the initial R&D.”

When allowed to follow up, the questioner asked McCain how he would pay for it.  His response was McCainesque: “I would kill off a couple of the defense programs right now…I would veto this last appropriations bill that the president just signed…so there are plenty of places to find the money.”

Listen to McCain in Dover

In Londonderry, McCain detailed how he and Joe Lieberman, McCain’s “favorite Democrat,” proposed a cap-and-trade system that would function as a “free enterprise, market oriented, incentive” to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

Listen to McCain in Londonderry

In other Primary climate change news, several institutional members of the Carbon Coalition recently released Clean Energy for America: Why the 44th President Must Put America on the Clean Energy Path.   This report explains why the next president must act immediately to address America’s growing energy crisis, and lays out a reasonable yet ambitious course for meeting America’s future energy needs with clean, renewable energy.

Along with releasing this important report, Environment New Hampshire and other conservation groups will ask all the candidates to pledge themselves to clean energy solutions and “act aggressively – beginning in his or her first 100 days in office – to lead America to a clean, secure energy future.”

Hillary Clinton’s Senior Economic Policy advisor, Brian Deese, held a roundtable with UNH research scientists and UNH Office of Sustainability faculty yesterday to discuss Clinton’s climate change policy and plan.

The UNH researchers were pleased at Clinton’s promise to restore the integrity of science.  She will ensure that scientists will be free to conduct scientific research independent of politics and that “there will be no oil lobbyist flunky rewriting climate change reports in her administration.”

The UNH staff explained that the research would need to be conducted in an Apollo-like program for clean energy.  It is not uncommon to hear about an Apollo program for energy from the candidates, but Clinton backs up her claims with specifics about the program.  She would create a $50 billion Strategic Energy Fund to finance this scientific research program paid for by removing subsidies from the oil companies.

One technology of concern among the roundtable attendees was coal.  Deese explained that Clinton would prohibit new coal-fired power plants from going on-line unless every other possible way to meet electric demand and increased efficiency had been exhausted.

There seemed to be only minimal concern among the scientists about Clinton’s actual policies, but there was deep frustration that Clinton and the other candidates are not grasping the scientific urgency of this issue because they are not making climate change a national priority in their campaigns.  Clinton’s climate change plan seemed to be just another of Clinton’s many ‘plans,’ on par with her social security plan and immigration plan.

The media should take some of the blame for this by not raising climate change in debates and national interviews, but the candidates could always initiate the issue themselves.  Researcher Cameron Wake stated that there is ample opportunity to talk beyond the dark and gloomy aspects of climate change.  The issue will move into the mainstream when the candidates discuss the many success stories reducing greenhouse gas emissions at the business, corporate, and individual levels.

Deese listened intently throughout the roundtable, and hopefully Clinton begins to bring up climate change on the national stage. 

There is a major climate convening taking place this week that could decide the future of our energy use.  The fate of the climate and hours of blood, sweat, and tears of climate activists will culminate in this round of intense deliberations and negotiations.  Rockingham/Strafford Energy Committee Alliance Workshop will take place tomorrow night in Durham.  Check out the workshop flyer for more details.

Also on the climate agenda, are two international summits in New York and Washington.  Today, UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon is holding one of the largest international summits ever to discuss climate change issues at the UN.  Unfortunately, President Bush will not attend any of the day’s meetings but will attend the dinner this evening.  The UN forum will begin post-Kyoto discussions in anticipation of the formal discussions to take place in Bali this December.

Later in the week President Bush will convene his own summit to address climate change with the fifteen ‘major economies’ of the world.  “It’s our philosophy that each nation has the sovereign capacity to decide for itself what its own portfolio of policies should be,” said James L. Connaughton, Bush’s top environmental aid.  While Bush has begun to take action on climate change in recent months, many environmentalist and world leaders are angry at Bush’s reluctance to commit to binding international emissions caps; Bush remains more in favor of voluntary emissions targets.

Is President Bush responding to the 164 New Hampshire towns that passed the climate change resolution calling for national leadership on climate change?  Until specifics materialize about how voluntary targets will break the status quo, the question remains unanswered.