Peak emissions now – the right choice for Obama

by David Steven | Mar 5, 2009 | Climate and resource scarcity, North America

Yesterday, I put some words into Barack Obama’s mouth – re-jigging JFK’s famous ‘man on the moon’ speech as a call for an immediate peak to global emissions.

Setting a goal that emissions should never rise again, is something I have argued we should do now, rather than hoping we’ll simply be braver or more desperate in five or ten years’ time.

Originally, I suggested this should be a major plank for civil society campaigning – and I still think it should be. But governments can play too. Let’s look at the policy from vantage point of the Obama administration. (more…)

Obama: global emissions must never rise again

by David Steven | Mar 4, 2009 | Climate and resource scarcity, North America

Extracts From Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs

President Barack Obama
Delivered in person before a joint session of Congress
May 25, 2009

[With apologies to JFK’s ‘man on the moon‘ speech.]

The Constitution imposes upon me the obligation to “from time to time give to the Congress information of the State of the Union.” While this has traditionally been interpreted as an annual affair, this tradition has been broken in extraordinary times.

These are extraordinary times. And we face extraordinary challenges… [The President’s discussion of economic, security and resource threats has been cut from this transcript.]

…Finally, if we are to win the battle to secure our shared future, then we must act decisively to stabilize the world’s climate. Otherwise, we will begin to suffer the consequences of our folly within a generation – not just at home, but across the world, as we struggle to sustain security and prosperity on an increasingly crowded planet.

Since early in my term, serious efforts to tackle climate change here in America have begun. We have examined where we are strong, and where we are not, where we may succeed and where we may not. Now it is time to lead the world in a great new enterprise, one which will hold the key to our future on earth.

I believe we possess all the resources and talents necessary. But the facts of the matter are that we have never made the international decisions or marshaled the international resources required for such leadership. We have never before specified long-range goals on an urgent time schedule, or managed our resources and our time so as to insure their fulfillment.

I therefore believe we should set these global and national goals.

First, I believe that the world should commit itself to achieving the goal of stopping the inexorable rise in greenhouse gas emissions that is doing so much to put our planet in peril. I don’t believe we should aim to achieve this goal in 2020 or 2030 or 2050 – but right now in 2009, making this year the high water mark for mankind’s global experiment with the global climate.

Second, once we have bought emissions to a standstill, we should aim to force them down year by year – slowly at first, but at an ever increasing pace, triggering a radical transformation that brings us to a near zero carbon world by mid-century.

(more…)