Climate Change Shift

As self-help programs teach, recognizing a problem is a key first step to solving it. So, although the Senate voted down measures that would have actually tackled climate change, they did take an important step in recognizing that greenhouse gas emissions are changing the environment and need to be reduced. Of course, Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe have long known there was a problem and have tried, unsuccessfully, for years to do something about it. Now, their colleagues are catching up.

Last month, 53 lawmakers signed on to a “Sense of the Senate Resolution” calling for mandatory caps on pollution linked to climate change. This is a major shift. In 1997, 99 senators voted to reject signing on to the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for international reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. At that time, many senators said there was little evidence that climate change was occurring or that human activity was partly responsible for temperature swings.

Even more stunning, 46 senators voted in favor of a resolution sponsored by Sen. John Kerry to reconnect the United States to the Kyoto process. That means half the senators who voted against the international agreement eight years ago have changed their minds on climate change.

Take Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter, for example. When voting against the Climate Stewardship Act of 2003, the senator said there were “open questions on the impact of climate change and the consequences for national and state economies.” Two years later, he sponsored the Senate resolution approved recently. “I supported the [Hagel] amendment because I believe it is a step in the right direction, however, I believe further action is necessary to address global climate change,” he said on the Senate floor.

Sixty-five other senators voted for the amendment sponsored by Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel that offers financial incentives to companies that reduce their carbon intensity – not their overall emissions. But many of those senators then voted for the resolution, indicating they do not believe the Hagel amendment went far enough.

The resolution by Democrat Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania finds that greenhouse gases are accumulating in the atmosphere, causing temperatures to rise and increasing the severity of floods and droughts. It also acknowledges that mandatory steps will be required to slow or stop the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. It then says Congress should enact a national program of mandatory, market-based limits to slow, stop and reverse the growth of such emissions. This must be done in a way that won’t significantly harm the economy. Britain, where venture capitalists are looking for energy- efficient technology to invest in, can offer guidance on this point.

The White House, in the self-help lingo, is still in denial. “The president wants to understand more,” the president’s Chief of Staff Andrew Card said during a recent meeting with the Bangor Daily News.

“His scientists don’t know the degree to which humans are affecting it,” he added.

As the recent Senate action shows, the time for denial is over. It is time for action.