WASHINGTON — Barack Obama used his first presidential trip to the United Nations on Tuesday to offer a broad renewal of America’s commitment to address climate change, telling the world leaders gathered there that “the time we have to reverse this tide is running out.”
“Our generation’s response to this challenge will be judged by history, for if we fail to meet it — boldly, swiftly and together — we risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe,” Obama said.
Yet the careful listener could hear several “buts”: Obama offered a plea not to “allow the perfect to become the enemy of progress” and warned that we face “doubts and difficulties in our own capitals.”
Including Washington.
Climate-change legislation that in the spring looked as if it could become a significant part of Obama’s first-year accomplishments is now facing serious trouble in the Senate.
Senate Democrats privately concede it has almost no chance of being taken up this year. And when it is addressed, chances are growing that it will be pared down significantly from what passed the House of Representatives in June.
Four conservative Democrats — Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan, both of North Dakota — said last month that they won’t vote for a national limit on greenhouse-gas emissions regulated under a system known as “cap and trade.”
The only way to save what is effectively the bill’s central feature would be to win over several Republicans — a long shot at best.
“The path that the administration has chosen — cap and trade — is not the only option, and many out there believe that it is far from the best option,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, who offered the Republican rebuttal to Obama’s address.
Congressional conundrum
The president’s unfolding problems in Washington were only sharpened by the contrast with Chinese President Hu Jintao. Speaking after Obama at the U.N., Hu vowed that the country would produce 15 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020 and notably decrease carbon emissions relative to gross domestic product.
But if China’s top-down political system allowed Hu to offer a promise few doubt he can keep, analysts say Obama is navigating the vagaries of democracy, including potentially miscalculating just how ambitious an agenda Congress could handle.
The difficult health care debate will likely leave moderate Democrats unwilling to risk another fight over climate change — leaving congressional leaders little choice but to scale the package back.
“What’s happened to health care makes it much harder to get bold cap-and-trade legislation through the Senate in particular,” said Julian Zelizer, a congressional expert at Princeton University.
Negotiators on both sides of the aisle are holding ongoing talks, some exploring an alternative to cap-and-trade. Murkowski said she would be willing to consider a carbon tax, which would still create strong incentives for companies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions but in a way some industries say would be more fair.
Others have proposed sticking only to a requirement that a certain percentage of the country’s electricity come from renewable sources, which would bring down carbon emissions as well but probably not as quickly.
There are lots of moving parts, negotiators say, and the key will be to try to put together a package that can win over centrist Democrats and Republicans, whether this year or next.
Udall still holds out hope
Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., who is among a team of lawmakers trying to craft a compromise, said that adding more incentives for nuclear power and natural-gas-produced electricity could bring over crucial lawmakers.
“The overlap where the gas finds are with the swing-state senators is a little uncanny. Pennsylvania and Ohio, Arkansas, the northern plains,” he said.
Long an advocate of renewable electricity and a strong defender of cap-and-trade, Udall believes a bill could still come this year, even if he concedes that won’t be easy.
“There are two schools of thought. One is that we’ll be exhausted emotionally and physically and we won’t have the capacity to do any more heavy policy lifting,” he said.
“My belief is that we’ll actually be invigorated by the major success of passing health care reform.”
Major points from Obama’s U.N. speech
• Obama gave no doubt where he stood on climate change, saying the threat “is serious, it is urgent, and it is growing.”
• Pledged to phase out subsidies for fossil fuels in conjunction with other G20 countries.
• Said the burden for solving the problem must be shared by both major industrialized countries and rapidly growing developing nations.
• Called for financial assistance to the poorest countries to help them counter the impacts of climate change and “pursue low-carbon development.”
