Global Warming Update - Spring 2009

Contents

  1. Summary
  2. Momentum for Action
  3. How You Can Help
  4. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
  5. Tropical Forests and Climate Initiative

Summary
Tens of thousands of citizens—including 20,000 UCS activists—called on our nation’s leaders to pass comprehensive climate legislation that will repower, refuel, and rebuild America. The petition was delivered to President Obama when he stepped into office this January. With the president’s public commitment to building a clean energy future and Congress starting to take up climate legislation, we have a tremendous opportunity to protect future generations from the worst effects of global warming while breaking our dependence on oil and putting Americans back to work. In the Northeast, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative—the nation’s first regional, market-based plan to limit global warming pollution—went into effect, helping to set the stage for federal legislation to reduce emissions across the country. And with tropical deforestation accounting for 20 percent of the world’s global warming pollution, UCS supporters pushed to include foreign aid funds to help reduce deforestation.

Momentum for Action
As soon as President Obama took office this January, he received a petition signed by tens of thousands of U.S. citizens—including nearly 20,000 UCS activists—calling on our nation’s leaders to pass comprehensive climate legislation that will repower, refuel, and rebuild America. President Obama answered the call with his public commitment to building a clean energy future and fighting global warming. With Congress now expected to take up climate legislation over the next several weeks, we have a tremendous opportunity to protect future generations from the worst effects of global warming while breaking our dependence on oil and putting Americans back to work.

However, opportunity does not guarantee success. We cannot underestimate the powerful influence of the coal and oil industries and the politicians who support them. Now, more than ever, we must challenge our lawmakers to take bold and visionary action that will curb global warming pollution that comes from burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests, and transition the United States to a clean energy economy.

How You Can Help
As Congress prepares to examine the elements of a comprehensive climate policy, they are already turning to UCS for our technical and scientific expertise. In late April, UCS President Kevin Knobloch testified before the Energy and Commerce committee about UCS’s forthcoming report, Climate 2030: A National Blueprint for a Clean Energy Economy. The report will demonstrate how we can achieve deep cuts in U.S. global warming pollution while saving consumers money.

In the following months, we will ask UCS activists to educate their legislators about these key findings and to urge them to support a well-designed comprehensive climate policy that aligns with the solutions we’ve demonstrated will reduce emissions, provide consumer savings, and revitalize our economy.

We will work to ensure a strong, comprehensive climate policy:

  • requires science-based U.S. emissions reductions of at least 35 percent below current levels by 2020 and at least 80 percent by 2050;

  • includes a 25 percent by 2025 Renewable Electricity Standard;

  • requires polluters to pay for their global warming emissions and invests the revenue in clean energy solutions, protections for consumers and workers, programs to preserve tropical forests, transfer of clean technologies to developing nations, and adaptation assistance; and,

  • excludes loopholes that would let polluters delay or avoid needed emissions reductions.

With your help, we can pass climate legislation this year!

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
Thanks in part to the thousands of UCS supporters who sent emails and made phone calls over the past four years, the nation's first cap-and-trade program, a market-based plan to reduce global emissions, went into effect earlier this year. Ten states in the Northeast now have a price and limit on global warming emissions from electric power plants. Your efforts helped ensure that a number of key provisions in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) set good precedents for federal policy, including auctioning most of the emissions permits and investing those funds in energy efficiency and clean energy.
 
So far, the RGGI states have held three auctions to sell global warming emissions permits, raising a total of 262.3 million dollars. The states are now engaged in the process of allocating their funds to specific programs and projects that will increase energy efficiency and clean energy generation in their states. The participating states include Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. UCS is using the lessons learned from RGGI to help pass strong federal legislation to cap and reduce emissions across the country.

Tropical Forests and Climate Initiative
With tropical deforestation causing about 20 percent of the world’s global warming pollution, UCS is working hard to educate policy makers on this important issue. We have shared our analyses with congressional staff and, with the help of UCS supporters, we are building support among lawmakers. Members of the State & Foreign Operations Subcommittee have brought our recommendations to the House Appropriations Committee. Thanks in part to the encouragement of UCS activists, the committee is considering designating a small portion of its foreign operations budget to the United States Agency for International Development to put towards preparing developing nations for reducing deforestation.

Additionally, UCS is working to ensure that the congressional staff working on federal climate legislation have our analyses on tropical deforestation and that the bill includes our suggested levels of funding for addressing climate change internationally. Having a strong tropical forest provision in this bill will not only ensure greater global emissions reductions, but it will also send a strong signal to the international community in preparation for a strong international climate treaty in Copenhagen this December. With your help we can make sure that all domestic and international policy makers know that climate change won’t be solved without protecting tropical forests.

Last Revised: 04/27/09