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"As president of the United States, I promise in my first year in
office to negotiate, to sign and to have Congress ratify a global
treaty that will include all countries and enforce mandatory greenhouse
gas emissions controls sufficient over time to avert the risk of
catastrophic global warming."
Sometimes a simple statement can tell us more about a presidential candidate than all their speeches, debates and ads.
Such is the case with the issue of climate change. When the United
States walked away from the Kyoto Treaty under President George W.
Bush, it crippled the effort to bring the global community together to
meet the climate crisis, and destroyed the chance that developing
industrial nations like China, India and Brazil would join the treaty
process.
Our country and the world cannot afford another such abdication of American leadership by the next American president.
Now, with the Kyoto Treaty set to end in 2012, the nations are gathering once more to negotiate a second global treaty. This time, however, a new agreement will be negotiated with the knowledge that global warming emissions have continued to increase under Kyoto. Humanity now faces the stark risk of runaway climate change that would undermine the natural systems we depend on for air, water, food and life itself. Climate scientists say there is still time to prevent the worst, but the clock is ticking down and irreversible climate change cannot be prevented by a business-as-usual approach. We need a strong, enforceable global agreement with mandatory controls on emissions and a roadmap to energy transformation. The prospects are dark without American leadership.
Several candidates have proposed progressive and sincere energy plans for the United States, building energy efficiency in transportation and buildings and supporting alternative energy development, among other important goals. Clearly, however, the most important thing an American president can now do is less in the area of policy proposals than leadership: to lead the United States back to the negotiations with a determination to achieve a new treaty that will include all nations, set the world on a path toward an economy beyond fossil fuels and avert the risk of irreversible climate damage. Then to sell that treaty to America and to the Congress which must ratify it.
Yet while all Democratic and a few Republican candidates have issued proposals on what they would try to do to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, few actually promise to achieve the single most important action. A survey of candidates' campaign web sites shows that several come close:
- Sen. Joe Biden says he would "immediately direct U.S. negotiators to return to global climate change negotiations, to seek binding commitments among all major emitting nations – including emerging nations such as China and India – to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to levels that prevent catastrophic global warming."
- Former Sen. John Edwards says he will lead "the world to a new climate treaty that commits other countries—including developing nations—to reduce their pollution."
- Rep. Dennis Kucinich says he would "immediately put the United States in the forefront of solving the global warming crisis by rejoining the Kyoto accord and implementing its recommendations."
Such a covenant would show American voters which contenders have the honesty, integrity and courage to take a clear, unequivocal forthright stand, and which slip into the politics-as-usual mode of saying different things to different audiences and using language for evasive action.
The Energy Independent is thus calling upon all presidential candidates, regardless of party or ideology, to take the following pledge: "As president of the United States, I promise in my first year in office to negotiate, to sign and to have Congress ratify a global treaty that will include all countries and enforce mandatory greenhouse gas emissions controls sufficient over time to avert the risk of catastrophic global warming."
TEI is sending this pledge to all active candidates. We urge them to show their mettle and respond positively. We will report on their responses.
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