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The United States, although a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, has neither ratified nor withdrawn from the protocol. In 2001, former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, stated that the Protocol "is not acceptable to the Administration or Congress".[1]
The protocol is non-binding over the United States unless ratified. Former US President, George W. Bush, did not submit the treaty for ratification, believing the treaty would strain the economy and emphasized the uncertainties in the global warming (the current climate change) issue.[2][disputed – discuss][unreliable source?]
In October 2003, the Pentagon published a report titled An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security by Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall. The authors conclude by stating that "this report suggests that, because of the potentially dire consequences, the risk of abrupt climate change, although uncertain and quite possibly small, should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a U.S. national security concern."[3]
From 1989 to 2005, oil and gas industries gave $179.5 million to U.S. federal candidates and parties.[4] In October 2003 and again in June 2005, the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act failed a vote in the US Senate.[5] In the 2005 vote, Republicans opposed the Bill 49-6, while Democrats supported it 37-10.[6]
In January 2007, Democratic House SpeakerNancy Pelosi announced she would form a United States Congress subcommittee to examine global warming.[7] The US government announced that it was withdrawing funding from the lobby groups it had been supporting that aimed to discount the evidence for global warming.[citation needed] Sen. Joe Lieberman said, "I'm hot to get something done. It's hard not to conclude that the politics of global warming has changed and a new consensus for action is emerging and it is a bipartisan consensus." [8]
The Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act of 2007 was introduced by SenatorsBernie Sanders (I-VT) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) on January 15, 2007. The measure would provide funding for R&D on geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide, set emissions standards for new vehicles and a renewable fuels requirement for gasoline beginning in 2016, establish energy efficiency and renewable portfolio standards beginning in 2008 and low-carbon electric generation standards beginning in 2016 for electric utilities, and require periodic evaluations by the National Academy of Sciences to determine whether emissions targets are adequate.[9] However, the bill died in committee.
In June 2005, US State Department papers showed the Bush administration thanking Exxon executives for the company's "active involvement" in helping to determine climate change policy, including the U.S. stance on Kyoto. Input from the business lobby group Global Climate Coalition was also a factor.[12]
The Bush administration implemented an industry-formulated disinformation campaign designed to actively mislead the American public on global warming and to forestall limits on "climate polluters," according to a report in Rolling Stone magazine which reviews hundreds of internal government documents and former government officials.[13]
"'They've got a political clientele that does not want to be regulated,' says Rick Piltz, a former Bush climate official who blew the whistle on White House censorship of global-warming documents in 2005. 'Any honest discussion of the science would stimulate public pressure for a stronger policy. They're not stupid.'
"Bush's do-nothing policy on global warming began almost as soon as he took office. By pursuing a carefully orchestrated policy of delay, the White House blocked even the most modest reforms and replaced them with token investments in futuristic solutions like hydrogen cars. 'It's a charade,' says Jeremy Symons, who represented the EPA on Cheney's energy task force, the industry-studded group that met in secret to craft the administration's energy policy. 'They have a single-minded determination to do nothing—while making it look like they are doing something.' . . .
"The CEQ became Cheney's shadow EPA, with industry calling the shots. To head up the council, Cheney installed James Connaughton, a former lobbyist for industrial polluters, who once worked to help General Electric and ARCO skirt responsibility for their Superfund waste sites.
"two weeks after Bush took office - ExxonMobil's top lobbyist, Randy Randol, demanded a housecleaning of the scientists in charge of studying global warming. . . .Exxon's wish was the CEQ's command.[14]
Also, the White House removed key portions of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report given to the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee about the dangers to human health of global warming.[15] According to one CDC official familiar with both the CDC version and the version given to the Senate, the version given to the Senate was "eviscerated." The White House prevented the Senate and thus the public from receiving key CDC estimates in the report about diseases likely to flourish in a warmer climate, increased injuries and deaths from severe weather such as hurricanes, more respiratory problems from drought-driven air pollution, an increase in waterborne diseases including cholera, increases in vector-borne diseases including malaria and hantavirus, mental health problems such as depression and post-traumatic stress, and how many people might be adversely affected because of increased warming.
Also according to testimony taken by the U.S. House of Representatives, the Bush White House pressured American scientists to suppress discussion of global warming[16][17]
"High-quality science" was "struggling to get out," as the Bush administration pressured scientists to tailor their writings on global warming to fit the Bush administration's skepticism, in some cases at the behest of an ex-oil industry lobbyist. "Nearly half of all respondents perceived or personally experienced pressure to eliminate the words 'climate change,' 'global warming' or other similar terms from a variety of communications."
Similarly, according to the testimony of senior officers of the Government Accountability Project, the White House attempted to bury the report "National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change," produced by U.S. scientists pursuant to U.S. law.[18] Some U.S. scientists resigned their jobs rather than give in to White House pressure to underreport global warming.[16]
US officials, such as Philip Cooney, have repeatedly edited scientific reports from US government scientists,
[19] many of whom, such as Thomas Knutson, have been ordered to refrain from discussing climate change and related topics.[20][21][22]
Climate scientist James E. Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, claimed in a widely cited New York Times article
[23]
in 2006 that his superiors at the agency were trying to "censor" information "going out to the public." NASA denied this, saying that it was merely requiring that scientists make a distinction between personal, and official government, views in interviews conducted as part of work done at the agency. Several scientists working at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have made similar complaints;[24] once again, government officials said they were enforcing long-standing policies requiring government scientists to clearly identify personal opinions as such when participating in public interviews and forums.
The BBC's long-running current affairs series Panorama recently investigated the issue, and was told that "scientific reports about global warming have been systematically changed and suppressed."[25]
According to an Associated Press release on January 30, 2007,
"Climate scientists at seven government agencies say they have been subjected to political pressure aimed at downplaying the threat of global warming.
"The groups presented a survey that shows two in five of the 279 climate scientists who responded to a questionnaire complained that some of their scientific papers had been edited in a way that changed their meaning. Nearly half of the 279 said in response to another question that at some point they had been told to delete reference to "global warming" or "climate change" from a report."[26]
Critics writing in the Wall Street Journal editorial page claim that the survey
[27]
was itself unscientific.[28]
Attempts to suppress scientific information on global warming and other issues have been described by Chris Mooney as constituting a Republican War on Science.
Allegations of attempts to mislead the public
The book Hell and High Water asserts that there has been a disingenuous, concerted and effective campaign to convince Americans that the science is not proven, or that global warming is the result of natural cycles, and that there needs to be more research. The book claims that, to delay action, industry and government spokesmen suggest falsely that "technology breakthroughs" will eventually save us with hydrogen cars and other fixes. It calls on voters to demand immediate government action to curb emissions. Tyler Hamilton, in his review of the book for The Toronto Star, wrote that the book offers "alarming detail on how the U.S. public was being misled by [the Bush administration] (backed by conservative political forces) that is intent on inaction, and that's also on a mission to derail international efforts to curb emissions."[29]
Papers presented at an International Scientific Congress on Climate Change, held in 2009 under the sponsorship of the University of Copenhagen in cooperation with nine other universities in the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU), maintained that the climate-change skepticism which is so prevalent in the USA[30] "was largely generated and kept alive by a small number of conservative think tanks, often with direct funding from industries having special interests in delaying or avoiding the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions".[31]
In Requiem for a Species (2010), Clive Hamilton suggests that the roots of climate change denial lie in the reaction of American conservatism to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. He argues that as the "red menace" receded, conservatives who had put energy into opposing communism sought other outlets. Hamilton contends that the conservative backlash against climate science was led by three prominent physicists -- Frederick Seitz, Robert Jastrow, and William Nierenberg.[34]
Litigation
Several lawsuits have been filed over global warming. For example, Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency before the Supreme Court of the United States forced the US government to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. A similar approach was taken by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer who filed a lawsuit California v. General Motors Corp. to force car manufacturers to reduce vehicles' emissions of carbon dioxide. A third case, Comer v. Murphy Oil, was filed by Gerald Maples, a trial attorney in Mississippi, in an effort to force fossil fuel and chemical companies to pay for damages caused by global warming.[35]
Attempts to undermine U.S. and state efforts
The Bush Administration worked to undermine state efforts to mitigate global warming. Mary Peters, the Transportation Secretary at that, time personally directed US efforts to urge governors and dozens of members of the House of Representatives to block California’s first-in-the-nation limits on greenhouse gases from cars and trucks, according to e-mails obtained by Congress.[36]
President Barack Obama said in September 2009 that if the international community would not act swiftly to deal with climate change that "we risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe...The security and stability of each nation and all peoples—our prosperity, our health, and our safety—are in jeopardy, and the time we have to reverse this tide is running out."
[40]
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State and local governments
195 US cities representing more than 50 million Americans - have committed to reducing carbon emissions to 7% below 1990 levels. In 2005, California (the world's sixth largest economy) committed to reducing emissions to 2000 levels by 2010, 1990 levels by 2020, and 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. Measures to meet these targets include tighter automotive emissions standards, and requirements for renewable energy as a proportion of electricity production. The Union of Concerned Scientists has calculated that by 2020, drivers would save $26 billion per year if California’s automotive standards were implemented nationally. [1]
On August 31, 2006, the California leaders of both political parties agreed to terms in the California Global Warming Solutions Act. When this legislation goes into effect it will limit the state’s global warming emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and institute a mandatory emissions reporting system to monitor compliance. The legislation will also allow for market mechanisms to provide incentives to businesses to reduce emissions while safeguarding local communities. [2] The bill was signed into law on September 27, 2006, by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who declared, "We simply must do everything we can in our power to slow down global warming before it is too late... The science is clear. The global warming debate is over."
Gov. Schwarzenegger also announced he would seek to work with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain, and various other international efforts to address global warming, independently of the federal government.[41]
On September 8, 2006, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano signed an executive order calling on the state to create initiatives to cut greenhouse gas emissions to the 2000 level by the year 2020 and to 50 percent below the 2000 level by 2040.[3]
Ten Northeastern US states are involved in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative,[42] It is believed that the state-level program will apply pressure on the federal government to support Kyoto Protocol.[citation needed]
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is a cap and trade system for CO2 emissions from power plants in the member states. Emission permit auctioning began in September 2008, and the first three-year compliance period began on January 1, 2009.[43] Proceeds will be used to promote energy conservation and renewable energy.[44] The system affects fossil fuel power plants with 25 MW or greater generating capacity ("compliance entities").[43]
Political position of major parties and political movements
Conservative viewpoints
The corporations which produce fossil fuels have for years engaged in public relations work promoting their products and attempting to raise doubts about the need or sensibility of alternatives. They have funded institutions and websites which produce reports which support their viewpoint. According to the Center for American Progress Action Fund since 2009 they have spent $500 million lobbying against climate change legislation and opposing or supporting candidates with respect to their interests. They are supported in their effort by conservative talk show hosts and opinion leaders.[46]
Any effort to make electricity and fuel more expensive or to cap or regulate CO2 will only exacerbate an already critical situation and cause tremendous economic damage[46]
Republican Party
19 of the 20 Republican senate candidates in the 2010 midterm elections according to a survey by National Journal have taken positions opposed to legislation which would mitigate global warming. The exception is Mark Steven Kirk, the senate candidate in Illinois, who as a member of the House was one of the few representatives who supported "Cap and Trade". One of the other Republican House members who voted for Cap and Trade, Michael N. Castle of Delaware, was defeated in the Senate primary by a Tea Party candidate.[46] According to the Miami Herald coverage of these elections, "some Republican candidates also are denying that man-made climate change is real".[47] A New York Times analysis of the election results found that "Voters ousted a wide swath of cap-and-trade supporters from Virginia to New Mexico, leaving behind a House highly polarized on energy." However, the candidates' position on cap-and-trade alone was not found to be a determining factor for these results.[48]
The 2010 midterm elections demonstrated considerable skepticism within the Tea Party movement with respect to the dangers and even the reality of global warming. A New York Times/CBS News Poll during the election revealed that only a small percentage of Tea Party supporters considered global warming a serious problem, much less than the portion of the general public that does. Opposition is particularly strong to Cap and Trade with Tea Party supporters vilifying Democratic office holders who supported efforts to mitigate climate change by emissions trading which would encourage use of fuels which emitted less carbon dioxide.[46]
^Riley Dunlap, "Why climate-change skepticism is so prevalent in the USA: the success of conservative think tanks in promoting skepticism via the media," Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions, IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 6 (2009) 532010 doi:10.1088/1755-1307/6/3/532010
^William Freudenburg, "The effects of journalistic imbalance on scientific imbalance: special interests, scientific consensus and global climate disruption," Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions, IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 6 (2009) 532011 doi:10.1088/1755-1307/6/3/532011
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