Obama’s Green Deal

Like the Roosevelt Plan in the ‘30s, we now need a Green Plan to save the planet.

To ensure that human civilization has a real possibility of surviving climate change, President Barack Obama will have to lead a sort of revolution in the way America deals with the issue. The United States is, by far, the greatest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions and is historically responsible for emissions three times greater than those of China (which today is the country with the greatest number of emissions on an annual basis).

Prior to the upcoming International Conference on Climate that will take place in December in Copenhagen, where the U.S. will participate in negotiations regarding the document to follow the Kyoto Protocol, the United States will have to work to seriously, immediately and without delay reduce emissions.

The Waxman-Markey law on climate, awaiting approval by the U.S. Senate, falls painfully short of what is necessary. If it passes, by 2020 the United States will have to reduce its emissions a mere one percent from the level of emissions in 1990. The Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) declared it would be necessary to make reductions of 25 to 40 percent. There is an urgent need for a much bolder approach and Obama has the vision and the persuasive ability to bring it forward.

The United States should launch a Green Deal or a Green Global Agreement; a program with sufficient impact to rapidly initiate the transition to a global economy that is elastic and sensitive to issues tied to the environment. That is to say, an economy that emits few greenhouse gases and protects itself from the inevitable impact of climate change. A Global Green Deal would be both a political and economic victory, both at home and abroad. A strong program of green investments would create jobs, stimulate profits and investment opportunities, and help millions of people around the world recover from the economic crisis.

Like Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s and John F. Kennedy’s Apollo project for the moon in the ‘60s, a Global Green Agreement would mobilize public and private resources with the same urgency that was noted in war time.

The government would spend more, but it would spend more wisely, transferring the finances allotted to practices that worsen climate change (for example, the copious financing of projects tied to coal and oil) to their green counterparts. Policies that simultaneously reduce emissions and reinforce resistance, for instance, by planting trees and regenerating the soil, would have to be absolute priorities.

If Obama assumes command, he would likely find other countries interested in following his initiative. Similar ideas have been supported by the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has asked for US$100 billion per year to help poor countries cut down emissions and adapt to climate change. High officials in the Japanese and German governments have also supported similar initiatives.

In February, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and former Vice President of the United States Al Gore pressured governments worldwide to counteract the global economic crisis and, together, they launched a “new, green global economy.” Making it known that, to stimulate such an economy, an expense of US$2.25 billion would be necessary, Ban and Gore also explained that to distribute these funds to “infrastructures for coal and fossil fuels would be like investing in sub-prime mortgages again.”

President Obama supports domestic policies that favor a Global Green Deal. The stimulus package approved in the spring increased federal spending on solar and wind energy and other forms of green energy by three times the former level. However, to stabilize the climate, governments should also interrupt the financing of activities that worsen the situation. For this, Obama has a long way to go. Fossil fuels continue to receive almost twice as much federal aid as renewable energy and energy efficiency.

There will not be a climate agreement in Copenhagen if rich countries and developing countries do not find common ground. The irony of such a fate is that the rich countries that caused the problem are now under attack unless China, India and other large, developing countries begin to reduce their emissions. For moral and practical reasons, it is the rich countries that will have to pay the most for this change; otherwise, nothing will be done. If Obama guides the change, a Global Green Deal could become a cry of warning. Rich and poor countries could leave Copenhagen united and capable of becoming green as quickly as possible. This should be done if we want our children to inherit an inhabitable planet.