Bold Obama

The road toward a global agreement to reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere during the Paris Conference next December has suddenly begun to clear. First it was Pope Francis with his ecological encyclical on the environment; now it is Obama with his proposal to reduce carbon emissions by 2030 by one third compared to 2005 levels. We can notice that the two cases, both Francis’s encyclical and Obama’s plan, are built on a clear commitment in favor of alternative energies.

If, in the Supreme Pontiff’s case, it is the moral and spiritual authority that plays an important role in the extraordinary repercussion of his green encyclical, in the U.S. president’s case, it is his political authority in two directions: On the international scene, it complements the bilateral agreement already reached by China, guarantees the multilateral success in Paris and encourages new major pollutants, which are the emerging countries; and, with regard to domestic policy, it issues a challenge to the denialist and reactionary postures of Republican candidates, which will weigh in the primaries and even more so during the 2016 presidential campaign.

With only 18 months of his presidential term ahead of him, the U.S. president has made the strongest and riskiest bet ever made by his country — the largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world until 2006, when it was overtaken by China — regarding the energy policy, with a proposal for replacing the existing coal-fired power plants with alternative energies, mainly solar and wind power, which complements the energy independence policy already set in motion in the supply of oil and gas.

The plan presented this week by the Environmental Protection Agency and announced by the White House affects the industrial interests of the most coal dependent states, like Wyoming and West Virginia; it also represents a challenge to state powers, so it will face a very strong opposition in Congress and will most likely end up in the Supreme Court, as already happened with Obama’s health care reform. Ultimately, its implementation will depend on the next president, although by releasing the proposal just before the primaries, Obama is going to get a certain effect regarding his legacy, completing his domestic and foreign reform agenda with a plan that places him in the lead in both areas.

This is one of the best [pieces of] news regarding the efforts to reduce emissions into the atmosphere, just as they were established in the Kyoto protocol in 1992, at least since the failure of the Copenhagen Conference in 2009, in which Obama premiered with little success and the European Union disappeared as a global agent in the climate debates. It is also good news for president Obama, who is subverting the rule on sterile or negative second presidential terms. And it is also [good news with respect to] his global leadership and the perspectives of better global governance regarding an issue that, as Obama has stressed, affects the future of economies and the health and safety of people.