U.N. climate recap adds heat to '08 race
The US presidential candidates are focusing their position on global warming, the second-most-important issue for independent voters.
By Brad Knickerbockerfrom the November 21, 2007 edition
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The science of global warming – and the urgent need to address it – may be settled as far as the United Nations's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is concerned.
But its sobering "synthesis report" for policymakers, released Saturday in Valencia, Spain, has not dampened the political debate, nor has it made things any easier for the US presidential aspirants.
Candidates of both major parties – many of whom are or have been members of Congress – understand just how difficult it may be to craft effective legislation to shift from fossil fuels to nonpolluting energy sources in order to at least slow the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
At a weekend global warming forum in Los Angeles, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D) of New York "appeared to be preparing environmentalists for disappointment on future global warming laws," reported the Los Angeles Times.
"She said a lesson from her failed 1990s effort to overhaul healthcare was that 'everybody is also worried that people in politics are not going to be pure enough.... So your allies are not happy because you are not 100 percent, and your adversaries are thrilled because they've already divided you before you begin.... There is no way that we will ever produce a piece of legislation that will get through the Congress that every one of you will agree with.' "Environmental issues are typically low on the list of public concerns when choosing candidates and presidents. But independent voters – a key to winning the open primaries and general election – view energy independence and climate change as very important, according to a survey cited in The New York Times.
"After immigration, reducing oil dependence and global warming is the second-most-important issue among independent voters, said Daniel J. Weiss, the director of climate strategy for the Center for American Progress Action Fund.... Mr. Weiss cited a Democracy Corps poll released last month, which also found that among Democrats, it is the fourth-most-important issue."As the presidential primaries and caucuses draw closer, candidates are honing their positions.
Sen. John McCain of Arizona has been far ahead of his Republican rivals in pushing for government tools to address global warming. Recently, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee put his environmental credentials in religious terms, says a story at the online magazine Salon.com.
"Not only as a Republican, but as a Christian it's important to me to say to my fellow believers, 'Look, if anybody ought to be leading on this issue, it ought to be us.' We can't justify destroying a planet that doesn't belong to us, and if we believe that God did create this world for our pleasure and wants us to enjoy it, then all the more reason that we should take care of it."
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