Underlining the poor timing and tin-eared politics of Lamar Smith’s terror campaign against climate science, not to mention the absolute cluelessness of the late,great Republican Party’s Presidential field on the issue, these items stand out.
Business leaders from 78 multinationals say they will take the fight to climate sceptics and urge politicians to implement tough and effective new carbon cutting plans.
Senior officials at Microsoft, Nestle, Pepsi, Tata, Dow Chemical and Indian conglomerate Mahindra are among those who say they will become “ambassadors for climate ambition”.
The push comes a week before UN-backed talks on cutting carbon emissions kick off in Paris. An estimated 138 world leaders are expected to attend the opening day of negotiations.
In a letter published by the World Economic Forum (WEF) the business chiefs say they will stress “the science debate is over: climate change is real and addressable” in public communications.
“Delaying action is not an option — it will be costly and will damage growth prospects in the years to come,” they write.
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The companies involved offer a broad cross section of the global economy – although the letter lacks the support of big oil, gas or coal firms.
Together they generated over $2.1 trillion of revenue in 2014, according to the WEF.
Climate Nexus:
A new memo from nine major Democratic pollsters, however, shows that public opinion is becoming more widely consistent on certain issues within the climate sphere. There is broad support across party lines for clean energy and climate change mitigation, because they have proven economic, social, and environmental benefits for the American people. While support for clean energy has always been high, it is now backed by “growing concern about climate change, an increasingly vocal activist movement, and support from large financial and commercial interests.”
The most important elements of this consensus are as follows.
(1) A large majority of Americans consider climate change to be a serious problem and want action to be taken now to address it.
There is a growing awareness that human activity, such as burning fossil fuels, contributes to the problem of climate change. People in the millennial generation, among others, are especially hostile to politicians who deny the reality of climate change., and perceive them as ignoring the reality of the world in which they live. A clear majority of voters believe that there is already enough evidence to warrant action now to address climate change.
(2)
There is broad support for the EPA’s Clean Power Plan to limit carbon pollution from electric power plants and require greater use of clean energy sources.Support for the Clean Power Plan crosses party lines and includes significant shares of Republican voters – even when the plan is explicitly associated with the Obama administration.
Voters continue to support the Clean Power Plan even after hearing arguments both for and against it, including criticisms related to its economic impacts. The most compelling reasons for voters to support the Clean Power Plan include:
• The impact of unregulated carbon pollution on asthma and other respiratory illnesses, and the health benefits and cost savings that can occur by limiting carbon pollution now;
• The moral irresponsibility and increased financial costs of passing the problem of climate change onto our children and grandchildren; and
• The economic and environmental benefits of accelerating America’s transition to clean energy sourcesIncreasingly, opposition to any regulation of carbon pollution emissions and doing nothing about climate change are politically indefensible propositions for officeholders or candidates, especially when those positions are tied to financial contributions from coal, oil and gas interests.
(3) There is avid support for increasing our use of clean, renewable energy sources and voters expect the shift to these cleaner sources will lead to more jobs and lower electricity costs over the long term.
Significant majorities of voters want the government to do more than it currently is doing to promote the use of clean and renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power. There is broad support among voters for setting clear clean energy goals for America – including having at least 50 % of our power come from clean energy source by 2030 and having all of our power come from clean energy sources after that.
Voters expect that the transition to clean energy will result in a net increase in American jobs, and ultimately will result in lower electricity costs. Consumers support policies to promote clean energy sources even if they result in some short-term increases in electricity rates, just as they have supported regulations on air pollution emissions in the past, but there is a growing view that the transition to clean power will result in cost savings sooner rather than later.
Typos: Two instances of “supper” in lieu of “support”.
thanks
Yep, this is it. Crunch time.
To use football metaphors, the deniers are still ahead because the denier team plays dirty and owns the refs, the good guys have been surging and have come from far behind, we’re in the red zone, the clock is running down, and we need a touchdown to win. The Paris talks and the 2016 election are either going to provide that touchdown and put us on the road to winning the AGW Super Bowl or force us to enter another “rebuilding year” and look to next season (if there is a “next season”)
I am concerned as we watch different elements fall into place whether we have progressed to the next step in climate change, in which case Billions will die over the next few decades and quite a few of them will be Americans, not to mention the very real possibility of world wide war with its roots in GW and especially oil and the profits from it.
This may well be the last chance for a viable future
“Voters expect that the transition to clean energy will result in a net increase in American jobs, and ultimately will result in lower electricity costs.”……… that’s the rub. We’ve been massaged into thinking this is a win/win transformation. Tyndall Climate Centre ‘s Dr. Kevin Anderson has documented the strong pressure being brought to bear on the scientists and each further tier in the process, all the way up to the climate negotiators, to “rosy up” the future promised from the meager proposals. The science backs this up; transforming to a carbon-free world with 8 billion people will be FAR more expensive in every way than we are being led to believe (see e.g. Prof. Tim Garrett’s synthesis of REALISTIC economic reality and climate). Everyone’s political interests (even the good guys) in this drama find it essential to spin it rosy this way. But +2C is now essentially out of reach even for dramatic transformation. We will find it very hard to confine to a +4C world, which scientists universally agree is one which is “incompatible with organized society”. More like +6C by 2100 is the path we’re on now. No one – NO one, is treating this as the genuine drop-everything emergency that it is. This will only be obvious to those being spun after the consequences emerge, far far too late to stop it.
I wonder how supportive the Joe Voter will be when the actual bill becomes clear? Will he prefer to retreat to rosy delusion again?
Not too sure about Tim Garrett. He seems to think energy efficiency gains are forever, completely and irredeemably cancelled by Jevon’s Paradox. It’s as if he’s never heard of Pegovian taxes or subsidies. Perhaps, living in Utah has made him morbidly cynical about political action. There is a lot of that going around these days. Anyway, recent empirical data show that economic growth is not so inextricably tied to energy growth
The data is clear; energy consumption is proportional to the integrated GDP of the world over time. It’s not growth per se in the economy, it’s the SIZE of the world economy which determines energy consumption, and those who rule have decreed “Growth Uber Alles”, and the rest of the voters go along with that. Emotion has nothing to do with it. Do you have anything to offer except ad hominem? Also, do you want to be the one to explain to people that their efficiency savings dollars have to be buried and not spent? Good luck with that.