OBAMA WANTS IT CLEANER:CAMPAIGN 2008: Obama touts his climate plan as stronger than McCain's (02/11/2008)
Darren Samuelsohn, Greenwire senior reporter
Democrat Barack Obama took a swipe Friday at the leading Republican White House candidate's global warming positions and also pledged to take part in international climate negotiations if he wins his party's presidential nomination.
"I know that my climate change plan is stronger than John McCain's," the Illinois senator told reporters during a campaign stop in Seattle.
"One example," Obama said, "is just the fact that I've been very specific about proposing a 100 percent auction, which makes an enormous difference in how effective it's going to be and how aggressive the ratcheting down of emissions will end up."
Obama signed up in early 2007 as cosponsor of a climate change bill authored by McCain and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) that seeks to cut emissions 60 percent below 1990 levels by midcentury. The Lieberman-McCain bill would leave it to the U.S. EPA chief to make a decision on how to distribute emission credits.
But on the presidential campaign trail, Obama has gone much further with a plan to reduce emissions 80 percent by 2050.
McCain has defended his own record on climate change, but he also has been careful not to trumpet it too loudly in front of the Republican conservative base that loathes regulation.
Writing this weekend in the Wall Street Journal, McCain adviser Robert McFarlane outlined "market-based incentives" to help the automobile industry shift toward new energy-efficient models and the licensing of new nuclear plants. He did not mention global warming.
Obama reps in Poland?
In Seattle, Obama also weighed in with comments on the diplomatic struggle to reach agreement on a new international global warming treaty.
"I've been in conversations with former Vice President [Al] Gore repeatedly, and his recommendation, which I think is sound, is that you can't wait until you are sworn into office to get started," Obama said. "The moment I secure the nomination, I want to bring together experts in this area to start putting together the U.S. position and our plans, what we're going to be doing internally, what we can agree to with other countries."
Last December in Bali, Indonesia, Gore told climate diplomats at a U.N. conference that they should "save a large open blank space" for the United States to participate after President Bush leaves office. Many expect the U.S. president-elect to send a delegation to the next major U.N. session scheduled for Dec. 1-12 in Poznan, Poland.
Obama signaled he would do just that.
"I think we need to start reaching out to other countries ahead of time, not because I'm presumptuous, but because there's such a sense of urgency about this," Obama said. "We need to hit the ground running, starting on January 2009 and hopefully, some of that groundwork will have been done prior to me being sworn into office."
New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama's rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, has made similar campaign promises on global warming.
Domestically, Clinton has said she wants to make emission reductions of 80 percent by 2050.
And she vowed last fall to host high-level meetings every three months with the goal of reaching a new climate agreement with China, India and the rest of the world by 2010 -- two years before the expiration of the Kyoto Protocol.
Clinton also has promised to reorganize the White House and create a National Energy Adviser akin to the National Security Council.