Energy & Climate (December 2009)

Despite recent positive news about the economy as a whole, it is becoming clear that this recovery remains a bumpy one. While some sectors of our nation’s economy have begun to show improvement, others, like construction, manufacturing and retail, continue to shed jobs. We have lost over 7 million jobs during this recession — one out of every 20 jobs — and we will need 12 million new jobs just to bring employment back to where it was at the end of the Clinton administration.

As Copenhagen’s climate talks kick off this week, we in Washington must not wait any longer to lead. Climate change is the one issue with the highest potential for global impact and remarkably, we are almost letting this leadership opportunity pass us by, which is, historically speaking, un-American. In the past, our global leadership has been not only formidable, but proactive.

It has been nearly six months since the House turned a blind eye to the plight of America’s working families and passed reckless cap-and-trade legislation. On June 26, as the nation’s unemployment was 9.4 percent and climbing, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) were successful in railroading through by the slimmest of margins their misguided, job-killing plan despite wide bipartisan opposition.

The long road to Copenhagen began in Rio in 1992, when an American president personally traveled to those talks to help produce the promise of a beginning. That promise was not perfected and I am the first to acknowledge that in the years that followed, no country more than the United States gave in to division and denial and failed to lead in the manner that global climate change demands.   

Climate change is a global problem. Both causes and effects are global and therefore fighting climate change requires a global solution. In 2007 the countries of the world set a deadline for such a global solution: December 2009 in Copenhagen. Monday, the final two weeks of negotiations got underway at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, the so-called COP15.

As we speak, negotiators, ministers and heads of state are gathering in Copenhagen to negotiate a new global climate regime for the period after 2012.