In The Blogs

On to Copenhagen

| Mon Nov. 23, 2009 11:59 AM PST

The US will announce a target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions before next month's UN climate summit, according to a White House official.

The target is expected to be in line with figures contained in legislation before the Senate — a reduction of about 17-20% from 2005 levels by 2020.

This is no big surprise: 17% is the figure in Waxman-Markey and it's close to the figure in the various Senate bills. Overall, it's a pretty modest target, but Obama could hardly pledge anything more under the circumstances. At least it's something.

(I think this is going to be my motto for the next four years: "At least it's something." Kinda sad, isn't it? But at the moment we're still pretty plainly not willing to face up to reality on a whole bunch of different fronts. So we do what we can.)

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Kevin Drum is a political blogger for Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here.

Comments

Maybe he can use some kind

Submitted by Another Brad (not verified) on Mon Nov. 23, 2009 12:44 PM PST.

Maybe he can use some kind of trick to hide the decline in his emissions targets.

But at the moment we're

Submitted by Luther on Mon Nov. 23, 2009 12:57 PM PST.

But at the moment we're still pretty plainly not willing to face up to reality on a whole bunch of different fronts.

Among them, exponential population growth and resulting CO2 emissions. How can you keep 'em down in Mexico, Brazil, Central America, China, Haiti, etc., when Washington promises paths to citizenship, DREAM act, sanctuary cities, jackpot baby citizenship, and so forth? Note that Reagan's amnesty for 3 milliion brought in 30 million more.

How can Washington be stopped from bringing in hundreds of millions more legal immigrants to broaden the tax base (actuarial motive), vote Democratic (Dem motive), lower wages to be competitive with India and China (Republican motive)?

I'd look for at least a 50% rise in CO2 emissions by 2020.

Yep- that's a great way to

Submitted by DougMN (not verified) on Mon Nov. 23, 2009 1:19 PM PST.

Yep- that's a great way to fire up the base. God, democrats are stupid.

"Overall, it's a pretty

Submitted by Chicounsel (not verified) on Mon Nov. 23, 2009 1:56 PM PST.

"Overall, it's a pretty modest target, but Obama could hardly pledge anything more under the circumstances. At least it's something."

I'm sure that Obama will get around to figuring out to how to achieve this "pretty modest target" right after he figures out how to close down Gitmo and what "war strategy" to employ in Afganistan, you know, the "war of necessity". So I would expect something maybe in the second year of the Palin Administration. LOL

Perhaps He Needs to Try and Fail?

Submitted by Detroit Dan on Mon Nov. 23, 2009 2:05 PM PST.

I guess getting some health care bill passed is way better than nothing. But at some point, perhaps it would make sense to make his best case for some course of action that is unlikely to get Congressional approval, but may succeed in changing the terms of the debate. It's still early in his administration, and he can still afford some relatively long term thinking.

If he's not going to be allowed to succeed, then he might as well be out in front of the failure. For example, he could press for some thorough financial system overhauls. If this is shot down by Congress, then Obama will be in better position if the financial system continues to be a problem for the country...

Less than Kyoto

Submitted by Idiot/Savant (not verified) on Mon Nov. 23, 2009 3:51 PM PST.

"At least its something"? Yeah, but its less than the US signed up for with Kyoto.

The US's net emissions rose 20.2% between 1990 and 2005. So, at best, this is agreeing to return US pollution to 1990 levels. The US's Kyoto target was a 7% reduction on 1990 levels. Feh.