This news story originally provided by GlobalWarmingSolution

Feb 14 , 2006

Posted by David Merrill of GlobalWarmingSolution.org

World-wide, 1200 coal plants are slated to come online over the next decade or so, mostly in China, India, and the United States.  If this happens any hope of arresting further destabilization of the atmosphere will be dashed.

How could the siting of these plants be forestalled?  The only conceivable way would be for the relative economics of bringing on new generation from renewable sources-wind, sun, bio-mass, and geothermal--to be so clearly superior that any power planner that proposed a new coal plant would be laughed out of the room.   Some people think that this might be impossible.  No one has ever been able to demonstrate to me that it is.  But here's a real definition of impossible:  imagining that humanity will be able to manage the increasingly devastating climate impacts that will surely follow if these plants are built.

This onslaught of coal plants brings into sharp relief the need for a unified, well-funded, global greenhouse gas emissions reductions program carried out with the full leadership and participation of the United States...and to be completed by 2020.

Our "Three R's of a Global Warming Solution"  shows the three major policy milestones that we must pass along the way to adequately addressing the global warming crisis. 

The first "R" is for President Bush to "sign" the Kyoto Treaty and submit it to the Senate for ratification.  Once this step is completed, the U.S. will have to scramble to meet its obligation of reducing its greenhouse gases 7% below 1990 levels by 2012, now only six years away.

The U.S. would have to scramble because we're starting late.  If you start a race late you have to work harder to catch up.  But that scramble would be a godsend.  It would force the United States to immediately draw up and implement a plan for using energy much more efficiently, and for integrating much more renewable power into our energy system.  

With Kyoto ratified we would then push for flipping federal subsidies from fossil fuels and nuclear power to renewables, the second "R".  This would push the economic driver for renewables and energy efficiency into high gear.  We would lay out a schedule of at least fifteen years for government policies and support so power planners and utilities could plan appropriately.  This would accelerate the movement towards renewable energy that is well underway, but moving far too slowly in light of intensifying climate impacts.

Achieving these two steps would also cause a tremendous, and welcome shift in international climate politics.  The U.S. would finally have the moral authority to take a leadership role in working out a plan for assisting China and India into leapfrogging the remainder of their fossil fuel driven development and head full-bore towards a renewable energy-powered economy.  The performance benchmark for this plan would be achieving the third "R"-reducing global greenhouse gas emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2020.   An international renewable energy fund, perhaps funded by a small tax on international currency transactions, would be indispensable to this final step of the solution.

Apart from extricating humanity from its climate peril, which is certainly our moral obligation, consider three other enormous benefits we would reap if we pursued this difficult but worthy path.

1-We would save money.  If we continue on the path that we are on it is all but certain we will ravage the global economy through increasingly deadly body blows from hurricanes, droughts, floods, etc.  There is no question that destroying the economy   through climate destabilization is going to be much more expensive than protecting it by switching as rapidly as possible to a renewables-powered system.

2-We would create an enormous number of new jobs around the world in renewable energy and energy efficiency, a process that is already underway.

3-We could tap people's yearning for a better world by coming together in an uplifting and unifying global endeavor pursued in the name of our children and this gem of a planet we inhabit.

Obviously none of this will transpire, certainly not fast enough, until adequate pressure is brought to bear on the U.S. Congress and the President to embrace the "Three R's of a Global Warming Solution."

GlobalWarmingSolution.org provides just such a vehicle for millions of Americans to engage in that process through our "4 Climate Change Questions for Congress" campaign.   Send these questions directly to your U.S. Representative and your two U.S. Senators by visiting our "4 Questions" campaign page:

 These "4 Questions" are central to any real conversation about addressing the global warming crisis.  Push them until they answer.  Let us know what they tell you:

david@globalwarmingsolution.org