Markey : “This Country has sent so much red, white and blue CO2 into the atmosphere”

By Kayleigh Harvey - Talk Radio News Service

Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Henry Waxman (D-CA), Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA) met with British Secretary of State Ed Milliband MP and Danish Minister for Environment, Connie Hedegaard today to discuss how to tackle environmental issues globally.

The meeting was the start of the new administrations environmental talks leading up to the “Climate Conference in Copenhagen” in December 2009.

In 2012 the Kyoto Protocol to prevent climate changes and global warming runs out. New targets will be set at the Copenhagen Conference.

Talking about America’s role, in the need for saving the environment, Chairman Waxman said: “The United States has to catch up and become a leader.”

Congressman Markey commented on the need to tackle the levels of CO2 emissions created from the United States. He said: “this country has sent so much red, white and blue, CO2 into the atmosphere....we need to fix this.”

Finding the dialogues throughout the day productive, Danish Minister Hedegaard stated: “We cannot tackle the global challenges like climate change without the United States...we have set ourselves an ambitious timeline and we must live up to it...a lot is at stake and it is important for the whole world to come together.”

Adding to these comments British Secretary of State Ed Milliband said: “Obama has shown in the economic stimulus and in his vision around the country that environmental issues are important...that despite the challenges we face, we can get an agreement globally.”

Chairman Waxman concluded with the statement that he hoped to pass legislation in December that will tackle energy independence, climate change and global warming.

America needs to become a leader in the "green fight"

by Suzia Van Swol, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service

"We believe we will in fact create millions of jobs, millions of green jobs, if this is done. We will become energy efficient, we will save money and energy costs, we will invest in new technologies, and we will be the leader," said Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-CA). She was joined by additional Senators at a press conference on releasing principles for global warming legislation. By coming together on very specific principles, Boxer says she believes "that this moment marks the beginning of our legislative effort" to pass global warming legislation.

"Raising the standard for fuel efficiency, the stimulus package, reducing our dependency on foreign oil, reducing the emission of CO2, improving our transportation system, are all good down-payments" said Sen. Thomas Carper (D-Del.), but the payment we really need is "a legislation whose principles are really laid out before all of us today. That is where the rubber hits the road. All the other is good, and all the other is important, but without this legislation, we are not going to get this job done."

Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) wants us to join in the fight together and says that this battle is like a burning house "the fact of the matter is that if we don't put out the fire as it is, the whole house will be consumed," and continued with the statement that we don't have the luxury of time.

People understand that there is a deep recession and a financial crisis in our country but Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) said that, "We also understand that if we don't get a handle on global warming, cut back on green house gas emissions, move towards energy independence, which people have talked about for decades, if we don't do that, the economic situation, not to mention the environmental situation, becomes worst."

"Our earth is sending out her warnings, and we must listen" said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and "a green economy beckons us to a brighter future."

Large-scale action for the environment: easy to agree on, but “a very hard beast to get moving”

The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and the Global Energy and Environment Initiative (GEEI) held a discussion today on “The Energy Economy in Transition: Mega Trends for the Year Ahead.” With ample global agreement on the need for reducing carbon emissions and ‘greening’ our industries, the discussion panel analyzed why there hasn’t been large-scale action for the environment.

Scott Barrett of the SAIS said “you can see that this is a very hard beast to get moving... John McCain wants to limit emissions in 2012 to where they were in 2005.... Obama has said that emission should fall 80% by 2050. It’s going to be extremely hard for any other country to move forward if the United States is not moving forward, and the United States won’t do anything ambitious unless the rest of the world goes with it.”

Barrett suggested that in order to achieve progress in reducing carbon emissions in the United States, we shouldn’t be too ambitious. Barret said, “the reason I want something modest is not because the problem demands something modest, because it doesn’t. The reason is that when we start to want to think more ambitiously, because of this need to want to bring other countries along with us, there’ll be a natural desire and instinct to want to attach trade restrictions to anything we do on our own, and I think that could be damaging.” The panel of experts at the SAIS and GEEI agreed that this issue would most likely not receive top priority in the next administration, due to other demanding economic issues at hand.

Still, the panel made it clear that a transformation of technology worldwide will be necessary to supply our overwhelming global energy demand. Barrett said, “one way you do it is you move to forms of energy that do not release green house gasses. But think about it---as you become more successful in using those, what happens to the price of fossil fuels? They fall... this is not an easy problem to deal with. The other way you do it is you use fossil fuels, but then you take the CO2 and put it under ground... Not only do we need government involvement, but we need global cooperation on a scale we’ve never had before.”