{"id":6047,"date":"2011-01-28T08:32:16","date_gmt":"2011-01-28T16:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ietransfer.wpengine.com\/?p=6047"},"modified":"2011-01-28T08:32:16","modified_gmt":"2011-01-28T16:32:16","slug":"obama-administration-tacking-on-climate-change-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/articles\/obama-administration-tacking-on-climate-change-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama Administration Tacking on Climate Change Strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It’s been three days since the State of the Union<\/a>, and while myriad pundits have already weighed in on the substance (the President averaged a C+) and style (B) of the address, a key issue that was once a campaign promise has evaporated into the cold Washington night: climate change policy.<\/p>\n

Mr. Obama did indeed propose an ambitious agenda of driving clean energy innovation forward with the right mix of public\/private partnerships and incentives. And we learned Tuesday night that the administration plans to ensure that the US will derive 80% of its electricity needs from “clean energy sources” by 2035. The newly integrated parties followed with equally choreographed applause.<\/p>\n

But, while the president emphasized themes of innovation and education in the energy space, he did so without any reference to the social and environmental risks posed by global warming. In a speech that lasted a little more than an hour, the word energy appeared nine times, with both clean and\u00a0 renewable each making single appearances.<\/p>\n

The words climate and warming did not appear in the State of the Union at all.<\/p>\n

With the the failure of the cap and trade legislation and the sudden announcement that Carol Browner — the White House coordinator for energy and climate change policy — will depart<\/a>, the Obama administration is in the process of making a course correction, or at least a message modification, on climate change.<\/p>\n

Of course, the political climate in the House\u00a0 will not be favorable for progress on climate policy over the next two years. So, it makes sense that a centrist president would punt on a policy that has insufficient political capital to be passed.<\/p>\n

However, something else seems to be happening: the development of a third way. There’s another constituency in the climate change space that believes that energy security and economic development are the key motivational pillars for climate change reform. These stakeholders — corporate CSR executives, buccaneers like T. Boone Pickens and the producers of the forthcoming film “Carbon Nation”<\/a> — emphasize using technology to essentially win the energy race.<\/p>\n

Environmental NGOs often feel uncomfortable with these folks since they tend to undervalue the environmental risks of global warming. But it’s clear a majority of Americans, while concerned about climate change,\u00a0 have little incentive or ability to make any change to mitigate the problem.<\/p>\n

The White House wants to be seen as winners on energy innovation (aka climate change) and not necessarily limit environmental policy to the “purview of Birkenstock-wearing tree huggers.”<\/p>\n

We won’t know the results of this course correction for some time, but there’s no doubt it’s driven by a desire for a second term.<\/p>\n

Image credit by phylomithus <\/a>under a CC license via Flickr<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been three days since the State of the Union, and while myriad pundits have already weighed in on the substance (the President averaged a C+) and style (B) of the address, a key issue that was once a campaign promise has evaporated into the cold Washington night: climate change policy. Mr. Obama did indeed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":6048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[348,638,654,3938],"adace-sponsor":[],"spectra_custom_meta":{"_edit_last":["50"],"_wp_old_slug":["","obama-adminstration-tacking-on-climate-change-strategy"],"dsq_thread_id":["217845037"],"_thumbnail_id":["6048"],"_jetpack_related_posts_cache":["a:1:{s:32:\"37550b67d263a3ce789993dc25046c5f\";a:2:{s:7:\"expires\";i:1696310423;s:7:\"payload\";a:0:{}}}"],"_uag_page_assets":["a:9:{s:3:\"css\";s:263:\".uag-blocks-common-selector{z-index:var(--z-index-desktop) !important}@media (max-width: 976px){.uag-blocks-common-selector{z-index:var(--z-index-tablet) !important}}@media (max-width: 767px){.uag-blocks-common-selector{z-index:var(--z-index-mobile) !important}}\n\";s:2:\"js\";s:0:\"\";s:18:\"current_block_list\";a:2:{i:0;s:14:\"core\/paragraph\";i:1;s:10:\"core\/image\";}s:8:\"uag_flag\";b:0;s:11:\"uag_version\";i:1713657651;s:6:\"gfonts\";a:0:{}s:10:\"gfonts_url\";s:0:\"\";s:12:\"gfonts_files\";a:0:{}s:14:\"uag_faq_layout\";b:0;}"],"rank_math_news_sitemap_robots":["index"],"rank_math_robots":["a:1:{i:0;s:5:\"index\";}"],"rank_math_internal_links_processed":["1"],"_uag_css_file_name":["uag-css-6047.css"]},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/obama.jpg",640,415,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/obama-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/obama-300x194.jpg",300,194,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/obama.jpg",640,415,false],"large":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/obama.jpg",640,415,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/obama.jpg",640,415,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/obama.jpg",640,415,false],"adace-sponsor":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/obama.jpg",74,48,false],"adace-sponsor-2x":["https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/obama.jpg",148,96,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Lane Jost","author_link":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/author\/lanehjost\/"},"uagb_comment_info":2,"uagb_excerpt":"It’s been three days since the State of the Union, and while myriad pundits have already weighed in on the substance (the President averaged a C+) and style (B) of the address, a key issue that was once a campaign promise has evaporated into the cold Washington night: climate change policy. Mr. Obama did indeed…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6047"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6047"},{"taxonomy":"adace-sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/adace-sponsor?post=6047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}