OCHS NEWS

Dear Readers,

This second issue of CONNECTED shows that such a divide is not necessarily imminent. According to German Parliamentary State Secretary Katherina Reiche, both countries share similar concerns. “Germany and the United States are facing the same energy policy challenges. Both countries have to modernize their energy systems and make them more efficient,” Reiche stated on the occasion of the 3rd German-American Energy Conference in May in Berlin. In this issue’s “Face to Face” conversation, Philip D. Murphy, U.S. Ambassador to Germany, and Klaus Scharioth, Germany’s ambassador to the United States, agree. They point out that transatlantic climate diplomacy fosters mutual learning and can support innovation in important areas such as electric vehicles and mobility.

[I am co-editor of CONNECTED, together with Dennis Taenzler. Please find the full first issue of CONNECTED here]

[This is the translation of my recent interview for the Italian magazin e La Nuova Ecologia] 

1)      Can you explain to our Italian readers what the current status of Climate Change legislation is in the United States?

The situation in the United States is a bit tricky to understand for European observers due to the country’s complicated political system of “divided government” that provides “checks and balances” between the executive and legislative governmental branches. The House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy & Security Act, a far-reaching climate and energy bill in June 2009. This was the first time that a chamber of the U.S. parliament – or “Congress” – passed a bill that sets mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions: 17 percent emission reductions below 2005 levels by 2020, and 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. The decision was very tight with a vote of 219-212, with 211 Democrats and only 8 Republicans supporting the bill. Since the House legislation has passed, all focus is on the Senate, the second chamber of the Congress. Here, Democrats Barbara Boxer and John Kerry introduced the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act in September of last year. This bill would reduce greenhouse gas emissions 3 percent below 2005 levels by 2012, 20% by 2020, 42% by 2030, and 83% by 2050. The bill also includes massive public investment in clean energy and carbon capture and storage (CCS) research. While hailed by environmentalist, from the moment of its introduction the 821 pages of the Kerry-Boxer bill have faced fierce opposition from Republican lawmakers and Conservative commentators as too complicated, too wide-ranging, and too costly. It is clear that the bill will not be passed in its original version.

 2)      So what happens next?

There is now an additional bill that has gained some attention: First, the Carbon Limits and Energy for America’s Renewal Act, introduced in December 2009 by Senators Maria Cantwell and Susan Collins. With more modest mandatory caps below 2012 levels of 5% by 2020 and 80% below by 2050, this legislation tries to find new middle ground for the climate change and energy debate. Most importantly, it would create a “cap and dividend” system that gives up to 75% of the revenue generated from auctioning of pollution permits to American households to offset the likely rise in energy costs after companies get regulated. The remaining revenues go into a fund intended to continue energy research and transition to a clean energy economy. In order to securely pass the Senate, any climate bill will need 60 votes. Currently, I would estimate the numbers of very probable supporters in the low 40s. About one third of the Senators are passionately opposed. The rest are fence sitters that will decide whether there will be climate legislation in the United States or not.

Alexander Ochs, AICGS Senior Non-Resident Fellow and Director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Worldwatch Institute, talks about the parameters for success or failure at the upcoming Copenhagen conference on climate change with Dr. Jackson Janes. This AICGS Podcast premiered on October 16, 2009

http://www.aicgs.org/analysis/audio/ochs09.aspx

To download this AICGS Podcast directly, please click here.

by Press on September 30, 2009, http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6273

Washington, D.C.-The Worldwatch Institute announced today that Alexander Ochs, a well-known expert on international climate and energy policy, has joined the Institute as Climate and Energy Program Director. Prior to joining Worldwatch, Alexander was the director of international policy at the Center for Clean Air Policy. He is the founding director of the Forum for Atlantic Climate and Energy Talks (FACET) and a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University. He resides in Washington, D.C.

“We are extremely pleased to welcome Alexander Ochs to our team. His extensive background and expertise on both sides of the Atlantic will strengthen Worldwatch’s work during the run-up to the historic climate talks in Copenhagen this December,” said Christopher Flavin, President of the Worldwatch Institute.

Alexander Ochs was a senior research associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin from 2001 to 2007, where he co-founded and later directed the International Network to Advance Climate Talks. Ochs has held research and/or teaching positions at the City University of New York, Princeton University, Munich University, and the Freie and Humboldt Universities in Berlin. He has been a member of the German delegation to the UN climate negotiations and is co-editor of two books and author of numerous scholarly articles and policy papers. Ochs is a regular commentator for Deutsche Welle, Germany’s public international broadcaster, as well as Grist Magazine, and a member of various climate and energy advisory committees.

“After years of following Worldwatch’s pioneering work, I am thrilled to have the opportunity to contribute to this influential organization,” said Ochs. “Our immediate goal is to help advance the worldwide efforts to mitigate climate change in the lead up to Copenhagen and beyond.”

“The political system pushes the parties toward the middle,” “party homogeneity is rather weak” … in Germany’s antiquated libraries, students might pick up these messages from text books about the U.S. political system. We all know that today’s reality is a different one. Over the last twenty-five years or so, the U.S. electorate has drifted further and further apart. The election of Ronald Reagan marks the beginning of the U.S. drift to the right in the 1980s. The two Bush presidents and even Bill Clinton—“it’s the economy, stupid!”—continued Reagan’s doctrine of the supremacy of a preferably untamed capitalism. The chimera of “the invisible hand of the market” has become an imperative of all political action, and arguably hit the “soft issue” of environmental protection even more than others. The U.S., once an environmental leader—the country with the first national environment plan, the birthplace of the idea of national parks, the place of departure for the global spread of the green movement in early 1970s—became the epitome of subordinating environmental protection under economic priorities.

To be sure, the U.S. in the mid-1980s became a leader in brokering a global treaty for the protection of the ozone layer—after Dupont had claimed the patents for the substitutes of ozone-depleting substances. When TIME magazine chose “Endangered Earth” as Person of the Year 1988, Bush Senior began referring to himself as the environmental president—albeit with limited credibility, the 1990 reform of the Clean Air Act notwithstanding. Clinton chose the greenest senator of all times, Earth in the Balance author Al Gore, as his vice president, but his sublime green agenda for the most part collapsed already in the first few years.

Later on, he signed the Kyoto Protocol but never submitted it to the Senate for ratification because its defeat on the Hill was certain. Then Congress shifted toward a more pro-active stand on climate and green energy in the beginning of this century—mostly because even a Republican majority considered Bush Junior too much of a market radical.

Contract with America: Let ‘em Pollute! Please read my essay for Transatlantic Perspectives here.

On December 3, 2007, AICGS was pleased to host AICGS Senior Fellow Alexander Ochs for a lecture titled “The Third Industrial Revolution: Energy Security, Transatlantic Relations, and the Economic Case for Climate Policy.” This lecture was made possible by the generous support of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

Mr. Ochs began his presentation with an overview of American and European climate policy, including the differing international, national, and sub-national approaches taken by the U.S. and the EU; the difficulties facing the Kyoto Protocol (namely the gridlock between the U.S. and major developing countries); and the main sticking points of transatlantic disunity (including disagreements over the necessity of binding emissions reduction targets and time frames, mechanisms for their implementation, and the inclusiveness of the international regime). He then offered his perspective on the next crucial steps for successfully implementing effective international climate policy. These included the importance of U.S. domestic legislation, the design of a sustainable post-Kyoto framework, a leadership role for the U.S., and the EU’s willingness to continue leadership both at home and in the international sphere.

The challenges of climate change and energy security, Mr. Ochs argued, are intrinsically tied to each other. The climate problem cannot be solved without reforming the energy sector and, likewise, energy security is not possible or affordable with our current energy mismanagement. Thus, we are faced with an ecological problem (increased global temperatures lead to more frequent and intense weather extremes, sea-level rise, and risks to plant, animal and human life); a political problem (overcoming the horizontal and vertical complexities of the world’s “most global” problem); an ethical problem (the poor countries are the most adversely impacted but the rich countries are most responsible for the problem); and an economic-technological challenge (reforming an economy that has been thriving based on fossil fuels for most of the last one and a half centuries since the second industrial revolution).

[Please find a full summary here and the presentation slides here]