Grading a Climate Bill: 4 Key Tests

If Mother Nature were handing out grades, she’d have a difficult time assigning one to the climate dissertation known as Waxman-Markey, approved by the House and now being considered by the Senate.

For one thing, she’d have to grade on a curve. What looks like an “A” in Washington may qualify for no more than a “C” or “D” outside the beltway – and may be no better than “F” in the rest of the world.

Now that the Senate leadership has postponed markup of a climate bill until September, it should take time to carefully consider how it defines “success”.

With the future of the planet hanging in the balance, with the world watching for what the United States will do, and with Congressional action likely to have a major influence on whether we’ll see a global climate agreement at Copenhagen, this is probably the most important exam the current members of Congress will ever take.

The Waxman-Markey bill offers an example of how Washington grades itself by different standards. One of the bill’s supporters – an environmental leader for whom I have great respect – has praised it as a splendid example of the legislative process at its best, delicately balancing the interests of the many diverse constituencies it would affect.

That’s not the test the rest of the world will apply. Few of us outside the beltway care much about the efficiency of the legislative process, as rare as that might be. To qualify as a real success, climate policy must pass at least four far more important tests: the Science Test, the Copenhagen Test, the Boxer Test and the Leadership Test.

The Science Test

The most important of these tests is whether Congress sets a standard that gives the world a reasonable chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change. That means holding atmospheric warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels – a goal that, given the rate of greenhouse gas emissions today, is ambitious but still gives us only a 50-50 chance of avoiding catastrophic climate disruption.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggested that industrial economies would have to reduce emissions 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to keep warming to 2 degrees. Waxman-Markey caps emissions at only 3.6 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, pitifully short of what scientists say is necessary.

How much and how quickly we reduce greenhouse gas emissions are not topics for negotiation, any more than you or I would be wise to try negotiating with a rapidly metastasizing cancer. Aggressive cancer demands aggressive treatment on an aggressive timetable. So does global warming.

The Copenhagen Test

As we know, climate change is a global problem that requires a global solution. With little more than four months left before the international community convenes in Copenhagen, however, there has been little apparent progress. At the G8 meeting in Italy earlier this month, the 17 biggest economies failed again to agree on specific targets and timetables for emissions reductions.

The Obama administration is working on several fronts to demonstrate U.S. leadership, including its ongoing attempt to reach a bilateral agreement with China, EPA’s decision to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and its endorsement of carbon emission standards for vehicles. But nothing President Obama can do between now and December will have the political power of strong climate legislation from Congress. Climate stabilization and the clean energy economic necessary to achieve it must become the law of the land.