Photograph by STR/AFP via Getty Images

A woman covers her face with her sweater in the heavy smog in Haozhou, central China’s Anhui province.

North Korea’s threat to wage war was the No. 1 topic today when senators quizzed the head of the U.S. Pacific Command. Still, Sen. James Inhofe wouldn’t let the morning pass without a chance to attack those who think human activity is warming the planet.

The Oklahoma Republican, who passionately rejects the notion of global warming, quizzed Admiral Samuel Locklear on a report in the Boston Globe. The newspaper quoted Locklear as having said the biggest long-term security threat in the Pacific region is climate change.

Inhofe pressed Locklear to say his view has been misrepresented by “environmental extremists” who “think we’re spending too much money on defense.” The admiral did anything but that.

About 280,000 people died in natural disasters in his Pacific area of responsibility from 2008 to 2012, Locklear said.

“Now, they weren’t all climate change or weather-related, but a lot of them were,” he said.  And that will only get worse as the population soars and even more people move toward “the economic centers, which are near the ports and facilities that support globalization,” according to the admiral.

“Okay, sorry, I’m going to interrupt you here, because you’ve now used up half my time,” Inhofe said.

Inhofe settled for an acknowledgment from Locklear that the world would be more secure if the U.S. could become energy independent. “Absolutely,” Locklear said.

Original post is Inhofe Can’t Budge an Admiral Who Says Climate Change Matters by Political Capital.

Photograph by John Moore/Getty Images

Undocumented Mexican immigrants walk through the Sonoran Desert after illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in this file photo in Arizona.

A Washington Post poll out today finds that 70 percent of U.S. adults support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. That is, unless they’re told that President Barack Obama backs it. Then the percentage favoring such a move drops to 59 percent, and the figures for those in opposition grows from 27 percent to 35 percent.

On some other issues, the president’s support is a good thing, the poll shows. While 45 percent support a ban on assault weapons, the number increases to 54 percent when respondents are told that the president backs such a prohibition. Opposition to the ban declines to 42 percent from 49 percent..

Told that Obama supports policies to address climate change, the percentage of those in favor of such efforts remains virtually unchanged, rising to 51 percent from 50 percent. Opposition declines to 32 percent from 36 percent.

The survey of 1,775 adults was taken Jan. 31-Feb. 10 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Original post is I’m For It. Oh, Obama’s For It Too? Then I’m Against It by Political Capital.

Photograph by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

A woman waits for a bus in a flooded street in Miami Beach, Florida, from unusually high tides that some think are due to rising seas caused by climate change.

President Barack Obama is sure to bring up climate change in the State of the Union address, energy consultants say, though there’s no consensus on how much emphasis he’ll give to the subject.

“They’re going back and forth about how many times he’s going to actually say climate and change,” said Joshua Greene, a Washington attorney who represents energy developers and has talked to White House officials about the speech. “Right now the words ‘climate change’ are in the speech.”

Environmental groups criticized Obama for not mentioning the phrase in the presidential debates, then applauded when he made global warming a key part of his inaugural address last month. The president may return to the theme with a promise to take executive action if Congress doesn’t move on the issue, according to Michael McKenna, an oil-industry lobbyist and president of MWR Strategies Inc. in Washington.

“He will spend some time talking about climate change, focused on how he would prefer congressional action,” McKenna predicted in an e-mail. “But in the absence of that, he is prepared to proceed aggressively with  regulations.”

The president probably will avoid more controversial subjects such as TransCanada Corp.’s proposal to build the Keystone XL pipeline that would carry heavy crude from western Canada to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico, McKenna said. Environmental groups that support Obama oppose the project, which is under State Department review.

Climate change will frame a broader presidential message on energy and the environment, Greene said in an interview, citing his talks with White House officials. This will include references to first-term policies aimed at developing renewable energy on federal lands, reducing carbon-dioxide emissions from government operations and pumping federal dollars into clean energy sources, he said.

Benefits of a U.S. natural gas boom enabled by a drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, such as lower fuel prices and new oil field jobs, will also be noted with the caveat that fossil-fuel development shouldn’t come at the expense of clean air and water, Greene said.

Oil and gas producers have accused Obama of inconsistency in praising the boost in domestic production while calling for an end to industry tax breaks.

“We hope to hear no more of the contradictions like we’ve heard in years past,” Jeff Eshelman, spokesman for the Independent Petroleum Association of America, a Washington-based group whose members include Anadarko Petroleum Corp., said in an interview. “While the president has said he supports development of natural gas supplies, at the same time he’s calling for tax increases on these same companies that provide the resources.”

Obama has already shown a willingness to use executive power to combat the threat of climate change. His Environmental Protection Agency, relying on authority in the four-decade-old Clean Air Act and a 2007 Supreme Court decision, is set to issue final rules for greenhouse-gas emissions from new power plants by the end of March. The agency will then face legal and political pressure to issue related standards for existing plants, the largest source of those pollutants.

To help make the case for action, Obama may refer to the drought gripping much of the country and Hurricane Sandy that struck the Northeast in November, Greene said.Last week, the EPA released a proposal on how to adapt to climate change and federal agencies reported on efforts to reduce energy use.

“The overarching theme is, we have to address this pressing issue for our children, grandchildren, for future generations and for U.S. economic competitiveness,” Greene said.

Original post is Range of Change: Obama to Signal Extent of Climate Push by Political Capital.

Al Gore in Davis Guggenheim’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Al Gore liked what he heard today.

The former vice president wrote a short entry on his blog thanking President Barack Obama for his inaugural address mention of climate change.

“Obama spoke powerfully and eloquently about the critical importance of solving the climate crisis,” Gore wrote. “His forceful commitment to take action will rekindle the hopes of so many that we are at long last approaching the political tipping point, beyond which we will finally start transforming our economy to sharply reduce global warming pollution and safeguard the future.”

Gore, who did not attend Obama’s inauguration ceremony today in Washington, posted excerpts of Obama’s speech on his journal at his blog.

He also tweeted his approval.

“ We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations,” Obama said today. “Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms. ”

“The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult,” he said. “But America cannot resist this transition, we must lead it.”

The thumbs up from Gore comes about a month after the former vice president called on Obama to do more in a Dec. 6 speech in New York City sponsored by the League of Conservation Voters and the Regional Plan Association.

“I deeply respect our president, and I am grateful for the steps that he has taken,” Gore said. “But we cannot have four more years of mentioning this occasionally and saying it’s too bad that the Congress can’t act.”

Gore, in a June 2012 Rolling Stone essay, criticized Obama for not using the bully pulpit of the presidency to push for solutions to climate change.

Original post is Gore Warms to Obama Climate Talk by Political Capital.

A petrochemical refinery located along the Houston ship channel in Houston, Texas. Photograph by F. Carter Smith/Bloomberg

“Winning” is everything.

In politics, in particular.

So says the League of Conservation Voters, celebrating the outcome of Election Day with a champagne-popping ad saying “the other side may have spent millions,” but look who won.

They’re talking about clean air. And toxic emissions. And, implicitly, climate change.

They don’t mention the “war on coal” which Republicans accused President Barack Obama of waging in his re-election campaign. But they make it clear that a certain war was won on Nov. 6, and with that comes:

“Clean Air,” as the ad puts it. “Everybody wins.”

Original post is Climate Change, Obama Re-Elect: Mandate for Environmental Action? by Political Capital.

Photograph by NASA/GSFC/MODIS/Terra

Sea ice swirls in ocean currents off the east coast of Greenland on Aug. 17, 2012, as seen by the MODIS instrument on board the Terra satellite. Greenland's ice sheet and outlet glaciers can also be seen at left.

Three debates down (two presidential, one vice presidential), one to go, and one huge issue hasn’t been broached to any significant degree (and degree is a key word here): Climate change and global warming.

The National Journal’s Jim Tankersley, in a recent piece focused on eviscerating the Baby Boom generation, offered this data-filled summary that should send chills up the spine, even during an East Coast summer:

“Earth’s atmosphere is currently 391 parts per million carbon dioxide, up from about 325 ppm 40 years ago. The concentration is on pace to hit 450 ppm by 2035, which would translate into an increase in global average temperatures of 2 degrees Celsius, the tipping point at which scientists say we would no longer be able to block or reverse a future of the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. More high-temperature records were set across the U.S. last year than in any previous one. Arctic ice melted to an all-time recorded low.”

President Barack Obama, after having climate-change legislation stymied during his first year in office, hasn’t stressed the matter since then. Republican challenger Mitt Romney’s record and his current stand on the issue appear muddled.

It would seem a subject deserving of at least a nod in their final faceoff on Oct. 22, a forum that is to spotlight foreign policy. A matter affecting the entire world just might fit under that rubric.

Original post is Climate Change: Debating Point Missing in White House Debates by Political Capital.

Photograph by Damian Dovarganes/AP Photo

Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity members celebrate the landing of Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., on Aug. 5, 2012.

NASA’s Curiosity rover descended safely through the Martian atmosphere, a plunge labeled “7 Minutes of Terror,” and touched down early this morning at a site called Gale Crater to begin its up to two-year mission to determine whether Mars has an environment that can support life.

The environment back here on Earth is the subject of much scrutiny in Washington today. The drought in Texas last year and a heat wave in Russia are among weather extremes that “certainly would not have occurred” without global warming, according to a paper released by a NASA top climate scientist. James Hansen was one of the first to identify threats from climate change, and to advocate for action to counter carbon-dioxide emissions.

Speaking of heating up, the U.S. Dept. Of Agriculture issues its latest crop reports for domestic corn and soybean fields, where conditions have deteriorated for eight straight weeks because of a Midwest heatwave and drought. Conditions are the worst they’ve been since 1988.

And the Environmental Working Group and Defenders of Wildlife release a report showing the impacts of high crop price and, unlimited crop insurance subsidies on wetlands, grasslands and wildlife.

Jim O’Connell contributed to this post

Original post is Washington Daybook: Heating Up by Political Capital.

Photograph by Jake Danna Stevens/The Scranton Times-Tribune/AP Photo

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, speaks about energy during a campaign stop in Tunkhannock, Pa., April 5, 2012. Photographer: Jake Danna Stevens/The Scranton Times-Tribune/AP Photo

Bain & Company, the private-equity firm where Governor Mitt Romney built his career, yesterday announced it has effectively reduced its global carbon dioxide emissions to zero. A Bain press release cites Steven Tallman, a partner and head of global operations: “This accomplishment is a major step in our commitment to sustainability.” The announcement, unremarkable were it not for the company’s profile in U.S. presidential election coverage, contrasts with Bain’s most famous alumnus’s political statements about climate change and policy stances on government support for emerging renewable energy technologies.

Search for “climate change” on www.mittromney.com and you’ll mostly find material quoting President Barack Obama’s statements on the need for climate policy. Nowhere that we found is Romney’s position on the two fundamentals of the U.S. energy-and-climate debate: (a) the reality of manmade climate change, and (b) what, if anything, to do about it. Romney said last fall: “My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us.” Never mind that the phrase “trillions and trillions of dollars” is an inapt characterization of reasonable studies of the costs and benefits of climate policy. As the Yale climate change economist William Nordhaus recently wrote about the current cost of inaction on climate change, “the loss from waiting is $4.1 trillion. Wars have been started over smaller sums.”

Perusing the quoted Obama statements on the Romney campaign site, one might come to the conclusion that all manmade climate change amounts to is a Democratic plot to expand government and raise taxes. If that were true, many global businesses, global institutional investors, global asset managers, national governments, municipalities foreign and domestic, houses of worship across every known faith, and much more, could be assumed to belong unambiguously to the U.S. Democratic Party. That doesn’t make any sense. There must be something else going on.

What’s going on is this: Global companies and investors driven by market trends, and ambivalent to Washington rhetoric, are changing their long-term strategies to accommodate the reality and scale of global change. Most U.S. political leaders are running in place. Multiple calls to a Romney spokesperson found a full voicemail box, and an email was not returned.

Sustainability is hard and takes time. Every company must ask itself new questions about long-term strategy. Smart companies are already identifying their long-term risks and opportunities, including Bain. The company describes making its operations carbon neutral as “comprehensive” and “multi-faceted” and “deeply embedded throughout the firm.” Bain says that sustainability is “an important priority for our employees and our recruits” — but also, “increasingly important to our clients as well.” For Bain, it’s meant investing in projects spanning wind power, biomass, forestry, geothermal and methane capture. The company’s efforts were certified by the Carbon Neutral Company, a consultancy.

Five years ago, it was probably true that the most compelling sustainability ideas were coming from outside the executive suite. Today, most compelling sustainability ideas are coming from business executives who have wrapped their heads around the most influential megatrends for the foreseeable future — global middle-class expansion and consequent consumption growth, resource scarcity and climate change. They have an eye towards their legacies and want to be on the right side of history.

Perhaps another way to say it is: Politics is short; sustainability is long. When will the pressures that are dramatically reshaping business modernize the U.S. political debate?

Nathaniel Bullard is global content director for Bloomberg New Energy Finance and contributed to this post. Eric Roston is sustainability editor of Bloomberg.com.

From Bloomberg.com’s blog on Sustainability, THE GRID.

Original post is Bain’s Sustainability Contrasts With Romney’s Rhetoric by Political Capital.