US president-elect Barack Obama’s dedication to addressing climate change will be tested on his first day in the White House, where a few strokes of the pen could radically change Bush administration policies. Obama takes office on Tuesday in the midst of an economic crisis, and he will have to build a consensus to effect broad change. But some major actions — and symbolic ones — are solely at his discretion.
“He should find Jimmy Carter’s solar panels, wherever Ronald Reagan threw them, and put them back up on the White House, because they probably still work,” said Danny Kennedy, president of San Francisco Bay Area solar installer Sungevity.
There are plenty of other public buildings to upgrade, said David Doniger, climate center policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
PHOTO: AP
Obama could change, for instance, government procurement policies as soon as he is in office — from buying more alternative energy power to weatherizing federal buildings.
But the biggest focus by environmentalists is on allowing California and some 19 other states to begin regulating carbon pollution from cars to address global warming. California said that its proposed standards would reduce greenhouse gases considerably.
“Everything hinges on the approval for California. Once it’s approved for California, it takes place everywhere else,” Doniger said.
The US Environmental Protection Agency has turned down the request to regulate carbon by the most populous state. Obama, however, can direct the agency to reverse course.
That is one of four Day One issues lobbied for by the Sierra Club. The nature group also wants the government to begin regulating carbon emissions from power plants — the Supreme Court said the EPA could regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants, but the agency has not.
In addition, Obama should get the EPA to use the Clean Water Act to slow mountaintop-removal coal mining and set a target for US carbon dioxide reduction — 35 percent by 2020, the club said.
“None of them get in the way of any challenges he faces right now: None of them will slow down the creation of new jobs, none of them will exacerbate the federal deficit. They all require him to draw a sharper line between the Bush past and the Obama future,” Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope said.
He predicted Obama would do about half the wish list in the first two or three weeks.
Washington lawyer Peter Wyckoff, a partner specializing in environmental law at Pillsbury Winthrop, said Obama could take dramatic action by ordering the EPA to develop a national plan to regulate carbon emissions that contribute to global warming.
The Clean Air Act gives the EPA latitude to create a carbon trading system, like the one used in Europe. Supporters of the idea saw it as a way to nudge Congress.
“The Obama administration in their view should put this in place in proposed form so as to create a sword, if you will, over the head of Congress to create Congress’s own program,” Wyckoff said.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for