By John Lauerman
April 9 (Bloomberg) -- Securing a climate-change policy for the U.S. that cuts greenhouse gases and stimulates the economy is more pressing than reaching an accord with other nations on the contentious issue, said John Holdren, the top science adviser to President Barack Obama.
Holdren, a former Harvard University professor, wants a climate change program in place before the December meeting in Copenhagen when energy and science officials from around the world will complete an international climate change treaty, he said yesterday in a telephone interview.
The U.S. has been criticized for failing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, accepted by 183 countries, that limits emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. Holdren said that before he and President Obama address international concerns, they will seek quick passage of an “integrated” bill in Congress dealing with a range of energy and climate issues.
“The more important thing is to get our domestic house in order,” Holdren said. “We can’t go from international negotiations” in Copenhagen, “and then ask Congress ‘Will you do something compatible with this?’”
Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who heads the House energy and commerce committee, and Ed Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the energy and environment subcommittee, co-wrote a clean-energy bill. They have pledged to have the bill through their committees by Memorial Day, saying clean energy might create 4 million new jobs.
Carbon Emissions
While Obama has said he will seek to reduce carbon emissions down to 1990 levels by 2020, the European Union has pledged to cut emissions 20 percent lower within the same time period. Holdren, who was confirmed as Obama’s top science adviser by the U.S. Senate on March 20, said he didn’t see a change in the Obama administration’s stance before the Copenhagen meeting.
“Arguments at this juncture about where we need to be, and in what year, are a little bit misplaced,” he said.
Holdren first gained public attention in December 1981, at age 37, when he won a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, or “genius” grant, for analyses of energy and arms control. He joined the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, an organization focused on limiting nuclear weapons, and gave an acceptance speech in Oslo in December 1995 after Pugwash shared the Nobel Peace Prize.
Holdren arrived at Harvard, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1996. He became a professor focused on environmental science and policy, teaching at both the John F. Kennedy School of Government at the university and the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. When named to his new post by Obama, Holdren was serving as director of the Kennedy School’s Program on Science, Technology and Public Policy.
$150 Billion
Obama has said he will commit about $150 billion over 10 years to develop new energy sources that don’t contribute to climate change. Holdren has also called for a so-called “cap- and-trade” system for greenhouse gases.
Such a system would set a national limit on the amount of gases that can be produced by companies and then sell tradable permits to emit the gases.
“Without having a mechanism that limits emissions, I don’t think we’re going to get enough done,” Holdren said in the interview. “I think this is a sensible approach and it has a good chance to be passed by Congress.”
Holdren said that funding new energy-source development will help stimulate the economy during the biggest recession since World War II.
‘Position to be Building’
“This puts us in a position to be building and selling the technologies that are going to solve this problem,” he said. “This is the way to go, not just from a climate standpoint, but from an economic standpoint and to reduce oil imports.”
The administration isn’t currently considering drastic measures to control warming, such as blowing particles into the upper atmosphere that would reflect the sun’s rays away from the earth, he said. Such techniques, often called “geo- engineering,” ought to be studied, though, in case temperatures reach catastrophic levels, Holdren said.
That might happen if the Arctic tundra, which traps greenhouse gases, were to begin to thaw, or if sea ice were to stop reforming at the end of the summer, which it currently does annually. Researchers still don’t know enough about the mechanisms of climate change to predict when such events might occur, he said.
“It’s not to say that disaster is imminent, but we don’t know how far we can go before the magnitude of climactic change is unmanageable,” he said. “It’s already problematic.”
The funding and greenhouse gas goals Obama has outlined should be sufficient to avoid such occurrences, Holdren said.
“It will be a challenge,” he said, “but I think we can do it in a way that will not have any significant adverse impacts, and it’s a trajectory that, if extended over time, is consistent with a prudent strategy for the world.”
To contact the reporter on this story: John Lauerman in Boston at jlauerman@bloomberg.net.
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