THREE of the most controversial ingredients in politics – race, gender and age – are conspiring to make this year’s US presidential election one of the most engrossing ever. After seven years of a president from the most predictable demographic (white, male, middle-aged) Americans are facing the prospect of being led by a woman, a black man or a man into his eighth decade (and we’re not talking about Ralph Nader).
Voters are bound to be influenced by the personal characteristics of the candidates, just as they will be by economic considerations. But there is another factor that many Americans will hopefully be taking just as seriously because of its future impact on everyone’s lives: how the candidates plan to deal with climate change. All of them appear to recognise the urgency of this issue – to the relief of those who have watched the Bush administration’s attempts to brush it under the carpet. John McCain, the leading Republican, has pledged to introduce a trading system to help reduce US carbon emissions by 60 per cent compared with 1990 levels by 2050. Both Democratic contenders, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have gone further, proposing 80 per cent cuts by 2050 (see “Obama, McCain, Clinton: who is the greenest of them all?”).
To ensure that such matters get a proper airing, a group backed by several thousand leading scientists and scientific institutions has launched a campaign to persuade Clinton, Obama, McCain and Republican second-placer Mike Huckabee to take part in a . Lawrence Krauss, one of the organisers, wrote in this magazine two weeks ago that such an event was necessary because our quality of life depends intimately on science and technology and the ability of the US to use them wisely to improve the world (Â鶹´«Ă˝, 16 February, p 50).
Advertisement
Whether or not that message gets through to voters will depend on the candidates’ determination to keep climate change in the public consciousness – and in McCain’s case to stick to his guns in the face of opposition from some others in his party. They would all be wise to place it centre stage, given what we know about Americans’ fears over global warming: a poll conducted last year by Â鶹´«Ă˝ and Stanford University found that 7 out of 10 wanted Washington to do more to tackle the threat (Â鶹´«Ă˝, 23 June 2007, p 16).
Long-term environmental issues have a habit of dropping down the agenda at election time. People’s primary concern is the economy, and the future beyond the next four years can seem too far off to contemplate. Yet ultimately climate change is an economic problem too: failure to deal with it will not so much hit people in the pocket as pull them over by the coat-tails in coming decades.
Consider the warning by Nicholas Stern, former chief economist at the World Bank, who in a 2006 report for the UK government predicted that doing nothing about global warming would lead to an economic crisis that would cut living standards by a fifth and trigger a prolonged global recession (Â鶹´«Ă˝, 4 November 2006, p 5). Those who oppose climate legislation on the grounds that it could hurt the economy are being dangerously short-sighted.
“Ignoring global warming would lead to an economic crisis that would cut living standards by a fifth”
It’s time to take the long view. A new study shows that delaying cutting emissions by even a few years would have a devastating impact on atmospheric temperatures (see “Greenhouse gas emissions: there’s no time to lose”). If elections are all about the economy, the climate should play a big role in this one.
Climate Change – Want to know more about global warming: the science, impacts and political debate? Visit our continually updated special report.
Focus on America – Delve into the science and technology questions facing the USA in our special report.
