Hope for global warming solutions
Congress on the move
Earlier this year, Rep. Henry Waxman (Calif.) introduced the Safe Climate Act (H.R. 1590), a strong, comprehensive bill to limit global warming pollution to levels that current science says are needed to prevent the worst impacts of global warming. The bill would reduce total U.S. global warming emissions by about 15 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050, a change most scientists agree is necessary to avert catastrophic global warming. To achieve these emission reductions, the bill calls for a greater reliance on clean, renewable energy and improved energy efficiency.
Over the past year, we’ve urged members of our state’s congressional delegation to support the Safe Climate Act. So far, Rep. John Conyers (Dearborn) has joined 141 other members of Congress in agreeing to co-sponsor the legislation.
In October, we helped shape the debate over the bill with the release of a study called “Cleaner, Cheaper, Smarter.” Under any pollution cap-and-trade program, emissions would be capped, but polluting companies would still be allowed to emit some carbon into the air or sell their allowances to other firms.
We think companies should pay for their allowances. Billions of dollars could be at stake: dollars that could pad energy company profits or help move America toward a new energy future.
More than 100 leaders and organizations signed onto the report’s recommendations. Among them, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, the Consumer Federation of America and MoveOn.
Here in Michigan we’re focusing on clean, renewable energy as a solution for Michigan’s environmental and economic problems.
Our reports, “Michigan’s Clean Energy Future” and “Reaping the Rewards,” show how renewables could clean up Michigan while giving a needed boost to our economy.
“When it comes to pollution, people have been paying the price for too long—breathing unsafe air, risking the worst effects of global warming, and footing the bill for cleanup,” said Emily Figdor, our chief advocate on global warming policy in Washington, D.C. “That’s why we need real solutions for global warming and our other pollution problems.”
Rep. John Dingell addressed climate activists last year.
