Skip to main content

Did President Obama's Climate Change Speech Go Far Enough?

Support Provided By
Protestors at a No on Keystone pipeline event in November 2012.
Protestors at a No on Keystone pipeline event in November 2012.  | Photo: John Duffy/Flickr/Creative Commons License

One of the most striking things about President Barack Obama's speech on climate change, delivered in the sweltering heat at Georgetown University, was how long it took him to get to the point.

For all its lyrical evocation of the photograph that Apollo 8 astronauts snapped of their first Earthrise (and ours) -- "beautiful; breathtaking; a glowing marble of blue oceans, and green forests, and brown mountains brushed with white clouds, rising over the surface of the moon"; for all its deft jabs at an intractable GOP-controlled House of Representatives -- "I don't have much patience for anyone who denies this challenge is real. We don't have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society" -- the speech does not get down to policy brass tacks until about a third of the way through the text.

This slow build up is a sign of how tentative the president's proposals are, how carefully couched his prescriptions.

Start with what is surely the president's headline-making assertion: "Allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires a finding that doing so would be in our nation's interest," he asserted about the controversial project that would allow Canadian tar-sands derived oil to flow to Gulf Coast refineries before being exported. "And our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution. The net effects of the pipeline's impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project is allowed to go forward."

This is his toughest statement to date, and one reason why Al Gore enthused that it was the single most important presidential address on climate change (query: what's the competition?).

Still, it is the State Department, and not the White House, that has the final say over whether the pipeline can be constructed. The president's concession -- the "State Department is going through the final stages of evaluating the proposal. That's how it's always been done" -- is as legally accurate and provides the president with cover. If State says yes, the Chief Executive cannot say no.

What the president promised to do is to use provisions of the Clean Air Act to incentivize and stimulate local, state, and federal action; he charged the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) "to put an end to the limitless dumping of carbon pollution from our power plants, and complete new pollution standards for both new and existing power plants."

That's a good first step, even though current EPA regulations call for plant-by-plant retrofitting, a go-slow process that will consume decades, have a too-small impact on our collective greenhouse emissions, and do little to enhance the public health of those whose neighborhoods abut these utilities' belching smokestacks.

You do what you can, of course, and that goes too for the the president's promise "to lead the world in a coordinated assault on a changing climate." Using existing federal law where possible, and the bully pulpit as available, Obama hopes to encourage federal agencies, embolden states and communities, and reengage with global partners to make the nation and the planet more resilient.

Note, however, which powerbrokers are not included in this outreach: The legislature. Specifically, the body within Congress that controls the purse strings. Well aware that the GOP House majority has repeatedly spurned his bipartisan gestures and has rigidly aligned itself with a clutch of climate-change deniers, the president's action plan does not call on Congress to act. Smart thinking, since it has proved incapable of accepting the need to act.

Yet this example of Realpolitik reflects the serious checks on and the important limitations of the president's approach to combatting climate change. It offers no direct challenge to the House, no throwing down of the gauntlet. Rather it admits that the Executive Branch, with some exceptions, will take a back seat to state, county, and local governments, that will be effectively relegated to cheerleading status.

As if to acknowledge the White House's diminished role, the president closed his speech with a rousing chorus designed to elevate our sights above the petty, if crushing, realities of Inside-the-Beltway politics.

Recall the 1968 Earthrise photograph, he concluded, "that bright blue ball rising over the moon's surface, containing everything we hold dear -- the laughter of children, a quiet sunset, all the hopes and dreams of posterity -- that's what's at stake. That's what we're fighting for. And if we remember that, I'm absolutely sure we'll succeed."

Surely our success would be more assured if it came with the full backing -- political and fiscal -- of the entire federal government. Surely we can and must do better.

Support Provided By
Read More
Gray industrial towers and stacks rise up from behind the pitched roofs of warehouse buildings against a gray-blue sky, with a row of yellow-gold barrels with black lids lined up in the foreground to the right of a portable toilet.

California Isn't on Track To Meet Its Climate Change Mandates. It's Not Even Close.

According to the annual California Green Innovation Index released by Next 10 last week, California is off track from meeting its climate goals for the year 2030, as well as reaching carbon neutrality by 2045.
A row of cows stands in individual cages along a line of light-colored enclosures, placed along a dirt path under a blue sky dotted with white puffy clouds.

A Battle Is Underway Over California’s Lucrative Dairy Biogas Market

California is considering changes to a program that has incentivized dairy biogas, to transform methane emissions into a source of natural gas. Neighbors are pushing for an end to the subsidies because of its impact on air quality and possible water pollution.
A Black woman with long, black brains wears a black Chicago Bulls windbreaker jacket with red and white stripes as she stands at the top of a short staircase in a housing complex and rests her left hand on the metal railing. She smiles slightly while looking directly at the camera.

Los Angeles County Is Testing AI's Ability To Prevent Homelessness

In order to prevent people from becoming homeless before it happens, Los Angeles County officials are using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to predict who in the county is most likely to lose their housing. They would then step in to help those people with their rent, utility bills, car payments and more so they don't become unhoused.