“based on an original screenplay by Al Gore”
Clive Crook, the Washington correspondent of the FT, dissects Senator Hilary Clinton’s plans for climate change policy here.
“She cannot be faulted, at any rate, for lack of ambition. The plan is comprehensive (to a fault) and the target for reductions in emissions is demanding. To get there, the proposed cap-and-trade regime would have to bite very hard, notwithstanding the effort and resources she proposes putting into promoting energy efficiency. Full marks for saying that she would want all of the emission permits to be auctioned. But deduct some for failing to acknowledge what this regime would do to the price of energy. Her policy document even cites high gasoline prices as part of the energy problem she is setting out to solve (so far as climate change is concerned, high gas prices are of course part of the solution). The strategy is win-win all the way, based on an original screenplay by Al Gore: more jobs, higher wages, faster growth, and all without greenhouse gases. She is cool on nuclear too, saying no expansion will be needed, and correspondingly keen–keen is putting it mildly–on biofuels. Home-grown biofuels, by the way.
As I say, it is bold, with lots of detail for critics to pick apart. This is hardly the vagueness and evasion of which she is being accused by Barack Obama and John Edwards (both of whom have ambitious plans of their own for climate-change mitigation). And the contrast with the leading Republican candidates on this subject could hardly be greater. That makes her stance on the issue quite a risk, though no doubt a carefully calculated one. The polls say that voters are increasingly anxious about climate change. They want promises of action. How much they are willing to pay for those promises is something we will find out.”