Sustainable Path Forward on Climate
Our efforts are organized around three principles. Action to Address Climate Change Should:
1) Begin without delay
2) Burden polluting industries, not American families
3) Grant no exemption or exception based on political consideration
Addressing climate change is absolutely essential to the long-term prosperity of the human race, but any proposal to address this issue will have some costs to ordinary citizens in the form of higher energy costs. This means higher heating, food, electricity, and gas prices.
The American Clean Energy and Security Act passed by the House of Representatives and the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act being considered by the US Senate would enact a Cap and Trade system, which would limit the amount carbon companies can emit in the environment.
There is currently a historic struggle to lay claim to exemptions to secure a larger profit for polluting industries. A 100% carbon auction is the only responsible way to create a stream of revenue to help limit the cost on ordinary people. Not having carbon auctions is money out of your pocket and into the profit stream of polluting industries.
Eliminating giveaways to polluters and the politically powerful by adopting the 100% auction of carbon emissions allocations is the only way sustainable way to protect American families over the long term.
Under the language passed by the House of Representatives America will not even begin to move towards 100% carbon auctions until 2026-2031. That’s just too long for American families to be burdened because Congress won’t stand up to polluters!
When we meet with Congress we tell them that American families need 100% carbon auction by no later then 2020, the first emission reduction target year.
What We've Done So Far
Across the globe there has been growing acknowledgment of the threat of climate change. While the Obama administration and some members of Congress have boldly pushed forward to combat this threat it has become undeniable that there is not sufficient political will to assure climate change legislation is effective and fair. To date the effort to pass climate legislation has been subject to attacks from a wide variety of special interests.
It has become clear that a new strategy is necessary to combat this threat. Combining the lessons of the successful online organizing by MoveOn, the Netroots, and the Obama campaign with the traditional policy-focused efforts of large-scale environmental groups, Carrots and Sticks is beginning to show that activism can avoid both the pitfalls of unrealistic goals aimed to please overly idealistic donors and the opposite problem of pushing only for ineffective half-measures at the behest of corporate-friendly founders..
Our initial efforts focused on leveraging regional connections to effect change in the national agenda. We meet with every Congressional office in the Greater DC area over the course of the summer with our allies to send the message we need to strong leadership on climate.
Support the CEJAPA!
The Clean Energy Jobs And American Power Act (CEJAPA) released by the Environment and Public Works Committee represents a major and necessary step forward to combat climate catastrophe. Please support this historic legislative effort. Senators Boxer and Kerry should be praised for not only for working to craft legislation to address climate change, but also for addressing some of the unresolved issues in the American Clean Energy and Security Act. These include:
•Strengthening the 2020 targets. Setting strong short-term emissions reductions targets is essential both to address catastrophic climate change before irreversible damage occurs, and to facilitate international agreement on a global emissions reductions strategy.
•Dedicating guaranteed revenue to clean transportation. The transportation sector produces around a third of carbon emissions. Green transportation must be a fully funded priority to most efficiently address this challenge.
•Preserving the regulatory authority of the Environmental Protection Agency. Reducing carbon dioxide pollution is not only an essential public goal, but also an extremely complicated one. The Environmental Protection Agency brings world-class expertise and experience to this issue, and its role should be preserved and more clearly defined by legislative action.
Please support and defend these priorities, and help lead the Senate in this historic effort to stop climate change.