The Presidential Canidates Views On Climate Change and the Environment

With all the focus on the theatrics of the primary races sometimes the issues get buried. Climate Change is still an issue very much on peoples minds. Here are the canidates views on Climate Chang:

Hillary Clinton

Sen. Clinton (D-NY), who sits on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, has generally advocated for legislation to stop climate change. In a statement upon the release of the IPCC report in February, Clinton said, "I believe that action is both an environmental necessity and an economic opportunity." She cosponsored the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act of 2007, which would cut carbon emissions by 30 percent from 2000 to 2050 with a system of "tradable allowances."

Clinton recently signed on to the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, which, if passed, will create a "market-based framework" to reduce carbon emissions. That act was referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works in early 2007 and has not yet been passed.

Barack Obama

Sen. Obama (D-IL) cosponsored the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act of 2007, which would establish a "Climate Change Credit Corporation" to manage tradeable allowances and stimulate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. That bill has not yet been voted on. With Hillary Clinton, Obama recently signed on as a cosponsor of the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act.

John Edwards

Edwards' campaign was the first to announce that it is completely carbon neutral (Portsmouth Herald), with a portion of the campaign budget used to purchase carbon offsets that support alternative energy production and combat the impact of climate change. The League of Conservation Voters has called Edwards' plan to combat climate change, which would impose a cap that would reduce emissions by 80 percent by 2050, "the most comprehensive global warming plan of any presidential candidate to date."

Edwards also plans to implement a "Green Collar Jobs" initiative that would train 150,000 workers a year for jobs in "the new energy economy."

John McCain

Sen. McCain (R-AZ) has been one of the most outspoken members of Congress on the issue of climate change. With Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-CT), McCain introduced the Climate Stewardship Act in 2003, which failed. Still, climate change expert Bill McKibben said this act was crucial (OnEarth Magazine) in that McCain "managed to force the first real Senate vote on actually doing something about the largest environmental peril our species has yet faced." In 2007 he reintroduced the act, with bipartisan cosponsorship.

Mitt Romney

Until recently, Romney largely avoided stating his opinion as to whether or not climate change exists or is caused by humans, according to a 2004 Boston Globe article. Since beginning his presidential campaign, however, Romney has been more willing to concede that "climate change is occurring" and that human activity is a contributing factor.

As governor, he also refused (BosGlobe) to enter with other northeastern states into a pact, known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to curb carbon emissions because it did not provide for price controls to curb energy costs.

Mike Huckabee

When asked about his opinion on climate change in a March 2007 interview with Newsweek, Huckabee said, "It's a spiritual issue. [The earth] belongs to God. I have no right to destroy it." In another interview, Huckabee got more specific, saying, "We ought to be moving rapidly towards energy sources that don't have a greenhouse gas effect. Aggressively set the goal that within a ten-year period, we should move a way from a fossil fuel culture to one that has alternative energy resources" (Denver Post).

Huckabee also says he supports a mandatory cap-and-trade system to limit greenhouse gas emissions (Bloomberg).