[Justin]

Your inbox, Mr President
Commentary
Nature 457, 258-261 (15 January 2009)

Abstract

Rejuvenate the Environmental Protection Agency. End the stem-cell ban. Re-engage with the UN on climate change. Six leading voices tell Nature what the new US president needs to do to move beyond the Bush legacy.

Christine Todd Whitman

Former administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Clarify who will speak for the President on environmental matters.

It is clear from everything he has said, that President-elect Barack Obama considers environment and energy issues to be at the top of his agenda. The importance of the commitments he has made cannot be understated and all of them have to be considered in light of the current economic crisis that we are facing.

In terms of key policy matters, the administration must decide how far the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should go on meeting the Supreme Court's decision that the EPA has the legal right to regulate carbon dioxide. Although congressional legislation setting a limit on carbon emissions and establishing a trading system or carbon tax would be the best way to move forward, that is unlikely given both the complexity of the issue and the other challenges facing the new Congress.

An early indication of how aggressively the administration will move forwards will be their decision on whether to allow the EPA to grant California a waiver so the state can enforce stricter vehicle-emission standards than those required by the federal government — the state's proposal is a 30% decrease in emissions by 2016. At least 16 other states are anxious to join California, citing the US Clean Air Act, although car-makers in Detroit have fought the regulation vigorously, and successfully, until now.

The Obama administration will also want to look at all the pending regulations moved out in the last few months of the Bush administration, such as those on New Source review — governing when power-plant facilities must install pollution-control technologies — and drilling in wilderness areas. In analyzing these regulations and ensuring both that the work that led to them was complete and that the regulations represent policy supported by the new administration, the incoming appointees would do well to listen carefully to career staff. Such staff are knowledgeable and, for the most part, interested more in a policy agenda than a political one.

Additionally, Obama needs to clarify who will be determining environmental policy — the EPA, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) or the newly created energy tsar Carol Browner. Environment and energy are inextricably linked and, although there is always need for administration-wide coordination, it must be clearly delineated as to who speaks for the president on these issues. Too many voices create confusion and allow issues to fall between the cracks. Although President George W. Bush originally told me that the EPA would be the administration's representative on the environment, subsequent actions by the vice-president and the CEQ proved otherwise. In fact, towards the end of my tenure at the EPA I was told in no uncertain terms that when the CEQ spoke, it was speaking for the president even if on an issue that the EPA felt needed more work. Although I believe that the EPA administrator should be the voice of environmental policy, the president must ultimately decide — and that delineation should be clear and consistent throughout the administration's term.

Finally, the Obama administration needs to be clear on its directives and expectations for the EPA. Morale is low for a host of reasons, not the least of which is because environment was not a priority for the Bush administration. The mood will get worse if staff and appointees feel that they are not part of the crucial discussion and that all decisions are coming from the White House. Incoming administrator Lisa Jackson will find at the EPA many highly talented people whose skills, ideas and extensive institutional knowledge should be cultivated. There are some tremendous public servants there and their contributions should be welcomed and encouraged.

Timothy E. Wirth

President of the United Nations Foundation, Washington DC, USA.

The United States must lead the way to a new climate deal at Copenhagen.

President-elect Obama has affirmed his intention to lead the United States back into the fight against climate change. His appointments in this area have been nothing short of brilliant, and just two weeks after the election, he told a California climate conference: "Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high. The consequences, too serious."

The downturn in the economy, far from being an insurmountable obstacle to definitive climate action, is setting the stage for previously unthinkable levels of capital investment that could put the United States on the road to a clean-energy economy, built on rapidly improving technologies and jobs that will remain at home.

Notwithstanding strong climate commitments by the European Union, the rest of the world has been adrift, waiting for the United States to wake from its eight-year sleep. This new American engagement must start with China. The world's two largest emitters have both the capacity and the need to take action, and finding ways to move forwards together would make a broader global agreement achievable.

Such collaboration may be difficult in areas where venture capital is driving innovation and intellectual property is the prize — novel solar technologies, for example. But where the scale of the challenge demands government engagement, such as with technologies for capturing carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants, the two countries could work closely together.

Internationally, some interim steps would be useful en route to a larger deal. Broad-based commitments to energy efficiency and renewable-energy targets have been torpedoed by American objections in the past but would be constructive building blocks today. A new round of funding to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, delivered (not just pledged) by industrialized countries through the Global Environment Facility, would restore the trust that has been eroded by previously unmet promises. Creating a network of regional technology-innovation centres, as proposed by the United Kingdom's Carbon Trust, would reassure developing countries that they will have access to the technologies they need to respond to climate change.

American leadership on these confidence-building measures would improve the prospect of success in Copenhagen, where the United Nations climate talks resume in December 2009. UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has made this one of his highest priorities and has declared 2009 to be the "year of climate change".

The new US administration will have little time to prepare for Copenhagen, but agreement can be reached on the basic elements of a deal — commitments by industrialized countries to emissions targets, credit for avoided deforestation, financial support for adaptation and technology development, along with commensurate actions by rapidly developing countries. The finer details can be given the required attention in the following months, while still leaving enough time for ratification to avoid a post-2012 lapse when the existing commitments end under the Kyoto protocol.

Addressing climate change will require real political leadership domestically and in global negotiations. The commitment Obama has already made to action is remarkable and gives hope to a suffering planet.