Difference between revisions of "Draft GPUS Platform Amendment Climate Change"

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(Note from Marnie: The 2004 platform section is called Clean Air/Greenhouse Gases/Global Warming). We need to break this section in to two parts.  This rough draft text was drafted by John Atkeison, a climate change activist.  We are getting a more detailed draft with specific proposals from a Marin Green next week.)
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'''SECTION TITLE:  CLIMATE CHANGE'''
  
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Climate change caused by global warming threatens us all and demands immediate change to a happier, more sustainable way of life
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'''SECTION SUBTITLE: Meeting our generation's greatest challenge'''
  
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Big changes already underway in Earth's climate systems make up the biggest challenge our species has ever faced and its consequences are upon us with a speed that is as unexpected as it is violent. There has been a strong scientific consensus for years that these climate changes are being caused by Global Warming caused, in turn, by greenhouse gas pollution and bad land use policy. The American Green response is comprehensive, from working vigorously for immediate cap-and-rebate legislation in Congress to advocating for a sustainable society for our near future. The same sets of solutions address multiple impending crises – in climate, the peaking of fossil fuel supplies, and the acidification of the world's oceans. We humans have less than a decade to begin big changes.
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'''OUR POSITION: Greens want to stop runaway climate change, by reducing greenhouse gas emissions at least 40% by 2020 and 95% by 2050, over 1990 levels.'''
  
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Principles In Action
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Climate change is the most grave environmental, social and economic peril that humanity has ever met.  Across the world, it is causing vanishing polar ice, melting glaciers, growing deserts, stronger storms, rising oceans, less biodiversity, deepening droughts, as well as more disease, hunger, strife and human misery. It is a tragedy unfolding in slow motion. 
  
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Our most basic principles demand that Greens address Global Warming directly and with solutions that reflect our values and that offer realistic hope for the future. There has not been a more profound challenge to our species in all our thousands of generations. There is only one solution- we must stop burning fossil fuels like oil and coal and change how we practice agriculture. The only path out of this crisis is a political one-- policies embedded in law and custom must rapidly reform how our species lives. Half measures won't do.
+
Greenhouse gases warm the Earth by trapping heat in the atmosphere. Much of that heat is initially absorbed by the ocean, creating roughly a 30-year delay in the impact of that heat at the surface of the planet. Practically speaking, that means that the melting glaciers and expanding deserts of 2009 were the result of greenhouse gases dumped into the atmosphere in the late 1970s, when the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was below 350 parts per million (ppm).  To return to a safe level of greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere, we must reduce atmospheric greenhouse gases as quickly as possible to levels that existed before 1980, to 350ppm carbon dioxide.
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The most powerful elements of the social establishment oppose the needed changes. They have carried out a successful multi-billion dollar campaign of disinformation designed to confuse the public. At every opportunity they continue to deflect efforts at change and seek financial advantage.
 
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The inability of ruling elites to deal realistically with the climate crisis has left the question of survival in the hands of the world's common folk, who must be a vital part of solutions in any case. Greens should be able to best represent the future of our civilizations.
 
  
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• The Green principles of grassroots democracy and social and personal responsibility intersect to show the way to the future even while democracy itself is threatened. Attempts to solve the climate crisis at the expense of ordinary citizens of the United States and the world must be rejected. Polluters must pay and our society must be mobilized around the goal of sustainable survival.
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Greens support science-based policies to curb climate change.  We have an ambitious plan to make drastic changes quickly to avert global catastrophe. We will expend maximum effort to preserve a planet friendly to life as we know it by curtailing greenhouse gas emissions and actively removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
  
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• Our principles of social justice and diversity demand that we shape our movements in a way that refuses the path of genocide by neglect and enlists the strengths of all peoples in creating our common future. The people most suffering the early effects of Global Warming tend to be those least responsible for its creation and much of the world's population knows this, even though many Americans do not.
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'''GREEN SOLUTIONS'''
  
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• Never have the principles of ecological wisdom and future focus been more obviously and desperately needed. This is the core of sustainability.
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'''A STRONG INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE TREATY'''
  
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• Non-violence is the opposite of the world-torturing process of Global Warming, and is even more urgently required in a world of nations and classes constantly on the edge of conflict while holding weapons more deadly than ever before.
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1. Support a strong international climate treaty under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The United States must do far better than its offer in Copenhagen to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 4% below 1990 levels.  We should support at least a 40% reduction by 2020 and 95% reduction by 2050, over 1990 levels.
  
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• These principles and others like decentralization, community-based economics,and feminism also address other severe social issues such as tightening supplies of resources such as oil and coal as well as other needs to re-shape our societies in a way that results in communities that are sustainable for ourselves and the planet.
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'''ECONOMIC POLICY FOR A SAFER CLIMATE'''
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Greens are called to make these principles ever more relevant and part of the leading edge of political thinking and action. The need is urgent and time is short.
 
  
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The Crisis We Are In
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1. Establish carbon taxes on fossil fuels, to reflect the environmental cost of their extraction and use. Carbon taxes should be applied as far upstream as possible, preferably when possession of the carbon-bearing fuel passes from extraction (for example, coal mine; oil wellhead or tanker; gas wellhead) to the next entity in the supply chain (for example, coal shipper or utility; oil refiner or importer; natural gas pipeline). Offset potential regressivity for lower income individuals by cutting income taxes and/or other approaches. Carbon taxes are better than market-based policies because they lead to more predictable carbon pricing, are more transparent, take effect more quickly, and do not enable profiteering by the financial industry.
  
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The warping of our planet's climate systems by the trend we call Global Warming threatens the world's people today and the stability of our civilizations tomorrow. This problem has been caused by human action and must be reversed by human action. Scientific understanding is far more than good enough to know that we must act swiftly to have a chance of correcting the situation before it becomes impossible to stop. What is in our future, unless we change, is climate change that will re-make the planet into one that is very different than the one our civilizations developed on. One danger that is not well understood is the possibility that planetary climate systems may suddenly change without warning as they have in the distant past. Humanity is pushing climate systems faster than known at any time in the planet's history. Any uncertainty in our understanding of climate systems is a reason for caution and for fast action to reverse our reckless greenhouse pollution.
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2. Eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels, nuclear power, biomass and waste incineration, and biofuels. We must also acknowledge that the bulk of our military budget is, in fact, an indirect subsidy for oil and gas production.
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Even in the near term, changing our societies and economic systems to more sustainable models will be much less costly and disruptive than waiting too long and paying the high price of delay in human lives, in wars, and social collapse.
 
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Humanity did not set out to change the world in this way, but we are changing Earth profoundly for all of the interdependent webs of systems upon which humanity depends for life itself. As yet another unintended consequence we threaten most of the species of life on our planet with extinction.
 
  
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Today's Price for Global Warming
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3. Prevent perverse incentives arising from higher carbon prices. By putting an increased price on carbon, all energy sources that do not have the carbon price imposed look relatively more attractive:  nuclear power, biomass and biofuels are all in that category.  Carbon pricing could easily result in massive deforestation to produce additional biofuels that have suddenly become relatively cheap and economically attractive.  In addition to pricing carbon, we must mandate real clean solutions.
  
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A process like Global Warming can only be seen clearly over a time span of at least decades, but we can no longer expect the effects to occur over centuries as was previously believed. In the most recent thirty years many events have made it apparent that climate changes caused by Global Warming are not only happening more quickly than anticipated, but these changes are accelerating and building on each other in feedback loops. For example, ice is melting from pole to pole, which means that instead of reflecting solar energy, more energy is absorbed, which in turn allows the release of more greenhouse gases on top of the gases humans release as pollution. For instance, the power of the Atlantic hurricane seasons have tripled and as a result Hurricane Katrina got the extra margin of power to break the New Orleans levees from the extra heat from Global Warming. In a very real sense, the catastrophic flooding of New Orleans was America's most obvious Global Warming wake-up call.
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'''REPAY OUR CLIMATE DEBT'''
  
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All over the world, patterns of heat and rainfall are changing and as a result climate-rooted wars such as the one in Darfur tear human communities apart. Avoidable deaths attributable to climate changes number in the hundreds of thousands already. As these effects of climate shifts become more pronounced, the destruction of people and their cultures accelerates. The peoples of the world have begun to organize to resist the business as usual approach that will doom many to extinction. Representatives of small island nations at the Copenhagen climate conference in December of 2009 said they they had no intention of presiding over the drowning of their homelands while the larger countries delayed. Americans need to make common cause with the islanders because we are all in the same boat – and there is no way only half the boat will sink.
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1. Pay for adaptation to climate change in countries with less responsibility for climate change.
  
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Green Action for 2010
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2. Provide a carbon neutral development path for those countries that can no longer be permitted to develop in the same way we did - by burning cheap fossil fuels.
  
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Our first legislative priority will be to replace the cap-and-trade approach with a simple cap-and-rebate design at the federal level. Grassroots pressure can rapidly change the assumptions on Capitol Hill and replace the complex bills designed to benefit big polluting corporations and Wall Street traders with legislation that simply and directly addresses the problem. For example, the CLEAR Act sponsored by Senators Cantwell and (D-WA) and Snowe (R-ME) charges for carbon use when it enters the economy, rebates 75% of the revenue to American citizens, and has specific ways to adjust its workings as the political situation permits.
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'''MORE EFFICIENCY AND CONSERVATION'''
  
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Our first organizing priority will be to educate and and activate at the grassroots to demand and achieve an effective and just solution to the climate crisis. The key factor that is missing in this political battle is the presence of a massive movement that demands action and gets it, either from existing elected officials or by electing new ones.
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1. Adopt energy efficiency standards that reduce energy demand economy-wide by 50% over the next 20-30 years. The U.S. can make massive reductions in its energy use through a combination of conservation and efficiency measures.  We don't actually need any additional power.  Instead, we can and should reduce our consumption of power.
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At every level of government an assessment of the “carbon footprint” should be made immediately and a plan made for replacing polluting activities with sustainable ones.
 
  
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At every level of civic engagement every effort should be made to shift to a sustainable way of life, with reduction of greenhouse pollution as a central goal.
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2. Build an efficient, low cost public transportation system.  The best incentive we can provide to live closer to work and reduce the use of private vehicles is to make the alternative inexpensive and convenient to use.
  
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Every aspect of our lives and culture has been shaped or influenced by the rich energy of fossil fuels, and each of these will be affected as we move beyond them to a better, more sustainable, happier way of life.
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3. Adopt a national zero waste policy.  The less we consume and throw away, the less we will need to produce and replace.
  
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• Energy – radically reducing how much electricity we need is not only required but will have many positive effects on air quality and household budgets. The way we make electricity must change greatly as well. Decentralized or “distributed” generation is essential.
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'''CLEAN, GREEN ENERGY AND JOBS'''
  
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• Where we live, where we work – “Energy Efficiency” through stronger building codes that are enforced can greatly reduce the need for both electricity and fuel for cooking and heating.
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1. Create an inclusive program to train workers for the new, clean energy economy. Focusing on both the environment and social justice, prioritize the creation of green jobs in communities of color and low income communities.
  
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• Transportation – Emphasizing free, constantly available public transportation over automobiles is a way to reduce greenhouse pollution and improve the quality of life for Americans.
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2. Adopt a clean energy portfolio standard that rapidly replaces our combustion-based power sources with wind, solar, ocean, small-scale hydro, and geothermal power.
  
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• Encourage Localization – Communities benefit from local agriculture, and it reduces greenhouse pollution as well. Goods and services provided locally encourage greater resiliency.
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3. End the use of nuclear power.  Nuclear energy is massively polluting, dangerous, financially risky, expensive and slow to implement.  Our money is better spent on wind, solar, geothermal, conservation and small-scale hydroelectric.
 +
 
 +
4.  Stop "dirty clean energy."  Many of the "solutions" offered in climate legislation aren't real solutions.  Biomass incineration (trees, crops, construction debris and certain types of waste), landfill gas and many types of biofuels will dump massive quantities of toxic pollutants into the air and water, and some of these energy sources produce more greenhouse gas emissions than coal.  Natural gas is primarily methane, which is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.  Consequently, when pipeline leakage is considered, the clean-burning characteristics of natural gas can be lost, resulting in a fuel with climate impacts as bad as coal.  Biomass and biofuels will also increase deforestation, contributing to more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
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'''CLEAN, GREEN AGRICULTURE'''
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1. Convert U.S farm and ranchland to organic practices. Chemical and industrial agriculture produces 35-50% of climate destabilizing greenhouse gases. 
 +
 
 +
2. Switch to local food production and distribution. Localized, organic food production and distribution reduce fossil fuel usage and enriches soil that that sequesters more carbon dioxide.
 +
 
 +
3. Reduce methane, nitrous oxide and other greenhouse gases by rapidly phasing out confined animal feeding operations, and encouraging a reduction in meat consumption.
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----
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'''2004 PLATFORM ON Clean Air/Greenhouse Effect/Ozone Depletion'''
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The strict, comprehensive protections of the Clean Air Act must be maintained and enhanced if we are to keep in place effective federal programs that deal with urban smog, toxic air pollution, acid rain, and ozone depletion. State and local clean air initiatives should advance and improve national efforts. For example moving forward with stricter clean air and fuel efficiency standards, and with vehicle and fleet conversions.
 +
 
 +
Earth’s atmosphere is in great danger due to man-made chemicals and hydrocarbon emissions. Chloro-fluorocarbons, hydrochloro-fluorocarbons, and other related ozone-depleting substances should be banned as soon as is possible.
 +
 
 +
The Green Party urges the U.S. Congress to act immediately to address the critical global warming and climate change issues. When the U.S. Senate voted 95-to-0 to oppose any global warming treaty that does not also bind developing countries to specific, if smaller, carbon emissions reductions in the future, which many industrializing countries oppose, it put a roadblock in the way of progress by all nations.
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With only 4% of the earth’s people, the United States produces more than 20% of carbon emissions. From 1990 to 1996, total U.S. emissions grew by an amount equal to what Brazil and Indonesia produce every year. Per capita, the United States emits 85% more than Germany, twice as much as England and Japan, and currently nearly 10-times as much as China.
 +
 
 +
Climate change presents very real economic and social opportunities for new and sustainable jobs from new energy technologies, including both energy efficiency and renewables. Yet, too often, the focus of debate has been only on the pain of adjustment to carbon reductions, This is because of the influence of multinational business on government policies.
 +
 
 +
We must implement the following policies if we are to make a start on protecting our global climate:
 +
 
 +
1. An early target must be set to prevent emissions from rising so far that future reductions become even more difficult.
 +
 
 +
2. Avoiding loopholes is even more important now than an ambitious target. Unless a very ambitious target is set, which now seems unlikely, allowing sinks and trading within the protocol will create such loopholes that no real reductions will occur. Trading and sinks must be left until there is much more scientific precision in how they are measured.
 +
 
 +
3. Targets are not enough without credible policies and measures to achieve them. We urge all governments to table a list of the policies and measures they intend to adopt to attain their target, for example eco-taxes and energy performance standards.
 +
 
 +
4. Nuclear power is not an acceptable alternative to fossil energy. We should not accept country commitments that depend on increasing nuclear capability. We must join the solar age.
 +
 
 +
5. We endorse the Contraction and Convergence model under discussion at international talks (which as proposed would eventually give every human being an equal right to the atmosphere) as the most practical way to achieve justice and participation for developing countries.
 +
 
 +
6. As a nation, we must implement public and private initiatives at every level to support the Global Climate Treaty signed at the Earth Summit in 1992, committing industrial nations within a time framework to reducing emissions to 1990 levels.
 +
 
 +
7. The most authoritative assessment to date concludes that a worldwide carbon dioxide emissions reduction of 50-70 percent is necessary to contain climate change. The Kyoto Climate Protocol in 1998 falls far short, calling for only a five percent reduction. Nonetheless, the agreement is an important first step that all parties – especially the U.S. – should ratify as soon as possible.
 +
 
 +
8. We must drastically reduce, then eliminate, the use of fossil fuels. We must use energy more efficiently, and from clean, renewable sources. We must preserve the many valuable natural services including climactic stability provided by intact ecosystems. [See section E.2. Fair Taxation on page 62 in chapter IV]
 +
 
 +
9. If we fail to summon the political will now to make these investments, the costs of climatic disruptions will almost certainly force us to make them later at a greater expense. Greenhouse gases and the threat of global warming must be addressed by the international community in concert, through international treaties and conventions, with the industrial nations at the forefront of this vital effort.
 +
'''Bold text'''

Latest revision as of 21:28, 15 July 2010

SECTION TITLE: CLIMATE CHANGE

SECTION SUBTITLE: Meeting our generation's greatest challenge

OUR POSITION: Greens want to stop runaway climate change, by reducing greenhouse gas emissions at least 40% by 2020 and 95% by 2050, over 1990 levels.

Climate change is the most grave environmental, social and economic peril that humanity has ever met. Across the world, it is causing vanishing polar ice, melting glaciers, growing deserts, stronger storms, rising oceans, less biodiversity, deepening droughts, as well as more disease, hunger, strife and human misery. It is a tragedy unfolding in slow motion.

Greenhouse gases warm the Earth by trapping heat in the atmosphere. Much of that heat is initially absorbed by the ocean, creating roughly a 30-year delay in the impact of that heat at the surface of the planet. Practically speaking, that means that the melting glaciers and expanding deserts of 2009 were the result of greenhouse gases dumped into the atmosphere in the late 1970s, when the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was below 350 parts per million (ppm). To return to a safe level of greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere, we must reduce atmospheric greenhouse gases as quickly as possible to levels that existed before 1980, to 350ppm carbon dioxide.

Greens support science-based policies to curb climate change. We have an ambitious plan to make drastic changes quickly to avert global catastrophe. We will expend maximum effort to preserve a planet friendly to life as we know it by curtailing greenhouse gas emissions and actively removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

GREEN SOLUTIONS

A STRONG INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE TREATY

1. Support a strong international climate treaty under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The United States must do far better than its offer in Copenhagen to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 4% below 1990 levels. We should support at least a 40% reduction by 2020 and 95% reduction by 2050, over 1990 levels.

ECONOMIC POLICY FOR A SAFER CLIMATE

1. Establish carbon taxes on fossil fuels, to reflect the environmental cost of their extraction and use. Carbon taxes should be applied as far upstream as possible, preferably when possession of the carbon-bearing fuel passes from extraction (for example, coal mine; oil wellhead or tanker; gas wellhead) to the next entity in the supply chain (for example, coal shipper or utility; oil refiner or importer; natural gas pipeline). Offset potential regressivity for lower income individuals by cutting income taxes and/or other approaches. Carbon taxes are better than market-based policies because they lead to more predictable carbon pricing, are more transparent, take effect more quickly, and do not enable profiteering by the financial industry.

2. Eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels, nuclear power, biomass and waste incineration, and biofuels. We must also acknowledge that the bulk of our military budget is, in fact, an indirect subsidy for oil and gas production.

3. Prevent perverse incentives arising from higher carbon prices. By putting an increased price on carbon, all energy sources that do not have the carbon price imposed look relatively more attractive: nuclear power, biomass and biofuels are all in that category. Carbon pricing could easily result in massive deforestation to produce additional biofuels that have suddenly become relatively cheap and economically attractive. In addition to pricing carbon, we must mandate real clean solutions.

REPAY OUR CLIMATE DEBT

1. Pay for adaptation to climate change in countries with less responsibility for climate change.

2. Provide a carbon neutral development path for those countries that can no longer be permitted to develop in the same way we did - by burning cheap fossil fuels.

MORE EFFICIENCY AND CONSERVATION

1. Adopt energy efficiency standards that reduce energy demand economy-wide by 50% over the next 20-30 years. The U.S. can make massive reductions in its energy use through a combination of conservation and efficiency measures. We don't actually need any additional power. Instead, we can and should reduce our consumption of power.

2. Build an efficient, low cost public transportation system. The best incentive we can provide to live closer to work and reduce the use of private vehicles is to make the alternative inexpensive and convenient to use.

3. Adopt a national zero waste policy. The less we consume and throw away, the less we will need to produce and replace.

CLEAN, GREEN ENERGY AND JOBS

1. Create an inclusive program to train workers for the new, clean energy economy. Focusing on both the environment and social justice, prioritize the creation of green jobs in communities of color and low income communities.

2. Adopt a clean energy portfolio standard that rapidly replaces our combustion-based power sources with wind, solar, ocean, small-scale hydro, and geothermal power.

3. End the use of nuclear power. Nuclear energy is massively polluting, dangerous, financially risky, expensive and slow to implement. Our money is better spent on wind, solar, geothermal, conservation and small-scale hydroelectric.

4. Stop "dirty clean energy." Many of the "solutions" offered in climate legislation aren't real solutions. Biomass incineration (trees, crops, construction debris and certain types of waste), landfill gas and many types of biofuels will dump massive quantities of toxic pollutants into the air and water, and some of these energy sources produce more greenhouse gas emissions than coal. Natural gas is primarily methane, which is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. Consequently, when pipeline leakage is considered, the clean-burning characteristics of natural gas can be lost, resulting in a fuel with climate impacts as bad as coal. Biomass and biofuels will also increase deforestation, contributing to more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

CLEAN, GREEN AGRICULTURE

1. Convert U.S farm and ranchland to organic practices. Chemical and industrial agriculture produces 35-50% of climate destabilizing greenhouse gases.

2. Switch to local food production and distribution. Localized, organic food production and distribution reduce fossil fuel usage and enriches soil that that sequesters more carbon dioxide.

3. Reduce methane, nitrous oxide and other greenhouse gases by rapidly phasing out confined animal feeding operations, and encouraging a reduction in meat consumption.

2004 PLATFORM ON Clean Air/Greenhouse Effect/Ozone Depletion

The strict, comprehensive protections of the Clean Air Act must be maintained and enhanced if we are to keep in place effective federal programs that deal with urban smog, toxic air pollution, acid rain, and ozone depletion. State and local clean air initiatives should advance and improve national efforts. For example moving forward with stricter clean air and fuel efficiency standards, and with vehicle and fleet conversions.

Earth’s atmosphere is in great danger due to man-made chemicals and hydrocarbon emissions. Chloro-fluorocarbons, hydrochloro-fluorocarbons, and other related ozone-depleting substances should be banned as soon as is possible.

The Green Party urges the U.S. Congress to act immediately to address the critical global warming and climate change issues. When the U.S. Senate voted 95-to-0 to oppose any global warming treaty that does not also bind developing countries to specific, if smaller, carbon emissions reductions in the future, which many industrializing countries oppose, it put a roadblock in the way of progress by all nations.

With only 4% of the earth’s people, the United States produces more than 20% of carbon emissions. From 1990 to 1996, total U.S. emissions grew by an amount equal to what Brazil and Indonesia produce every year. Per capita, the United States emits 85% more than Germany, twice as much as England and Japan, and currently nearly 10-times as much as China.

Climate change presents very real economic and social opportunities for new and sustainable jobs from new energy technologies, including both energy efficiency and renewables. Yet, too often, the focus of debate has been only on the pain of adjustment to carbon reductions, This is because of the influence of multinational business on government policies.

We must implement the following policies if we are to make a start on protecting our global climate:

1. An early target must be set to prevent emissions from rising so far that future reductions become even more difficult.

2. Avoiding loopholes is even more important now than an ambitious target. Unless a very ambitious target is set, which now seems unlikely, allowing sinks and trading within the protocol will create such loopholes that no real reductions will occur. Trading and sinks must be left until there is much more scientific precision in how they are measured.

3. Targets are not enough without credible policies and measures to achieve them. We urge all governments to table a list of the policies and measures they intend to adopt to attain their target, for example eco-taxes and energy performance standards.

4. Nuclear power is not an acceptable alternative to fossil energy. We should not accept country commitments that depend on increasing nuclear capability. We must join the solar age.

5. We endorse the Contraction and Convergence model under discussion at international talks (which as proposed would eventually give every human being an equal right to the atmosphere) as the most practical way to achieve justice and participation for developing countries.

6. As a nation, we must implement public and private initiatives at every level to support the Global Climate Treaty signed at the Earth Summit in 1992, committing industrial nations within a time framework to reducing emissions to 1990 levels.

7. The most authoritative assessment to date concludes that a worldwide carbon dioxide emissions reduction of 50-70 percent is necessary to contain climate change. The Kyoto Climate Protocol in 1998 falls far short, calling for only a five percent reduction. Nonetheless, the agreement is an important first step that all parties – especially the U.S. – should ratify as soon as possible.

8. We must drastically reduce, then eliminate, the use of fossil fuels. We must use energy more efficiently, and from clean, renewable sources. We must preserve the many valuable natural services including climactic stability provided by intact ecosystems. [See section E.2. Fair Taxation on page 62 in chapter IV]

9. If we fail to summon the political will now to make these investments, the costs of climatic disruptions will almost certainly force us to make them later at a greater expense. Greenhouse gases and the threat of global warming must be addressed by the international community in concert, through international treaties and conventions, with the industrial nations at the forefront of this vital effort. Bold text

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