Above, President Obama’s full remarks in Paris at Opening of COP21 climate conference.
A solid majority of Americans say the United States should join an international treaty to limit the impact of global warming, but on this and other climate-related questions, opinion divides sharply along partisan lines, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
Two-thirds of Americans support the United States joining a binding international agreement to curb growth of greenhouse gas emissions, but a slim majority of Republicans remain opposed, the poll found. Sixty-three percent of Americans — including a bare majority of Republicans — said they would support domestic policy limiting carbon emissions from power plants.
Public support for international and domestic measures to address climate change may provide a lift for American negotiators attending the major United Nations climate change conference that began in Paris on Monday. But the stark partisan divide on climate policy will still make it difficult for President Obama and his successors to put in place the energy and climate policies that will be needed to support a robust international agreement, the goal of the Paris talks.
A number of oil companies have come out in favor of carbon taxes. Perhaps not entirely without self interest, but, we’ll take it.
Several big oil companies have fallen into unlikely alignment with environmental groups calling for new taxes on air polluters like coal-burning power plants. One key reason: Those taxes are probably good for their natural-gas businesses.
Energy giants including Royal Dutch Shell PLC and BP PLC hope a so-called carbon tax—which would force companies to pay for their emissions and likely increase oil producers’ costs—also would increase demand for natural gas, an increasingly significant part of their output.
The companies are part of a collection of business interests, environmental activists and economists that have urged negotiators meeting at a U.N. climate-change summit in Paris over the next two weeks to consider potential carbon pricing policies as a tool to curb emissions. Such programs could open new markets in China and elsewhere for gas to displace coal.
The embrace of carbon taxes demonstrates how some oil companies now see a business opportunity as efforts to enact climate-change policies gain momentum. While not entirely new, oil companies have become more vocal in their support for carbon taxes in recent years.
A minor typo in the title, I think make American plural. “American want strong climate actions”.
Also, a good mention on gas. Potentially a good strategy would be to encourage a natural gas shift along with the other GHG-free energy sources as a means to pit nat. gas companies against coal, hopefully substantially reducing denial misinformation funding. Then again, a good deal of misinformation damage has been inflicted already in this country. Lovins’ Reinventing Fire scenario has nat. gas being the last fossil fuel in use by 2050, if I recall.