ClimateUSA Platform
When faced with a grave threat to a livable future for ourselves, our children and future generations, it is our duty as Americans to join with the other nations of the world to head off the potentially catastrophic impact of our increasingly unstable climate.
Therefore, we call on the government of the United States to acknowledge the need for the United States to fulfill its role as a world leader by meeting the Kyoto Protocol goals as a first step towards reducing emissions-- and to acknowledge the need for a total reduction of at least 80 percent thereafter as specified by the world's community of climate scientists.
Because the Kyoto Protocol and proposed carbon trading legislative remedies are important first steps but not enough to effectively address the accelerating pace of global climate change, we call on Congress for substantial shifts in federal subsidies and taxes relating to energy production and consumption.
Recognizing the need to end Americans’ oil dependency and join the rest of the world in working to avert a series of climate shocks that threaten to erode the foundations of our complex, precious and increasingly vulnerable civilization and planet.
The Climate Crisis Coalition hereby calls on Congress
to support the following measures:
Enact the “Safe Climate Act” and “The Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act”
as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 80% below the 1990 levels by 2050.
Withdraw federal subsidies from coal, oil and natural gas development
(currently estimated at around $25 billion a year) -- as well as from carbon-intensive agriculture -- and establish equivalent subsidies to jump-start a renewable energy economy based on wind, solar, tidal power, biomass, small-scale hydropower and other non-nuclear, sustainable energy technologies.
Promote the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol
and lead the way for a post-2012 framework that would result in a worldwide transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy technologies.
Phase in a Carbon Tax, as a tax shift from the federal payroll tax and state sales taxes.
Taxes on carbon emissions from coal, oil and natural gas will reduce combustion of fossil fuel and related emissions of carbon dioxide. It will also provide a revenue stream to enable progressive tax-shifting and reduction of regressive taxes such as the federal payroll tax and state sales taxes. Representative Pete Stark (D-CA) recently wrote and introduced the Save Our Climate Act: H.R. 2069 which offers a promising start in this important area.
raya@kyotoandbeyond.org 413.243.5665