USA — Obama calls on Congress to vote an ambitious climate change bill

06.24.2009

Climate change is one of the most disputed issues in the US. As christian and industry lobbies reject the impact of carbon emissions on the evolution of environment, Bush administration did not encourage any eco-friendly bill. The American diplomacy also sabotaged international negociations on the subject, by refusing to implement the Kyoto Agreement.

But Barack Obama brought a radical change in this policy, making the choice to lead America to an ecological revolution. Still, this part of his policy is highly cntroversial, even among Democrats, especially representatives from farm states. This text will be a real challenge to pass for the Democrats.

In fact the bill offered to the Congress on Friday is a first main step towards a greener America. The purpose consists in cutting from 17% the equivalent of the US carbon emissions in 2005 by 2020. This text has already won many supports among international firms including Starbucks or Nike, who estimate that this bill enable firms to plan long-term profitable strategies.

The Obama Administration is currently drawing a true ecological orientation for the country right now with this bill but also with its investments: a $8-billion loan was announced today to main actors of the car industry (Ford, Nissan…) dedicated to resaerche”s on clean vehicles. Still several environmental organisations such as Greenpeace are reluctant to defend the text which fails to prevent extreme changes from happening by the end of the century.

However, a majority of ecological organisations an eco-friendly personnalities announced their support to the text, including Al Gore, director of An Inconvenient Truth.

This bill is eventually a first encouraging step of the US concerning environment issues and is a positive sign for the next international conference on this subject later his year in Copenhagen.

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Thomas PRADO for www.buddhachannel.tv