Ducking the Climate DebateAre McCain and Obama serious about global warming?

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Two things could put climate back on the agenda by fall. One would be a run of heavy weather—the heat waves, droughts, and hurricanes that argue eloquently to Americans that the climate problem is real and that inaction will cost far more than action. And the other would be McCain. He's planning to talk about energy issues next week, and whenever he needs to put more daylight between himself and Bush, you can be sure he will turn to the climate—and Obama will reflexively move to block him. ("Global warming?" Obama said the other day. "I don't care what he says, John McCain is not going to push that agenda hard.") That might just lead to real debate since there are important differences between the two candidates when it comes to climate solutions.

While Obama sees a role for nuclear power if the safety and waste-disposal issues can be solved, for example, McCain has an extravagant belief in its ability to deliver us from climate catastrophe. "If France can produce 80 percent of its electricity with nuclear power," he has said, "why can't we?" The reason, as influential climate blogger Joseph Romm has pointed out, is that getting there would require the United States to build 500 nuclear power stations between now and 2050—one a month!—and that's assuming no increase in electricity demand.

When McCain isn't indulging his nuclear fantasies, he favors—as does Obama—a balanced approach that would make use of all the low-carbon energy technologies. But McCain says he is "a little wary" of additional government programs to subsidize them (except for nuclear) because they can have "unintended consequences." He has voted against requiring electric utilities to generate a percentage of their power from alternative energy sources, and last winter he sat on his campaign plane at Dulles Airport rather than cast a deciding vote in favor of clean-energy tax incentives.

McCain wants to be a free-market climate doctor: create a market for carbon pollution through cap and trade and then let it work its magic, using the profit motive to drive clean-energy technology. But markets aren't perfect, and McCain has already carved out a nuclear caveat, and it's likely he will add others over time. He favors tax incentives for R&D on the capture and storage of CO₂ from coal-fired power plants, for example, and this technology needs to be fast-tracked since half our electricity comes from coal. So look for McCain to come out for advanced coal subsidies before the fall.

Obama is already there. He believes that to accelerate the transition to a clean-energy economy, we'll need both cap and trade and an aggressive package of federal investments, targets, and performance mandates, including big spending on carbon capture and storage. And even on cap and trade itself, there are important differences between the candidates. Obama is for tougher emissions-reduction targets than McCain, and he would auction off the system's pollution credits where McCain would give many of them away, which his critics call a windfall for polluters. Unlike Obama, McCain would also let polluters meet their emission-reduction targets by buying unlimited verified "offsets"—reductions achieved outside the cap-and-trade system. That's controversial—the international offset system has been rife with corruption—but it's worth debating. All of these distinctions matter; here's hoping the candidates argue about them vociferously in the months ahead. Because the Senate just booted the opportunity for an honest climate debate, and we're running out of chances.

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