Obama urges action on climate change, makes no specific promises about federal mitigation efforts, during first post-election press conference

President Barack Obama spoke bluntly about the reality of climate change during his first post-election press conference yesterday, asserting that it is time for Congress to put in place new policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.


The president, who was re-elected Nov. 6 with a huge electoral college majority and a nearly three percentage point edge in the popular vote, did not specify any particular actions he would take. 

"I am a firm believer that climate change is real, that it is impacted by human behavior and carbon emissions," Obama said during the media event at the White House Wednesday. "And as a consequence, I think we've got an obligation to future generations to do something about it."

Obama pointed out that his administration has taken actions on its own to lower greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, specifically mentioning efforts to increase use of renewable energy and recent regulations that raise the mininum fuel economy that must be achieved by motor vehicles.

He also said that he would begin an intensive effort to seek out advice about how best to proceed to achieve lower emissions in the future, promising a "wide-ranging conversation" with other elected officials, scientists, and engineers.

The Obama administration has not indicated that it will ask Congress to enact an emissions tax or fee. However, a report in The Hill magazine published earlier this week included an interview with an administration official who said that Obama might be open to it as part of a more wide-ranging revision of the federal tax code.

John M. Reilly, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the co-director of that institution's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, said that the view among academic experts is that a tax on greenhouse gas emissions would be an effective response to climate change.

"Our work estimated that such a tax, starting at $20 per ton of CO2 and rising at 4 percent real per year, would reduce U.S. emissions by about 14 percent below 2006 levels by 2010 and by 20 percent by 2050," Reilly said in an e-mail message. 

He also pointed out that the tax might take a big chunk out of the federal budget deficit, raising as much as $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years.

The president himself said during his press conference Wednesday that he did not think a tax on carbon dioxide emissions is politically feasible.