Hansen appeals to Obama on climate
Carbon News and Info
Kyoto & climate politics
Wednesday, 7 January 2009

Outspoken NASA climate scientist James Hansen has written a personal letter to President-elect Barack Obama appealing for action on climate change.

In the 3000-word letter addressed to Obama and wife Michelle, Hansen and his wife Anniek criticise the direction of global negotiations for a new climate treaty, reject emissions trading in favour of a carbon tax, call for a halt to new coal-fired power stations without carbon capture and embrace new-generation nuclear power.

James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, was among the first scientists to go on the public record warning of a global warming threat back the 1980s. He has been at the forefront of climate debate since and recently maintained that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has understated the looming impacts of a warming planet.

This latest written appeal to the new President follows claims in 2007 that the Bush administration had tried to suppress his research and silence his warnings on climate change.
The letter describes the Kyoto approach to global climate action as “ineffectual and not commensurate with the climate threat”, adding that the continuing UN process based on national emission reduction targets “could waste another decade” in the fight to tackle greenhouse gas emissions.
“There is a profound disconnect between actions that policy circles are considering and what the science demands for preservation of the planet," the letter says.
But Hansen says the most important single measure required is the rapid phasing out of coal power emissions. Along with improved agricultural practices and protection of forests, this could help bring emissions down, he says.
His prescription for pricing carbon revolves around a tax on fossil fuels set by government at their source and rising over time. Hansen argues: “The tax will then appropriately affect all products and activities that use fossil fuels. The public's near-term, mid-term, and long-term lifestyle choices will be affected by knowledge that the carbon tax rate will be rising.
“The public will support the tax if it is returned to them, equal shares on a per capita basis (half shares for children up to a maximum of two child-shares per family), deposited monthly in bank accounts. No large bureaucracy is needed. A person reducing his carbon footprint more than average makes money. A person with large cars and a big house will pay a tax much higher than the dividend. Not one cent goes to Washington. No lobbyists will be supported. Unlike cap-and-trade, no millionaires would be made at the expense of the public.”
Hansen says in the letter that it had been sent colleagues for review before being sent to the Obamas.

Full text of letter in the UK’s Guardian newspaper