The heat in the battle

While the financial crisis currently dominates the US presidential election, as in previous election years, major issues of the day include social security, the national retirement fund that is predicted to become bankrupt in 30 years, and access to affordable healthcare, something that currently eludes 47 million American citizens. This year, however, a new issue has come to the fore, one with relevance to both the economy and the environment — energy policy. The petroleum shortages of the 1970s and the accompanying pain at the pump certainly spurred debate on energy. But, with the added realization that a continuing reliance on fossil fuels will have dire consequences for the environment, an assertion held by most climate scientists and the US National Academy of Sciences as a whole, the US plan for satisfying future energy needs seems to carry a heightened urgency. Both presidential candidates have outlined their plans in a succinct yet substantive fashion on their respective websites, with John McCain touting his Lexington Project Energy Plan as a means for the US to become independent of foreign oil while preventing global warming, and Barack Obama's New Energy Plan for America claiming similar benefits. As Americans go to the polls on November 4, it will be critical that they can differentiate the candidates' plans, so how different are McCain and Obama on the energy issue? At the heart of both candidates' plans is a cap-and-trade system in which carbon emitters (coal power plants, oil refineries, etc.) are granted a certain allowance of carbon credits that constitutes an emissions ceiling above which the polluter must purchase additional credits in a free-market style auction. Fledgling cap-and-trade systems have been successfully used in the past, most notably in efforts during the 1980s and 1990s to reduce acid rain in the US. Perhaps the most well-known manifestation of this system is outlined in the Kyoto Protocol, adopted by most industrialized nations but rejected by the US, which sets strict limits on carbon emission out to 2012. Both McCain and Obama have proposed plans in which the caps gradually recede from now until News focus 2050, with McCain aiming to reduce annual emission to levels that do not exceed 40 per cent of 1990 levels, and Obama setting the more ambitious goal of 20 per cent of 1990 levels. Advocates of cap-and-trade systems argue that it is the most efficient mechanism to reduce emission, not …