Category Archives: Politics

This week, some U.S. NGOs are bringing a group of indigenous people from South America to talk with California policy makers about their opposition to REDD+, the idea that countries, states and communities that reduce carbon emissions from tropical deforestation should be eligible for compensation through carbon markets and public funds.

It’s good for policy makers to hear this perspective, but it’s critically important for these policy makers to hear the great diversity of indigenous voices on the REDD+ issue.

Having worked with indigenous peoples and minorities in the Amazon for over 20 years, in particular on helping indigenous peoples win the struggle for their lands, I’m glad that EDF actively supports indigenous and minority participation in international policy processes, whether or not given organizations or individuals agree with us.

Some NGOs have argued that REDD+ threatens indigenous land rights, that governments and NGOs are inducing indigenous communities to sign carbon contracts, that REDD+ will only benefit rich industrial polluters.

Earlier this year in the Amazon state of Acre, the Catholic Church missionary/indigenous rights organization, CIMI, made these arguments in an affidavit it sent to the Federal Prosecutors’ office, asking for the prosecutor to take legal action against the state System of Incentives for Environmental Services (SISA), under which Acre is formulating its REDD+ program.

Most of Acre’s indigenous peoples, however, do not agree with CIMI, as evidenced by this letter that leaders of the indigenous movement in the state sent to CIMI in response.

Indigenous leaders were dismayed to hear CIMI claimed that they were being manipulated into accepting carbon projects by the government and international NGOs, and pointed out that no one was forcing the indigenous organizations to do anything.

To the contrary, they noted that they are in the process of informing themselves and their communities so they can decide whether they want to participate in REDD+.  The letter makes an interesting contrast between the pros and cons:

“Both those in favor of and those against REDD must be serious and ethical in conveying correct information and establishing continued dialogue. Those in favor of REDD should not promote it as something that can resolve all the problems of our communities; those against it should not terrorize our peoples using western capitalism as a backdrop and creating a climate of distrust and fear based in suppositions and untruths.”

Beyond the borders of Acre, the Coordination of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon basin (COICA) comprises the Amazon regional indigenous organizations of the nine Amazon nations. COICA has participated in the international climate negotiations since 2008.

The indigenous peoples’ caucus (including COICA) made this statement to the UNFCCC conference in Durban this year, covering a wide variety of issues including REDD+.

There are some 385 indigenous peoples, speaking about 300 languages, living in 2,344 territories that cover about 2.1 million km² – an area four times the size of California – in the Amazon, as well as some 71 isolated groups. These peoples have maintained their distinct cultures and identities for thousands of years in the face of enormous, often violent, pressures – their difference unites them. Even the level of awareness of the idea of REDD+ varies enormously amongst them.

The NGOs and indigenous peoples visiting California this week offer one set of perspectives on REDD+, but their views should be considered in the context of the spectrum of indigenous organizations currently engaged on these issues, many of whom view REDD+ quite differently.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has just released a report on the Clean Air Act that would make any investor proud. It shows that for every dollar spent on regulations to cut air pollution over the last 30 years, we’ve earned more than $30 in savings to go along with tremendous public health benefits.

Members of Congress have spent much of the last two months trying to roll back clean air protections. They’ve argued that the Clean Air Act is bad for the economy. This report shows otherwise. As EDF’s president Fred Krupp notes, “If anyone still doubts that America can afford to do the right thing, this report should settle the matter. Cleaner air will unquestionably improve our health, our economy, and our lives.”

California still ranks among the states with the worst air pollution. Just this week, Forbes released a list of the ten most toxic cities in America. Four of them are California cities: Bakersfield (2nd place), Fresno (3rd place), Los Angeles (6th place) and Riverside-San Bernardino (10th). Poor air quality was a major reason they qualified.

Ironically, all of those cities have improved their air quality in the last decade. The trouble is that they’ve also grown dramatically, which has only added to the number of vehicles and other sources of pollution. Can you imagine how much pollution—and lung disease—we’d have in those cities and around the country if tailpipe and power plant pollution controls had not been in place these last 30 years?

California needs the Clean Air Act for many reasons, but the economic benefits particularly stand out. An earlier peer-reviewed study found that dirty air in the Los Angeles Air Basin costs local residents nearly $22 billion a year in health costs, premature death, lost days at work and lost days at school. In the San Joaquin Valley, the annual costs amount to about $6 billion.

Think about it: that’s $28 billion in costs each and every year—nearly as much as it would take to resolve the state’s budget deficit this year.

Now add EPA’s new study showing that we get $30 worth of value on every dollar invested in clean air and another thing becomes clear: those who are working to weaken the Clean Air Act and reduce EPA’s authority are effectively selling an investment that’s returned billions of dollars to our economy.

A  poll released last month by the American Lung Association found that three out of four Americans support the EPA setting tougher standards on specific air pollutants, including mercury, smog and carbon dioxide. It also found that 68 percent of voters oppose Congressional action that impedes the EPA from updating clean air standards generally and 64 percent oppose Congressional efforts to stop the EPA from updating standards on carbon dioxide.  If you want to protect these economic benefits and help prevent putting tens of thousands of lives at risk, you can voice your support for the Clean Air Act and the EPA by clicking here.

Would Stop Clean Cars Program, Put Pollution Reduction Goals at Risk and Threaten State’s Communities

Attacks on America’s landmark clean air law intensified on Wednesday in Washington D.C. The U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Power Subcommittee held its first hearing on a draft bill to undermine the country’s Clean Air Act.

The attacks take direct aim at California’s long-standing clean cars program – vital clean air measures that have protected California’s health and environment for more than 40 years.  

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) — and a companion version of the bill in the Senate sponsored by Jim Inhofe (R-OK) — would strip the Environmental Protection Agency’s planned update to improve the act’s pollution limits by addressing greenhouse gases (GHG).  

Among other things, the bill would:

• Overturn the EPA’s independent scientific determination that greenhouse gas pollution endangers human health;
• Overturn the Supreme Court’s finding affirming that the EPA has the authority and responsibility to regulate those emissions,
• Block EPA’s measures to require the nation’s largest industrial emitters to deploy cost-effective pollution mitigation at the time of construction or modernization; and
• Prohibit the EPA from requiring additional GHG reductions from motor vehicles and repeal California’s long-standing authority to regulate these harmful emissions.

What hasn’t been reported so far is the blow this legislative attack would have on California’s successful environmental leadership, a record that has delivered tremendous health and economic benefits to Californians and to all Americans.   

Many of the folks I’ve spoken with believe that environmental attacks in D.C. won’t really impact California since we have our own air pollution limits and groundbreaking environmental standards. In this particular case, unfortunately, they’re wrong. 

If this bill becomes law, California will be prohibited from limiting global warming pollution from vehicles, which accounts for nearly 40 percent of the state’s emissions. Blocking California’s ability to reduce pollution within its borders would mean:

• more pollution;
• less fuel efficiency in cars and trucks; and
• sagging demand for innovative hybrids and electric vehicles.

This would cripple California’s ability to cut pollution to 1990 levels by 2020 as required by the state’s landmark clean energy and climate change law, AB 32.  It would also mean importing more oil from unstable and unfriendly governments, and forcing California drivers to pay more at the pump.

James Goldstene, executive officer of California’s Air Resources Board (CARB), the primary agency charged with protecting the state’s air quality and overseeing implementation of AB 32 testified at yesterday’s congressional hearing. He said that California has established pollution standards for new vehicles sold in the state since the 1960s. Since the 1980s, each successive California standard has gone on to become the national standard.

“Preempting the authority for EPA to regulate the emissions of vehicles would rob this country of one of its most powerful tools not just to reduce carbon pollution, but also to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and to save consumers money. And every dollar not spent on foreign oil is a dollar spent here.”

Last year, the EPA adopted the first national greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and light trucks for model year 2012-2016 vehicles. These were based on California’s standards, which 13 other states had adopted. They are expected to improve fuel efficiency by about five percent annually, reduce fleet-wide greenhouse gases 21 percent by 2030 and save 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the lifetime of the vehicles sold under the program.

Upton’s bill “changes the manner in which motor vehicles have been regulated in the United States for 40 years” and would prohibit the EPA and California from establishing new tailpipe emissions standards and from making further revisions to the standards announced last year.

As EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson noted in her testimony at the hearing, Chairman Upton’s draft bill would eliminate portions of the Clean Air Act that “saves millions of American children and adults from the debilitating and expensive illnesses that occur when smokestacks and tailpipes release unrestricted amounts of harmful pollution into the air we breathe.”

Last year alone, EPA’s implementation of the act:

• saved more than 160,000 American lives;
• avoided more than 100,000 hospital visits;
• prevented millions of cases of respiratory illness, including bronchitis and asthma;
• enhanced American productivity by preventing millions of lost workdays; and
• kept American kids healthy and in school.

According to Jackson, it also contributed to dynamic growth in our domestic clean tech industry, which in 2008, generated nearly $300 billion in revenues and $44 billion in exports.

Californians pride themselves on their state’s innovation. If we want to continue this leadership role, Upton’s bill, and other like-minded attacks, must be defeated.

EDF will continue working with our allies to protect the Clean Air Act, which an overwhelming majority of Americans and tens of thousands of businesses support–for good reason.