Senator John Kerry vowed the United States would overcome the odds and approve action on climate change, as the United Nations set talks for April to help break a diplomatic logjam. Without offering a timetable, Kerry on Tuesday rejected assertions that it had become politically impossible for the Senate to finalize the first US nationwide plan to curb carbon emissions blamed for global warming."I'm excited. I know that's completely contrary to any conventional wisdom," said Kerry, a close ally of President Barack Obama and chief architect of the legislation.
But I was never any good at 'conventional wisdom' anyway.
Kerry said he was working on a Senate compromise that could recraft a landmark climate bill that squeaked last year through the House of Representatives.
"I don't care how we do it. I just think we have to price carbon because we have to send that signal to the marketplace," the Massachusetts Democrat added. "We're on a short track here in terms of piecing together legislation," he told a forum sponsored by The New Republic magazine. "We're moving rapidly."
Kerry denied the Senate would focus only on the less controversial area of clean energy and not carbon. He quoted Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican who has joined forces with him, as saying such an approach would be "half-assed."
"An energy-only bill sends no price signal," Kerry said, arguing that curbs on carbon emissions would help transform the troubled economy by creating green jobs.
You have a price signal, Jawn. It's $2.65 a gallon where I live.
The senior Democrat also recommended Michael Nash's documentary "Climate Refugees," which was screened out of competition at last month's Sundance Film Festival. The movie looks at humans displaced by disasters arising from ecological changes.
"There's a movie out called 'Climate Refugees,' which you need to see, because they're going to be millions of them - tens of millions of them - as we go forward," said Kerry.
It'll probably win the next Nobel Prize, unless Barak is elegible again.
In a long-term strategy document released on February 1, the Pentagon identified climate change for the first time as a trigger of instability that could worsen conflicts.