Washington, February 12: US opponents of climate change action are seizing on a record snowfall in Washington in hopes of killing legislation to curb carbon emissions, which already faced uncertain political prospects.
Environmentalists have launched a swift counter-attack, pointing out that Olympics host Vancouver is facing a dearth of snow and saying the extreme weather may in fact offer proof, not a rebuttal, of changing climate patterns.
With Washington and other eastern cities digging out from the heaviest snow in decades, conservatives have gone on the offensive and mocked leaders who warned about the planet’s heating – in particular, former vice president Al Gore.
“It’s going to keep snowing in DC until Al Gore cries ‘uncle’,” Senator Jim DeMint, a Republican from South Carolina, wrote on micro-blogging website Twitter.
Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, a leading climate change sceptic, joined his family in building an igloo on Capitol Hill with signs reading “Al Gore’s new home” and “Honk if you love global warming”.
Policy
“I know that somebody is going to end up tearing it down,” Inhofe said on his blog. “Because there are a lot of people who can’t take a joke.”
President Barack Obama sharply changed US policy on climate change when he took office. The House of Representatives in June approved the first nationwide plan to force cuts in carbon emissions blamed for global warming.
But the legislation has bogged down in the Senate, where Obama’s Democratic Party lost a seat in January to a Republican who opposes action on the heat-trapping gases.
Senator John Kerry, the leading force behind the legislation, dismissed suggestions that the snow could bury the bill.
“The inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom that this issue has stalled is dead wrong,” said Kerry, a Democrat from Massachusetts.
“Comprehensive legislation will not only speed economic recovery, but it will put our country on the path to sustainable long-term economic growth,” Kerry said.
But Senator Charles Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, said he heard Obama tell Democrats the Senate bill would not include a so-called “cap-and-trade” system – which would restrict emissions but allow a trade in credits.
—Agencies