Steven Hill
Barack Obama's ability to strike a new course for the US following eight years of Bush administration unpopularity. Yet many in the US and abroad are impatient with the pace of progress under the Obama administration. The president made the rounds on five news talkshows on Sunday as he pressed his policies and vision, preparing for what is likely to be a difficult week.
Besides the ongoing battle over healthcare, this week sees two showdowns between Europe and the US that will reveal further slippage in American global leadership. The first showdown comes today at a UN special session on climate change in New York City; the second will come at the end of the week at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, where America and Europe will butt heads over financial system reforms designed to ensure that the AIGs of the world can never again cause an economic collapse.
Europe has been increasingly critical of America's failures to live up to its global responsibilities. The US is not only the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases but is by far the largest per capita emitter of carbon and other pollutants. China comes close to the US in terms of total carbon emissions, but it has four times more people, who each belch far less individually. Europe, while having much the same high living standard, has an %26quot;ecological footprint%26quot; that is only half of America's, since Europe has taken leadership in implementing renewable technologies and conservation practices.
On the campaign trail, Barack Obama promised to reverse the Bush administration's terrible ecological record. Yet so far the world has seen more symbolic gestures from the Obama administration than accomplishments. Its biggest achievement so far has been an example of disappointment. President Obama signed an executive order to increase US motor vehicle mileage standards 鈥?but only to a level that will push fuel efficiency by 2020 to a level that European and Japanese cars reached several years ago, and even China has already achieved.
Europe has announced donations of $2bn to $15bn a year for the next decade to help developing nations cope with climate warming, yet the Obama administration has not offered anything close to that amount. Europe also wants binding, near-term targets for developed nations, proposing a 20% reduction from 1990 levels by 2020, or 30% if everyone agrees. The Bush administration of course rejected such targets 鈥?but now it looks like the Obama administration is not willing to go any further. It has said such targets should be voluntary but verifiable.
With the US Senate is bogged down in the fight over reforming healthcare, American leaders have said that the senators might not move on climate legislation until 2010, well after the global climate change conference in Copenhagen in December. That drew a sharp response from John Bruton, head of the European Union delegation: %26quot;The United States is just one of the 190 countries coming to this conference,%26quot; Bruton said, %26quot;but the United States emits 25% of all the greenhouse gases that the conference is trying to reduce. I submit that asking an international conference to sit around looking out the window for months, while one chamber of the legislature of one country deals with its other business, is simply not a realistic political position.%26quot;
Even Europe's conservative politicians, such as Connie Hedegaard, Denmark's minister of climate and energy, are expressing impatience: %26quot;It's rather crucial that the US can show a credible pathway,%26quot; Hedegaard said, pointing out that the US emits twice as much carbon dioxide per capita as Denmark, without gaining anything in improving its quality of life.
That's the start of President Obama's week. At the end of it, President Obama will appear at a meeting in Pittsburgh of the G20, a bloc of both developed and developing nations, representing 85% of the world's economic output and most of its population. On the table will be what reforms to help avoiding a repetition of the financial panic and global economic collapse that is perceived as having originated on Wall Street. Despite immense, taxpayer-financed rescue packages needed to overcome the crisis, the financial sector in the US is rapidly returning to business as usual. Indeed, three US banks 鈥?Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan 鈥?which received some $45bn of bailout aid, each paid billions of dollars more in bonuses in 2009 than they earned in 2008.
Here again, Europe is leading, while the Obama administration is dragging its feet. Europe has proposed far-reaching reforms designed to impose new rules on executive pay and bonuses, requiring that banks link pay to long-term rather than short-term performance, and that they %26quot;claw back%26quot; any bonuses received in the face of losses. Europe wants a financial police
Obama the Impotent - How can anyone say this about our president?
Beats me. He's got two kids, so he must be able to get it up sometime!
Obama the Impotent - How can anyone say this about our president?
I'm
asking why is it so important to him when the country is in dept already, or does he care about the little people?
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Our economy is very dependent on fossil fuels. The president does not have the power to wave a magic wand and change this in 3/4th of a year.
If the shoe fits. Also, I hear he has been trying to big Michelle, seems he is impotent in more ways than one. Wonder if she would like me, a real man.
You need to provide links to things this long, not post the whole article. They say it because it's true.
Obama is impotent? How did you find out?
You're starving for attention by posting a long article that's not yours.... twice already.
