At the national level, a sensible national energy strategy must be devised. National energy legislation is on the agenda of the US Congress, and it is essential that the results move the country toward a low-carbon future. In August 2004, the pro-business Fortune magazine suggested four US initiatives: first to improve fuel economy through subsidizing hybrids, cutting oil and gas subsidies, and applying the gas-guzzler tax to sport utility vehicles, second to ramp up spending on alternative fuels, including hydrogen and biofuels, third to redouble the commitment to energy efficiency, taking advantage of the United States’ current position as the “Saudi Arabia of energy waste” to wring more production out of each unit of energy, and fourth to get serious about solar and wind power. The US business community should listen to its own best thinkers.

A specific part of this new national energy strategy is to enact the McCain-Lieberman bill. The McCain-Lieberman bill, which only seeks to cut US GHG emissions to 2000 levels by 2010, is modest by international standards, but it is the best hope of getting the United States on the path to emissions reduction. The bill garnered 43 votes (8 shy of a majority) in the Senate in 2003, and Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman are determined to keep pushing. Broader public support from businesses, universities, religious organizations, the conservation community, and elsewhere is required to pass the bill into law.

Moreover, the United States must resume working internationally on environmental issues. The signatories of the Kyoto Protocol, which now include Russia, constitute an international coalition that can press the United States to begin credible GHG emissions reduction and to join the climate treaty process. European advocates of trade sanctions and other measures aimed at the United States are to be taken seriously. The European Union could also invite US states to participate in its cap-and-trade GHG emissions market. If it is too late for the United States to comply strictly with the Kyoto Protocol, it is certainly not too late to catch up with Europe during the more ambitious post-2012 phase of GHG reductions.

Part of this renewed work in the international sphere must include climate-friendly cooperation with developing countries. With China’s emissions now over half of US emissions, future agreements should include developing country commitments to GHG reductions. Such agreements need not seek actual reduction in GHG emissions from the developing world as a whole. They should, however, vigorously promote measures to achieve rapid decreases in developing-country GHG releases per unit of GDP, or the carbon intensity of production. To support these efforts, the international community, including the World Bank, should offer large-scale capacity-building assistance, urgent transfer of green technology, programs to link access to low-cost capital to climate-friendly investments, expanded incentives to encourage international investment in climate-supporting projects, country-specific North-South compacts to reverse tropical deforestation, and lighter tariffs and improved economic access to countries complying with climate agreements.

Much must also be done at the consumer level. Individuals can further climate protection by consuming responsibly and by urging the adoption of tougher building codes, appliance efficiency standards, and mileage standards. Individuals can also effect change by persuading the institutions with which they are associated to take climate action, starting locally. What if all US colleges and universities joined in a commitment to reduce their GHG emissions impressively below 1990 levels by 2015 or 2020? What if all US religious organizations made a similar commitment? Fraternal organizations? And all environmental, consumer, civil rights, and other organizations with commitments to the public interest?

Concretely, the United States must limit its coal use. In November 2004, The New York Times reported on plans to construct 118 coal-fired power plants in 36 US states. US coal use is projected to rise by more than 40 percent over the next 20 years. The United States has a huge capacity to grow by using existing energy inputs more efficiently: it currently consumes about 45 percent more energy and electricity than the European Union, but has a GDP only about 5 percent higher than the European Union’s (measured by purchasing power). A new generation of more than 100 coal-fired power plants, without plans for capturing and storing the carbon, moves in precisely the wrong direction. A combination of national, state, and local efforts must ensure that decisions regarding new coal plants take into account environmental risks. In Congress, the prospect of the new wave of coal plants should spur, with sufficient local backing, the so-called four-pollutants bill, which would regulate sulfur, nitrogen, mercury, and carbon dioxide from power plants.

The last thing that must occur is a movement of concerned citizens at the grassroots level. If the environmental community could win the fight against climate disruption without help, it would have done so already. Climate protection thus requires, more than anything else, a new movement joining a wide array of civic, scientific, environmental, religious, student, and other organizations with enlightened business leaders, concerned families, and engaged communities. These groups and individuals must network, protest, demand action and accountability from governments and corporations, and act as consumers and communities to realize sustainability in everyday life. Much must, and can, be done to increase public awareness and build this movement. The entertainment industry and the media need to do far more. Scientists can no longer content themselves with publishing and lecturing: the scientific community has the unique credibility to influence the public and politicians, but with a few exceptions, it has not been sufficiently outspoken. And the US foreign policy community—which has given the climate threat very little attention—needs to move this issue front and center.

Changing US energy and climate policies has proven extremely difficult in the face of public apathy, vigorous industry opposition, and recalcitrance among political elites. Climate protection will not occur without a powerful popular movement for change. The task of building that movement falls to us.