Sen. Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D-DE):
Sen. Biden is a long-time supporter of climate action, having voted for the 2003 and 2005 McCain-Lieberman bills, and having strongly advocated for U.S. engagement in international climate change treaty negotiations. In 2003 and 2005 with Senator John F. Kerry (D-MA), and in 2005 [3] and 2007 [4] with Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), he cosponsored a nonbinding resolution calling for U.S. participation in international climate change negotiations. Sen. McCain voted for this resolution in 2005.
Sen. Biden also cosponsored, with Senators Lugar and Hagel (R-NE), legislation which would authorize $2 billion for the Clean Technology Fund, an initiative of President George W. Bush, which would be administered by the World Bank to promote lower- and zero-carbon energy production projects in the developing world.
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Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK):
While Gov. Palin has taken state and regional action on climate change ¬– such as establishing a special Climate Change Sub-Cabinet, and making Alaska an observer of the Western Climate Initiative (in which seven other U.S. states and four Canadian provinces are developing a mandatory cap-and-trade program to reduce the region’s greenhouse gas emissions) ¬– she has also expressed skepticism about the extent to which human activities are contributing to global climate change and associated impacts. Alaska has not as yet adopted any measures to reduce its GHG emissions.
In December 2007, she told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, "I'm not an Al Gore, doom-and-gloom environmentalist blaming the changes in our climate on human activity. But I'm not going to put my head in the sand and pretend there aren't changes."
In a January 5, 2008, op-ed in The New York Times Palin treads this line. She argued against listing polar bears as an endangered species because of threats to their habitats caused by global climate change, writing “the possible listing of a healthy species like the polar bear would be based on uncertain modeling of possible effects. This is simply not justified.”
In August 2008, before Sen. McCain selected her as his running mate, she told Newsmax.com “A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.”
On September 3, in her first interview as the Vice-Presidential nominee, however, she told ABC News, “I believe that man’s activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming, climate change.”
A September 30, 2008, interview for CBS News with Katie Couric featured an extensive exchange on climate change and cap and trade:
Couric: If [climate change] is not man-made, then one might wonder, well, how can human beings contribute to a solution?
Gov. Palin: Well, human beings certainly are contributing to pollution today. And to some adverse effects on the environment. And it's all of our jobs to do to clean things up. And that's what we're committed to doing.”
Couric: So you do believe … that man is contributing to global warming, because you just said they're causing pollution. Of course, pollution causes global warming.
Gov. Palin: I believe that there are a lot of causes. And there is one effect. And one is changes in the climate. And there are things that we can do to make sure we're cleaning up the environment. I also formed an integrity office that solely is focused on petroleum, on pipelines, on those things that we do up there in Alaska to contribute to the U.S. domestic supply of energy.
Where we can focus solely on environmental protections. There are a lot of things that I've done there in that arena of environmental protection that have kind of ticked off some in my own party thinking that I went too far. But I've always been of the mind that, you know, we gotta prove that we can do this right. Safely, ethically, environmentally friendly developments, or we're not gonna be allowed to unlock our lands and tap these supplies.
Couric: John McCain proposed legislation calling for mandatory caps on global warming gases or CO2 emissions. Do you agree with that?
Gov. Palin: I support his position on that. Absolutely.
Couric: But he somewhat backtracked on the campaign trail saying it wouldn't, they wouldn't, the caps wouldn't be mandatory, they'd be voluntary. So what do you think? Do you think voluntary caps go far enough? Or they should be mandatory?
Gov. Palin: He's got a good cap and trade policy that he supports. And details are being hashed out even right now. But, in principle, absolutely, I support all that we can do to reduce emissions and to clean up this planet. And john McCain is right on board with that.
Couric: Voluntary or mandatory in your view?
Gov. Palin: We're gonna keep working on how it can be implemented to actually make sense and make a difference.
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Back to The Candidates and Climate Change: A Guide to Key Policy Positions [6]
Appendix: Candidates’ Climate- and Energy-Related Policy Positions [7]
Links:
[1] http://www.pewclimate.org./voter-guide/vps#Biden
[2] http://www.pewclimate.org./voter-guide/vps#Palin
[3] http://www.pewclimate.org./what_s_being_done/in_the_congress/s_res_312.cfm
[4] http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_bills&docid=f:sr30rs.txt.pdf
[5] http://www.pewclimate.org./voter-guide/vps#TOP
[6] http://www.pewclimate.org./voter-guide
[7] http://www.pewclimate.org./voter-guide/appendix