Taking bold action domestically on climate change will help the United States leverage similar commitments from other countries, said White House Office of Management and Budget Director Shaun Donovan.
“The scale of our ambition at home is going to be the single-most important driver to make sure China” and others follow suit, Donovan said Friday at a Washington event hosted by left-leaning think tank the Center for American Progress. “We have to be a leader if we want the world to step up as well.”
Donovan made the remarks on the eve of Tuesday’s United Nations climate summit, where President Obama is expected to make new pledges on climate change to build momentum heading into formal negotiations next year in Paris. Those climate talks are viewed as a last-ditch effort to secure enough carbon-cutting commitments by 2020 to avoid a 2 degrees Celsius global temperature rise by 2100.
Conservatives and industry groups have warned that committing unilaterally to curbing greenhouse gas emissions, which most scientists say drive climate change largely through burning fossil fuels, would handcuff the U.S. economy.
But Donovan said waiting to act would hit the U.S. budget and economy.
He cited a White House report in July that showed the difference between allowing global temperatures to rise 3 degrees Celsius, rather than 2 degrees, above pre-industrial levels would amount to a 0.9 percent gross domestic product loss. In today’s dollars, that amounts to a $150 billion hit to the U.S. alone.
“As a nation, we face climate change on a nonpartisan basis,” Donovan said of the potential impact.
Federal funding for climate change programs is also key, Donovan said. He noted that U.S. efforts to compile data on sea level rise, drought, floods and other extreme weather linked to climate change surpass those of others, and have helped boost the nation’s preparedness for climate change — potentially saving billions of dollars in future damages.
“If the federal government isn’t funding this work … it’s not going to get done,” Donovan said.
The White House plans to make the data available to other nations, adviser John Podesta told reporters on Thursday.
Many developing nations that could be the hardest hit by changes in agricultural productivity, or high sea levels that threaten densely populated mega-cities on the coasts, lack the capabilities to compile reliable data on the threats climate change poses, Donovan said.
“You see enormous vulnerability to climate change” due to rapid urbanization in developing countries, Donovan said.
