Is 'Obama the Impotent' a Threat to Global Warming Treaty?

As the Yes Men's Sustaina Ball theatrical activists wandered around Climate Week NYC, an opinion columnist in UKs Guardian newspaper ruffled a few feathers and provided fodder for right-wing commentators by words criticizing the president and questioning his political leverage on global warming policy both domestically and internationally.

Expectations for the U.S. president were high this week and, by any account, his speech before the UN Climate Summit was "no barnburner." The president reiterated his vision of a clean energy economy before the United Nations, touting his achievements so far and promising to work both domestically and internationally to enact necessary cuts in climate pollution and dramatic shifts toward clean energy.

Obama Calls on World Act Boldly in Face of Global Warming

"... the threat from climate change is serious, it is urgent, and it is growing. Our generation's response to this challenge will be judged by history, for if we fail to meet it -- boldly, swiftly, and together -- we risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe."

- Obama before the UN Climate Summit opening session.

But Fails to Convince He Can Deliver Climate Legislation at Home

It's the promises, or lack there of, that have disappointed U.S. environmentalists and world leaders looking to negotiate a strong international climate treaty in Copenhagen in December. The president set no timelines, made no commitment to binding pollution cuts, and made only vague promises of aid for poor nations.

President Obama's speech to the UN yesterday made it clear that the United States is emerging as the biggest obstacle to a successful climate summit in Copenhagen.

- Carl Pope, Sierra Club

"...the speech as a whole represents a missed opportunity for the US to take a leadership role and signal to the rest of the world that it is serious about tackling the threat of climate change."

- Keya Chatterjee, World Wildlife Federation

Grist Magazine columnist Jonathon Hiskes pointed out that Obama's UN speech was actually his first climate policy speech and that every global warming mention up until now has been in the context of clean energy jobs. But Mother Jones columnist, author, climate activist Bill McKibben accused the president of not even trying and criticized Obama's unwillingness to expend political capital on clean energy and global warming to move strong national climate legislation.

Members of U.S. Senate Attempt to Make Obama Truly Impotent on Global Warming

Central to Steven Hill's premise in the Guardian is that the minority-rules dynamic of the U.S. Senate means that Obama will not be able to move climate legislation this year.

Indeed, as Obama called on the world to unite in the face of the most dangerous environmental threat we have ever seen, supporters of the status quo are trying every trick in the book (and some off the books) to prevent progress and undermine his vision of a clean energy economy for America. While Obama discussed climate policy with world leaders, the U.S. Senate debated budget bill amendments that would revoke the president's Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate global warming pollution (note: amendment failed 9/24) and defund his Council on Environmental Quality director Carol Browner.

But at the same time, press in the United States and Europe report that Senate sponsors announced that they would introduce a U.S. global warming bill the following week and that the president's backup plan to a climate bill could be using EPA authority to regulate carbon (hence, the Murkowski amendment).

So what do you think? Does President Obama need to step it up and start cajoling or even twisting arms in the Senate? What would be the political game changer that moves climate legislation?

And what's the responsibility of environmental activists in the U.S. and abroad?

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