Towards a “Green deal”?

I take the opportunity of a trip across the United State to share some of my (EU made) subjective views about some of the most emblematic cities in the United States: Washington and New York, the “European cities”, Detroit, the former motherhood of the car industry, Saint-Louis, mainstream America, Sacramento - California and Houston, the capital of the independent State of Texas.

After a few days in Washington and New-York, I am still trying to make up my mind about the US stance on climate change. Whilst several hardcore republicans still deny the reality of climate change, the political clash is not a traditional democrats vs. republicans fight. It is mainly driven by very vocal corporate interests made of coil, steel (etc) producers whose many of them are located in the middle of the US. On top of that, many republicans have a real problem with the cap and trade regulation which is seen as something quite similar to what remains the worst political injure here, “European socialism”. The picture is not black or white though, the US chamber of commerce which has tried to undermine climate legislation efforts, recently said it supports most of the principles outlined in a bipartisan climate change proposal offered by Sens. John Kerry, (D., Mass.) and Lindsey Graham, (R., N.C.) last week.

But the general feeling is that no agreement should be reached before Copenhagen, which would put Obama in a difficult position on the international scene. The victory of Republicans in Virginia, New Jersey and New-York last week is likely to push Obama to refocus the priorities of its administration on jobs and growth – it’s the economy stupid, even more than in the 90’s, especially with a level of unemployment which does not seem sustainable for a country like the US - a "scarymonster" for many Americans whatever their political colors are.