CEOs want emissions cuts more than Prez does?

It's no surprise that the White House is bringing up the rear on climate change. What does surprise me (that I learned in this article) is that a bunch of big companies have formed a group called the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), that backs a drastic 80% cut in emissions by 2050. (Our Republican President is lagging behind big business???)

Why does big business want this, you ask?

From the article:

Why? Because many CEOs are now convinced that curbs on emissions of fossil fuels and other greenhouse gases are inevitable. What they need more than anything is long-term certainty about the price that will be put on carbon emissions, so they can start planning now. If the cost of carbon will be high, for instance, it makes no sense to build new coal plants. Instead, it would be better for utilities to put their investment into wind, solar, and other non-fossil fuel sources. Once those policy signals about the price of carbon are in place, the needed technology will be developed quickly.

Indeed, the European Union and other parts of the world have already committed to reducing emissions by signing on to the Kyoto Protocol. That, in turn, has created a market for carbon emissions and emissions-reductions technology that the U.S. is largely missing out on. Former President Bill Clinton said on Monday that the U.S. has missed the biggest job-creation engine in years by ignoring the need to combat climate change through reducing greenhouse gas emissions. "It's economic folly for the U.S. not to be participating in the carbon markets," says Kate Hampton, head of policy at Climate Change Capital, an investment banking group in Britain. Investors have poured $5 billion into cleaner projects around the world, in order to get credit for the resulting emissions reductions, she says. While the U.S. twiddles its thumbs, "others are out there hoovering up the cheap carbon credits," she says. And if the world now backs away from mandatory rules, "it would put those billions of capital at risk," she says.