source:http://tinyurl.com/3x2w45

The Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards took a huge
political gamble this week. He told an audience of unionists in
Florida that they needed to make a big sacrifice: give up their four-
wheel-drives in the interests of combating greenhouse gas emissions.

"I think Americans are actually willing to sacrifice," Edwards said
during a forum held by the International Association of Machinists and
Aerospace Workers. "One of the things they should be asked to do is
drive more fuel-efficient vehicles." Asked whether he meant give up
their sports utility vehicles, or SUVs, the forthright North Carolina
senator replied: "Yes." Edwards had better hope he has read the
American psyche correctly. The statistics suggest he is dead wrong.

Asking Australians to give up four-wheel-drives would be contentious.
In the United States it could be political suicide.

In the US, cars - and big cars - are deeply ingrained in the
lifestyle. This is the home of the road movie, where an entire two
hours can be filled with a tale of crossing wide open spaces. People
in American cities think nothing of a two-hour drive each way to work
as their cities continue to expand.

In summer, empty-nesters take to the roads in droves, either living
out parts of the Easy Rider dream on a fully equipped Harley-Davidson
or a Honda Goldwing, complete with matching trailer, cup holders,
intercom system and heated leather seats. Or they might take an RV, or
recreational vehicle. Australians might like their campervans or
caravans, but they are Matchbox toys compared with the American
recreational vehicle.

The Recreational Vehicle Industry Association says there were 18
million of these vehicles on the road during the American summer. The
average cost of one of these homes away from home - yes, average - is
$US260,000 ($320,000).

Many are the size of a bus and offer all the luxuries of home, from
air-conditioning to television to dishwashers to broadband access. It
is not unusual to see a boat, a small car or even a small SUV attached
to a towbar.

Despite rising petrol prices and increasing awareness of the danger
posed by climate change, sales of large gas-guzzling vehicles are up
in the US, after an initial dip in 2004 and 2005, when petrol prices
spiked.

Sales of RVs have jumped 22 per cent in the past three years. Last
year, the industry sold 390,500, the highest sales in 28 years. Sales
of SUVs are also up. After a two-year slump, sales of these beasts,
especially the behemoth models, have skyrocketed.

The numbers for large SUVs rose nearly 6 per cent in the first quarter
of this year, and April figures were up 25 per cent from April last
year, according to vehicle manufacturers' statistics provided by
Edmunds.com, an automotive research website.

Filling these machines costs more than $US120. In the city they do 13
to 14 miles a gallon (16-18 litres per 100 kilometres) with slightly
better results on the open road.

Sales of Prius, the hybrid electric-petrol sedan from Toyota, are up
too, particularly on the west coast and in the east coast cities,
where the climate change message is resonating. But in the US
heartland it seems SUVs could be almost as sacrosanct as guns.

The difficulties for the US in curbing its use of fuel are reflected
throughout US politics.

Just before it went on its summer break, the US House of
Representatives passed a wide-ranging energy bill that will require
most utilities to produce 15 per cent of their electricity from
renewable sources such as wind and solar power. It also includes new
requirements for energy efficiency in appliances and government
buildings and billions of dollars in incentives for production of
alternative fuels and new research on capturing carbon emissions.

The bill outlaws the sale of 100-watt incandescent light bulbs by 2012
and requires that all bulbs be three times more efficient than today's
ordinary bulbs by 2020. And without saying how it will be done, it
says the US Government must become carbon neutral by 2050.

But an important provision - energy efficiency standards for cars -
was quietly dropped from the bill at the last minute. It had been
originally planned for a requirement of 35 miles per gallon (or 6.7
litres per 100 kilometres) by 2020.

By way of comparison, the Australian Government has an agreement with
the car industry that involves a target of reducing the average fuel
consumption of new cars sold in Australia from 8.43 litres per 100
kilometres to 6.8 litres per 100 kilometres by 2010. The current
Holden Commodore model uses 11 litres per 100 kilometres.

Greenpeace's energy policy specialist in the US, John Coequyt, says
the deletion was the work of a powerful senior Democrat, John Dingell,
the chairman of the House energy committee and a congressman from
Detroit, home of America's car industry. Dingell is married to Debbie
Insley, a grand-daughter of General Motors' Fisher brothers who is an
executive at GM.

To proceed the energy bill now has to be altered to match the Senate
version of the bill, which includes the 2020 fuel efficiency standard.
But environmental activists admit they face a battle to get the fuel
efficiency standards reinstated.

"The Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, says she wants an energy efficiency
standard and she's going to have to show leadership to get one,"
Coequyt says.

That process will occur in September and October, around the time that
the President, George Bush, is getting ready to host a meeting of the
15 largest polluting nations. After that, the next hurdle the bill
faces is a possible presidential veto. Bush has already indicated that
he is contemplating such a move because he is unhappy with aspects of
the bill that repeal $US16 billion in tax breaks for the oil industry
enacted in 2005. The money has been diverted into research grants and
renewable fuel projects.

Whether he makes good on his threat remains to be seen, since public
awareness of the urgency of global warming, while not as high as in
Australia, is now a mainstream issue both in the presidential campaign
and among community groups as diverse as Al Gore's climate change
coalition, Christian groups and AARP, the leading lobby group for
seniors in the US.

Meanwhile, 13 states have gone it alone on energy efficiency standards
for cars, following the lead of California, which mandates a 22 per
cent cut in vehicle emissions by 2012 and 30 per cent cut by 2016. The
latest state is Florida, which announced a greenhouse strategy last
month.

Florida's Republican Governor, Charlie Crist, has read the mood in the
state, which was battered by hurricanes again this summer, and taken a
leaf out of the book of the California Governor, Arnold
Schwarzenegger.

Given that the 13 states represent so much of the national car market,
the states could well force American car makers to adopt the
California standard as the de facto national standard because there
would be little point in producing models that could not be sold in
the stricter states. So that is why the battle has moved to the
Supreme Court.

In April the court ruled 5-4 that the Environmental Protection Agency
violated the Clean Air Act by improperly declining to regulate new-
vehicle emissions standards to control the pollutants that scientists
say contribute to global warming. The ruling lent weight to
California's efforts to regulate emissions, the state's Attorney-
General, Jerry Brown, said at the time. The agency's standard could
emerge soon.

At the same time, the car industry has challenged California's right
to impose standards and it is expected to be heard by the Supreme
Court soon.

Meanwhile, on the global stage, Bush and the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-
operation forum nations meeting in Sydney next week will discuss
climate change in the post-Kyoto world.

Bush unveiled his preferred approach just before he attended the G8
summit in Germany in June. He has rejected the European approach of
strictly mandating targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas outputs
and instead has proposed an overall goal, with each nation then
offering a mid-term plan to achieve that goal. He is still opposed to
an international carbon trading scheme.

Bush's bottom line is that the post-Kyoto framework must include the
rapidly growing economies of India and China, because without them the
progress made by Western nations in reducing their emissions will be
negated by the projected huge increases in emissions from these
nations.

The US's senior climate change negotiator, Dr Harlan Watson, said in
July: "The President believes that by encouraging and sharing cutting-
edge technologies, the major economies will build the capacity to meet
realistic reduction goals."

The discussion at APEC is expected to focus strongly on energy
security and technology. Bush's approach is very heavily skewed to
investment in measures that will either increase energy efficiency or
store carbon dioxide.

For example, billions of dollars have been earmarked for subsidising
ethanol production from corn, and Bush is expected to discuss with the
Prime Minister, John Howard, his hopes of involving Australia in
research on producing ethanol from wild grasses, in order to meet the
target of 20 per cent of its fuel need from ethanol in 10 years. But
whether the US can grapple with the other side of the equation -
curbing its appetite for petrol and using it more efficiently -
remains to be seen.