Hope springs eternal, but the idea of waiting to “spring” for Senate action doesn’t fill me with hope. In 2010, the Senate will convene in January, not March. The Senate’s unfinished business on clean energy and climate should be on deck as the Senate’s highest priority after health care. Speaker Pelosi and the House worked impressively already this year to pass a clean energy jobs bill that puts America on a leadership pathway for reducing pollution and tackling climate change. When health care is done, the Senate needs to turn to the energy reform and climate package that Majority Leader Reid has put in motion. As we head into 2010, President Obama should make clear that delivering the clean energy jobs & climate bill to his desk is his top priority for unfinished business.

In the meantime, President Obama will send a team to the climate negotiations in Copenhagen. He has been an impressive leader on climate change in his first year — from tailpipe standards to a promising new dialogue with China. But Copenhagen and the coming months will be the pivotal test of whether he can break through the politics of inaction and the millions of dollars spent by oil companies and their allies to block progress. It is unlikely that the President will close the final deal on a new global agreement in December. More likely, he will prepare the way with an interim deal and ask the world to wait on Congress for the final package. If so, it will take a vigorous White House determination to move advance the bipartisan efforts being led by Senators John Kerry, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman to the front of the line.

Americans have had enough delay. We can’t afford to wait and let clean energy jobs go to other countries ready to invest in clean energy. We can’t wait to break our addiction to oil. We can’t wait to take the responsible steps necessary to protect people and wildlife from a warming world.

Carbon dioxide pollution knows no political boundaries. Decarbonizing every economy around the world must be our common goal.

In a few weeks, National Wildlife Federation will send a team to the United Nations Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen to support world leaders striving to create an enforceable global agreement to cut carbon dioxide pollution. We will be demanding that assembled leaders produce a roadmap–with every nation participating this time–to collectively curb this massive pollution threat before it’s too late to avoid catastrophic climate changes that will spell unprecedented losses of wildlife all over the world in every ecosystem. We will demand firm reductions and timetables that match the best available science and we will press for the establishment of specific, enforceable targets proportional to each country’s contributions. Here are some of the key elements to a global deal.

Bold and verifiable goals

The 20 largest emitters known as the G-20 produce eighty percent of the carbon dioxide pollution. They include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States. These nations must lead the way and be accountable to cut their emissions on an aggressive timetable. Discussions leading up to Copenhagen have been marked by wrangling about who should do what and which countries should make the biggest emissions cuts. The U.S. and China together, now represent more than 40 percent of annual emissions so we both must do our fair share to cut future emissions. Copenhagen will fail unless scientifically-sound 2020 emissions targets are established for each of these countries and to establish a firm date for industrialized nations to begin cutting overall emissions. The actual atmospheric declines should start by no later than 2015 to minimize the real risks of runaway global warming.

Skipping 20th century mistakes

Many developing nations are rightfully looking for ways to build their own economies to provide for their people. It is critically important that we help them build clean energy economies, while avoiding fossil-fuels that increase global emissions. Instead, we need to help them adopt and deploy new, clean energy technologies to meet their needs. In other words, we want to help developing nations to go from the 19th century right into the 21th century bypassing our 20th century mistakes.

Think of it this way, many of the world’s poorest people have never made a phone call, if and when they do, it will be on a cell phone. When they get their first lights, they will be solar or wind-powered. They will be able to stop burning wood and dung for cooking and replace these soot-producing stoves with solar cookers.

Protecting Forests

Deforestation and continual degradation of forests represents about 20 percent of the total human-caused atmospheric carbon dioxide as trees remaining tropical rain forests, are vital stores of carbon. We must forge a global deal that helps developing countries protect remaining uncut forests by providing financial incentives to reduce future deforestation and degradation. Properly executed, this will help mitigate climate change, provide protection for extravagant biodiversity in rainforests and help the poor develop in sustainable ways. All of this must be sensitive to and address various social, institutional and political drivers that trigger destructive forest losses.

Storing Carbon in Second-Growth Forests and Agricultural Soils

Because it will take time to transition large coal-fired power plants and industrial facilities, we must invest in carbon offsets that fund farmers who increase their carbon storage in soils and pay forest landowner for delaying timber harvests by 30-40 years to get additional carbon storage from older trees.

The December meeting will bring together world leaders and their environmental ministers to forge an agreement to succeed the Kyoto climate change treaty that expires in 2012. Many of us were hoping that the election of Barack Obama signaled to the world that the US would now play a strong leadership role in Copenhagen by tackling climate change with a new law that would set a firm foundation for U.S. action. President Barack Obama went to Copenhagen in October in a failed attempt to support Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games, it is yet to be seen whether or not he will return as a world leader determined to forge a climate agreement that protects the future of all children.

The U.S. House of Representatives under the able leadership of Speaker Pelosi has passed a foundational bill that will enable President Obama to lead. As of this writing, the Senate has not matched the House action. It is unclear whether the U. S. Senate will pass a bill in time to help shape the President’s role in the treaty decisions ahead. I remain hopeful that Senator Kerry and Senator Boxer can reach out to the Republican Senators and those swing Democrats from high-carbon states to forge a deal.

We are running out of time to save the planet, and the Copenhagen summit is a terribly important milestone. You should urge President Obama to lead the charge for a global deal and urge your Senators to act now to pass climate legislation to create millions of clean energy jobs, make our world more secure and to give wildlife this last chance.

In a little over a week, I will become a Congresswoman. Actually, I’ll just be pretending for a day in a mock lobbying session to help train the thousands of college students descending onto Washington for Power Shift 2009.

After learning the lingo of the Hill, students from around the country will deliver a big awakening to Congress, lobbying their decision makers to confront global warming and invest in the clean energies that will work for their future and that of our natural world.

For many of today’s youth, shifting from “dirty” to clean fuels is no abstract concept. As one example, just take a moment to hear from Marisol–who lives near a power plant and sees the impacts on the health of her neighbors and community everyday.

The message is becoming clearer and clearer to a broader audience of Americans: greening our economy helps everyone. And that’s the essential message students will deliver to Congress next week for Power Shift 2009. They’ll also get to do a lot more – attending workshops on wildlife habitats and green jobs or hearing from luminaries such as Nancy Pelosi and Van Jones.

All this excitement in Washington is only a few more days away. And the best news is–it’s not too late to register!

Even if you can’t make it, you can help us reach our goal of bringing 10,000 students to Washington on this historic day by spreading the word to all the students and young people you know!

Musical acts included Will.i.am. (of the Black Eyed Peas), Melissa Etheridge, Maroon 5, John Legend and Michael Franti. Speakers included former Vice President Al Gore, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, National Wildlife Federation President and CEO Larry Schweiger, and…comedian Paul Reiser. Yeah, I didn’t know the former Mad About You star was into the environment either.

Check out Jason Kempin’s photos.

It was a fantastic setting for a great event. The Gallery’s courtyard was lit up beautifully for the event and guests were free to roam the halls (I made sure to get a picture with conservation legend Teddy Roosevelt).

Organizers made sure every detail was as green as possible.

Some Green Features:

• 100% of the carbon footprint of the event was being offset with high quality carbon offsets from Native Energy. The offsets will support a portfolio of renewable energy technologies.
• The event’s menu was developed by Grand Cuisine and Chef Bradley Nairne, in consultation with renowned organic Chef Nora Pouillon, and included locally-sourced, organic and seasonal food.
• Waste from the event was be recycled, reused and composted by the Waste Neutral Group. No plastic bottles were available.

Washingtonian’s Capital Comment blog reviewed the event and gave it an impressive average of 4.25 stars! Hopefully we’ll get to do it all again in four years.

It was amazing to have the opportunity to experience the energy of 6,000 students converging at the University of Maryland at Power Shift 2007 to demand action on global warming–but even better has been to see the ripples that are spreading.

For those that couldn’t experience it firsthand, the NWF Campus Ecology staff wants to share some of the great stories and images that are emerging. When you need a shot in the arm, just click on one of these links for some inspiration…

Immediate Impact

Power Shift made some folks awfully nervous–the right wing attack machine was brought out in full force:

• Rush Limbaugh attacked NWF’s own Charlie Lockwood, a student leader from the Alaska Youth for Environmental Action (AYEA). She gave an incredibly powerful and courageous testimony before the House Select Committee on Energy and Climate Action on his radio show.
• And poor Pat Buchanan never knew what hit him when the Energy Action Coalition’s Co-Director Jessy Tolkan came out swinging on Hardball

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Ed Markey, Chair of the House Select Committee on Energy and Climate Action addressed students and responded positively to chants of, “We want more!” (as in stronger climate action). In a follow up letter to Power Shift, Speaker Pelosi pledged, “Combating climate change and working toward energy independence are flagship issues for my Speakership and top priorities of this Congress.”

News Highlights

• Discovery and MTV – aired video clips highlighting the energy of the lobby day, which many say was the largest yet on climate change–more than 2,000 students visited Members of Congress.
• NPR – An article dismantling Thomas Freidman’s concern that this is “The Quiet Generation.”
• Time magazine online – An article quoting Jesse Tolkan: “For the Millennials, climate change is emerging as the defining issue of their time, just as civil rights or Vietnam might have been for the generation before. ‘This is a new generation that sees itself at the forefront of a great movement, just like the greatest movements of the past,’ says Tolkan.”
• Grist – “They’ve Got the Power”
• It’s Getting Hot in Here – a youth climate blog has loads of dispatches.
• Wildlife Promise – NWF’s invited people to send messages to students attending Power Shift, and got great comments from people “passing the torch” from one generation to another.

Pictures and Video

Hundreds of pictures have already been uploaded to FlickR with the “Powershift07″ tag. Also, the “I Shot Power Shift” project put video cameras in the hands of more than 100 students and the footage is just starting to come in. They include:

• The “Green Jobs Not Jails” rally cry was one of the most powerful of the weekend. This “Green for All” video captures some of the incredible diversity of Power Shift and you can’t help but get excited about the future by watching Van Jones who lit up crowd each time he spoke.
• And former NWF Campus Ecology Fellow Summer Rayne Oakes put together the coolest video called “We Are One” featuring the Faces of Power Shift.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the success of Power Shift 2007!