Continuing the recent theme of focusing on things that don't require congressional approval, the Obama administration, via Hillary Clinton, announced last week its participation in a new United Nations-run program to reduce "short-lived" pollutants such as soot and methane.
While carbon dioxide emissions account for far more climate change than any other pollutant, curbing those emissions can take decades to produce noticeable results and is therefore harder to justify to short-sighted politicians; the current program therefore focuses on reducing pollutants that produce faster, more politically-expedient results, because god forbid we do something that doesn't relate to the current election cycle.
Also interesting is the list of partner nations in this bold new venture of ours: Bangladesh, Canada, Ghana, Mexico and Sweden. I guess we'll take what we can get at this point, but it definitely has a kind of random "Coalition of the Willing" vibe to it.
(Side Note: for the next two weeks, I am conducting a survey of visitors to this blog. Whether you're a regular reader or this is your first time, I'd love to hear from you - just follow this link. This notice will accompany every post this month, with Saturday, March 3rd being the final day to participate. Thanks for reading!)
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