Obama vs McCain on energy and climate change

The global economic meltdown has, amazingly, relegated even the US presidential election race to an “in other news today” item, but Greenbang has been following the TV debates with interest and is still, frankly, absolutely terrified by the prospect of Sarah Palin getting anywhere near the White House.

Now that both John McCain and Barack Obama have put more detail on their policy proposals we can take a loot at what their positions are on energy and global warming.

Associated Press has put together an easy-to-read comparison of the candidates’ policies here. But a couple of headline points to draw out.

McCain

Big fan of nuclear power and wants to build 45 nuclear reactors by 2030; supports carbon capture and storage; wants to introduce a cap-and-trade system to enforce mandatory CO2 emission reductions of 66 per cent (from 1990 levels) by 2050. More from McCain’s own website here.

Obama

Proposes $150bn fund for clean-tech such as biofuels, wind, solar, hybrids, clean-coal; wants to introduce cap-and-trade system to enforce mandatory CO2 emission reductions of 80 per cent (from 1990 levels) by 2050; windfall-profits tax on largest oil companies. More from Obama’s website here.