Anderson Committee Has Climate Plan for Candidates

Denver, CO, December 10, 2007— A team of experts led by the University of Colorado has released a detailed plan for the next U.S. president to assert leadership on global warming within 100 days of taking office.

The document, called the Presidential Climate Action Plan or PCAP, is the most comprehensive plan for national climate action yet put forth to the American people and the presidential candidates.

“It is critical that all of the presidential candidates address not only what they will do about global warming, but when they will do it,” said noted green industrialist Ray Anderson, the founder and chairman of Interface Inc. of Atlanta, and co-chair of the PCAP Advisory Committee with former U.S. Sen. Gary Hart.

“The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is only the latest warning that we must act quickly to slow and reverse the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.”

The project team has contacted each of the presidential candidates with an offer to brief them on PCAP, Hart said. “This is a nonpartisan project and a nonpartisan plan” he said. “Climate change is an economic issue, a national security issue, a public health issue and an environmental issue. It should not be a political issue.”

PCAP’s project team, led by former U.S. Department of Energy official William Becker, is headquartered at the University of Colorado Denver School of Public Affairs. The project is funded with grants from foundations and individuals.

Among the organizations contributing substantial research for the plan were the Center for Energy and Environmental Security at the University of Colorado Boulder Law School; the Center for Neighborhood Technology in Chicago; the Alliance to Save Energy in Washington, D.C.; and Natural Capitalism Solutions Inc. in Boulder. The project also drew on action items proposed during four expert summits organized by Becker and the Johnson Foundation over the past two years.

The PCAP document maintains that climate action and greater energy independence are two critical steps toward the larger goal of building a new U.S. economy that works in the 21st Century.

“We need a new economy that delivers security, opportunity and stewardship,” Anderson said. “PCAP offers the beginning of a unifying vision of how to achieve lasting security, new economic opportunity and stewardship of the Earth.”