Holes in Obama's facts on global warming

In one of his first public policy statements as the US President-elect Barack Obama focused on climate change, and clearly stated both his priorities and the facts on which these priorities rest. Unfortunately, both are weak, or even wrong.

Obama's policy outline was presented via video to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Governors' Global Warming Summit, and has again been shown in Poznan, Poland, to leaders assembled to flesh out a global warming roadmap. According to Obama, "few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change".

Such a statement is now commonplace for most political leaders around the world, even though it neglects to address the question of how much we can do to help the United States and the world through climate policies versus other policies.