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Washington (AFP) Feb 23, 2010 Senator John Kerry vowed Tuesday to overcome the odds and approve US action to curb carbon emissions, raising the specter of millions of refugees unless climate change is addressed. While offering no timetable, the ally of President Barack Obama rejected predictions that Senate approval of a climate bill -- which would offer a boon to troubled talks on a new global treaty -- had become politically impossible. "I'm excited. I know that's completely contrary to any conventional wisdom," Kerry said. Kerry said he was working on a compromise that could recraft a bill that squeaked last year through the House of Representatives and would set the first nationwide curbs on carbon emissions blamed for global warming. "I don't care how we do it. I just think we have to price carbon because we have to send that signal to the marketplace," said Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and chief architect of the Senate bill. "We're on a short track here in terms of piecing together legislation," he told a seminar at the magazine The New Republic. "We're moving rapidly." The House bill would establish a so-called "cap-and-trade" system -- restricting carbon emissions but allowing trading in credits to offer an economic incentive. Kerry denied the Senate would focus only on the less controversial area of clean energy and not carbon. He quoted Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican who has joined forces with him, as saying such an approach would be "half-assed." "An energy-only bill sends no price signal," Kerry said, arguing that curbs on carbon emissions would help transform the troubled economy by creating green jobs. Kerry recommended Michael Nash's documentary "Climate Refugees," which was screened out of competition at last month's Sundance Film Festival. The movie looks at humans displaced by disasters arising from ecological changes. "There's a movie out called 'Climate Refugees,' which you need to see, because they're going to be millions of them -- tens of millions of them -- as we go forward." The Pentagon, in a long-term strategy document released on February 1, for the first time identified climate change as a trigger of instability that could worsen conflicts.
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