Two steps in the right direction for environmental change.

The international climate talks in Copenhagen are certain to generate headlines, heated rhetoric, and finger pointing. Developing countries will say the historical problems originated with developed countries. Developed countries will point out that most of the future problems will come from developing countries. Environmental groups will blame Big Business. Natural gas producers will say that gas is cleaner than coal. Others will argue natural gas isn’t clean enough. Europe will point at the United States, and the U.S. will point at India, China and Brazil.

Everyone will claim the moral high ground, and it may be hard to know what is spin and what is real.

But in the end, what will really matter will be the opinions of a relatively few people in a handful of U.S. states. Here’s why: We’ll only have a meaningful international climate agreement if the U.S. offers a firm commitment. The American position, in turn, largely depends on the Senate passing climate and energy legislation. That legislation depends on moderate Republicans and their constituents from South Carolina, Alaska and Arizona.

IT IS NO LONGER A QUESTION OF IF, BUT HOW, THE UNITED STATES WILL TAKE ACTION.

So, how is it that the future of the world’s energy and climate policy depends on so few voters in so few states? First, a little history. The last time we had a chance to develop a meaningful international climate agreement was in the late 1990s, in Kyoto. The Clinton administration helped develop the Kyoto Protocol, which aimed to lower greenhouse gas pollution in the developed world and provided weak mechanisms for moving the developing world in the right direction. The Senate would have nothing of it because the agreement didn’t include the developing countries in a meaningful way.

A key lesson is that a president has to strike a deal with the Senate first, and only then can an international agreement be negotiated. The U.S. Senate does not like being a rubber stamp. This is true for foreign policy, and especially true for something as politically delicate as energy and climate policy.

So what can President Barack Obama do? He can’t repeat President Clinton’s mistake – agreeing to a deal in Copenhagen only to see it fail in the Senate. But he has already booked a flight to Denmark while he remains short of 60 votes on domestic climate and energy legislation. In reality, all that President Obama can commit to in Copenhagen is what the U.S. has already committed to back home.

Fortunately, the U.S. is now on track to begin regulating and reducing greenhouse gas pollution even if the Senate does not act. On Dec. 8, the Environmental Protection Agency made a profound yet obvious legal finding: greenhouse gas pollution endangers the public and therefore requires regulation under current law. This means the EPA will begin regulating greenhouse gas pollution even if the Senate does not act.

When I was at the EPA, I led the team that developed the original finding of public endangerment, along with a plan for regulating about three-quarters of the greenhouse gases produced by the U.S. economy. So the EPA’s recent announcement is personally satisfying. It is no longer a question of if, but how, the U.S. will take action. Either the EPA will use current law, or Congress will pass a better law.

And this takes us back to those moderate Republicans. EPA action under current law will work in a pinch – exactly the pinch that President Obama will find himself in when he arrives in Copenhagen. But it’s far from ideal. EPA regulations will not provide the long-term, predictable price signal Congress could achieve through new legislation.

To smoothly and successfully move our economy away from greenhouse gas pollution, we need to provide a price signal on pollution, so it’s more profitable to use clean than dirty energy. If we make pollution control profitable, investors will pour money into it, and clean-tech businesses will generate jobs.

This is not idle speculation. I recently returned from a clean energy conference hosted by Google, where many of the investors and CEOs in the Internet revolution were salivating at the prospect of an even larger clean-tech revolution. Northern California is set to lead the nation in clean-tech, just as we have led in computers. Several senators attended to learn how to stimulate clean-tech jobs in their states. And at the end of the day, conferences like Google’s, showing how action can generate jobs and economic growth, will do more to sway key senators than the conference in Copenhagen.

Here in Monterey County, let’s lead by example, by showing how innovative businesses and forward-thinking constituents can usher in a new clean energy economy.

JASON BURNETT,  a former Associate Deputy Administrator for the EPA, is the founder of Marina consulting company Burnett EcoEnergy. He lives in Carmel with his wife.