He's for it, through a cap-and-trade system with an auction, starting in 2010. Best said in his interview with Rolling Stone: "I have the most aggressive plan: It calls for an 80 percent reduction by 2050 in greenhouse gases. You get there by capping carbon in America, and ratcheting down the cap every year. Beneath the cap, you auction off the right to emit any greenhouse gases, using that money — $30-$40 billion — to transform the way we use energy, which means wind, solar, and cellulose based biofuels. You put at least a billion dollars into developing carbon sequestration technology, a billion into making sure we’re building more fuel efficient vehicles."

In November 2007, he came out against the Lieberman-Warner Senate bill because it gives away pollution permits to industry for free, instead of auctioning them off. He called it "a massive corporate windfall...instead of doing what is right and selling them so that we can use these resources to invest in clean energy research and help regular families go green."

He wants a 25 percent Renewable Energy Standard by 2025. It's big progress when you compare it with the 15 percent standard that scraped through the House. The one that didn't even make it into the Senate bill.

He's chastised Bush on disengaging from Kyoto, and has said that any international treaty on climate change must include China and India. But the starting place he says is to fix our own house, build credibility, and then help to structure a new international process.

His goal is to reduce oil imports by 7.5 million barrels a day by 2025. To get there, he'll raise fuel efficiency standards to 40 mpg by 2016. He says that will reduce oil demand by 4 million barrels per day alone. (The U.S. Senate has passed a standard of 35 mpg by 2020.) Edwards also wants more ethanol pumps. And he'll require oil companies to install them at 25 percent of their gas stations. He wants to require all new cars sold after 2010 to be "flex fuel" cars running on either gasoline or biofuel. And he'll provide $1 billion a year to help U.S. automakers come clean. It's all here.

Back in March Edward called for an end to the construction of any new coal-fired power plants that lack the technology to capture their carbon emissions. Since they all lack that technology, he pretty much called for an end to new coal plants. And though he's gone farther than the other two Democratic frontrunners on this, there's at least one blogger who says it's just not enough.

In July 2007, Edwards announced his green jobs initiative. As part of it, he'll provide Green Collar Jobs Training Grants that will help train and
certify up to 150,000 workers a year for jobs. He's also pledged to create 50,000 stepping-stone jobs targeted at those with barriers to employment and Green Career Academies for high schoolers.

He's called for more efficient buildings and appliances. And he'll boost the budget for the Department of Energy's weatherization program to help out. He'll cut the energy use of the nation's largest energy consumer, the U.S. Government, by 20 percent by overhauling federal buildings and expanding the use of renewables. And he has plans to make the White House carbon neutral. No real targets though on this issue. It's all detailed in his New Energy Economy Plan.