Sen. Hillary Clinton wants to reduce carbon pollution by implementing a cap-and-trade program.

After watching the news, taking an environmental studies class or viewing “An Inconvenient Truth,” many University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee students are more concerned about the environment. With much talk about global warming, what policies do the 2008 presidential candidates offer?

Sen. Hillary Clinton wants to reduce carbon pollution by implementing a cap-and-trade program. She also wants cars to get 55 miles to the gallon by the year 2030 and would provide 20 billion dollars to help America’s automotive industry achieve this goal. Clinton also plans on investing in “green collar jobs” and making low and middle-income Americans’ homes more energy efficient, according to her Web site.

She would push the Department of Energy to increase the use of renewable energies like wind, solar, biofuel, geothermal and hydropower. She would also like to see all federal buildings built after January of 2009 be carbon neutral.

Clinton currently serves on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and has cosponsored nearly 400 environment-related bills, according to http://votegopher.com.

Sen. Barack Obama also supports a cap-and-trade for carbon pollution reduction. He plans to create a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard to accelerate the use of non-petroleum and low-carbon fuels. He also supports the investment of 150 billion dollars in cleaner energy by increasing the use of biofuels and plug-in hybrids.

Obama favors incentives for forest owners and farmers who restore land and neutralize carbon pollution. He also wants all new buildings to be carbon neutral by 2030.

He supports the use of coal when paired with technologies that produce smaller amounts of carbon. Environmentalists have criticized Obama for his past support of liquefied coal.

Sen. John McCain co-introduced the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act of 2007, which attempts to decrease greenhouse gases by use of a cap-and-trade program and to decrease carbon emissions by 65 percent by 2050.

McCain opposed drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), unlike most other Republicans. He is in favor of increasing fuel efficiency to 35 miles per gallon. He also is a proponent of nuclear power.

McCain has opposed the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty for the reduction of green house gases.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee claims that if elected to office, he will make the country completely energy independent within eight years, according to his Web site. Unlike McCain, Huckabee supports drilling in ANWR.

He believes America should move away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy. He would like fuel efficiency standards to be increased to 35 miles per gallon.

Huckabee is against the Kyoto Protocol because he does not want restraints on America.

Unlike the other candidates, Huckabee has not stated that global warming is a result of human activity.

He has said that regardless of whether climate change is because of humans, “it's all of our responsibility to leave this planet in better shape for the future generations than we found it,” according to CNN.com.

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