The most powerful individuals on the planet have convened here to reach a deal. But based on the quality of the deal that emerged, I believe that the important people in the world are elsewhere.
Over the past week I've had the opportunity to meet or stand near more famous and/or powerful people than in the rest of my life combined. I shook hands with the crown prince of Denmark (and nervously talked about bicycling). I sat in on talks by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Al Gore, and at an event of The Climate Group I saw the governors of Wisconsin and Washington, the premiers of Ontario, Quebec, South Australia, the First Minister of Scotland, and the Prince of Monaco. I attended a number of these events with Bradley Whitford, a U.S. actor (on the West Wing) who is Hopenhagen's celebrity promoter. Bradley and I chatted with the governor of Wisconsin as if he just happened to be some guy in the row ahead of us.
At Hub Culture, a social club, governors of two states of Brazil wandered by, and I just missed meeting the President of the Congo. Last night I had to wait an extra five minutes to enter my hotel because the Prime Minister of New Zealand was checking in. Later that night at dinner I sat next to an Obama adviser.
Now 160 heads of state are here, concentrating the world's leaders in this small city.
But I feel unimpressed. The most powerful of them, Barack Obama, just gave a speech that made my heart sink. I watched it from the press office of Global Observatory in downtown Copenhagen.
Obama pressured the world to accept a treaty that falls far short of what we need. If we follow the proposed agreement, the earth will likely warm by more than three degrees Celsius, eventually melting the ice caps and raising sea levels by tens of meters. The emissions targets of the United States are also embarrassingly low.
Part of me sadly applauds Obama's pragmatism, as he's trying to get a deal that is politically feasible in the United States, and once we have a deal, we can always improve it in the future. Congress is highly unlikely to accept a target larger than Obama is proposing, and Obama would be irresponsible to negotiate a deal that the Senate would not ratify. (In Kyoto twelve years ago, Gore signed a treaty that the Senate would never ratify.)
I'm not surprised that the U.S. Senate is holding us up. Public opinion is not sufficiently mobilized around this issue. How can we expect our leader to come to a meaningful agreement when half of Americans don't support restricting greenhouse gas pollution?
Many experts believe if we make the modest investments, perhaps as little as one percent of the world's economy, we will solve this challenge. I actually believe it will cost less, simply because I believe in the power of humans to innovate. But we need to make the investment.
If the challenge is public opinion, as I believe it is, the important people are not in Copenhagen. The important people are your friends and your friends' friends. They are the people who have yet to embrace the idea that if we invest heavily in clean technology and disinvest from fossil fuels, we will all benefit. They are the people who you can influence.
At Hopenhagen we believe we can build public support if we speak to people's dreams and not their fears. We need to paint a picture of a future that people can embrace. We must speak of a future where cars make no noise and produce no pollution because they run on batteries or hydrogen fuel cells, and where electricity from solar power is so cheap and abundant that even the poorest in the world can afford it. Imagine buying energy from our neighbors instead of purchasing oil from distant lands. Imagine tropical forests and coral reefs expanding and growing instead of dying. Who wouldn't want to invest in that world?
Despite disappointment in the deal, I have seen much that inspires me in Copenhagen--Desmond Tutu expressing hope, the energy of the youth, and even the fact that so many world leaders are convening to address climate change. Apparently the agreement reached to combat deforestation is quite good. And for the very first time, the United States is making a pledge to reduce pollution, however small that reduction may be.
But whatever the outcome of this agreement, remember that the most important people are those you can talk to. If you can inspire them, then we will truly solve this challenge.
December 18, 2009
Climate Fast Action to Balance Copenhagen Inaction
If there are two things I can't live without, they are air conditioning and refrigeration.
This summer, I spent an angelic three months in Ann Arbor with my wife and newborn. One night in July, our side of the street had a blackout and suddenly the hot, humid, 98 degree air, kept at bay by modern technology, became our worst enemy -- threatening our delicate newborn and the store of breast milk (we have taken to calling "liquid gold") in the freezer. We kept the freezer shut, moved to the cooler basement, and hunkered down until the power came back on.
Around the world, with global temperatures and heat waves projected to rise and increase over the coming decades, staying cool and keeping everything from food to medicine refrigerated will be crucial to the health and survival of billions. And for the past several decades, that has meant the use of Hydrofluourocarbons or HFC's -- invented in 1928 to replace the explosive and dangerous gases used in refrigeration.
HFC's are governed by the Montreal Protocol ("MP"), created to protect the planet's thin ozone layer. Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, and head of the International Network for Environmental Compliance & Enforcement, calls the MP the "best climate treaty to date." According to Zaelke, the MP has "already delayed climate change by up to 12 years by reducing climate emissions by a net of 135 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent", phasing out "nearly 100 other gases that harm the ozone layer and warm the climate, cutting production and consumption of targeted chemicals by 97%."
Anyone following the global climate negotiations in Copenhagen for the past two weeks has heard an enormous amount about carbon and carbon dioxide. As the second leading contributer to a mix of greenhouse gases "GHG's" that both keep our globe warm enough for humans to occupy and threaten to turn up the temperature in years to come - this makes perfect sense. But according to Zaelke, this is not enough. "We need meaningful action in Copenhagen to address CO2, but CO2 is only half the climate problem. We also need to take fast and aggressive action to reduce the...non-CO2 half of warming. Reducing black carbon soot, tropospheric ozone, methane, and HFCs, as well as expanding biosequestration through biochar production, are strategies that can help delay abrupt climate change while we wait for reductions in CO2 to kick in."
Parties to the MP will be looking to the Copenhagen climate negotiations for further support for a fast HFC phase-down. The two treaties would address different aspects of HFCs with the Kyoto Protocol addressing downstream emissions and the MP phasing down the upstream production and consumption. Zaelke, whose team won a 2008 Climate Protection award for their work, believes that "fast HFC cuts can prevent a decade of warming and reduce the equivalent of up to 100 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide." Zaelke warns that "we could win the battle against CO2 and still lose the war against climate change if we let HFCs continue to grow" that will "warm the world almost half as much as CO2 emissions by 2050." They have launched a Fast Action campaign to focus on these other climate change leveers.
Over the past year, Zaelke's team has participated in a diverse set of meetings and negotiations to put HFCs on the radar as the world gathers to tackle GHG reductions in Copenhagen. In April, the Federal States of Micronesia and Mauritius launched an initiative to amend the MP, the very successful 1989 treaty to preserve the earth's protective ozone layer. These two nations, joined by 39 others, pledged to amend the MP next year to phase out. More recently, Zaelke brought this message to Washington, DC, as he spoke to officers representing Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the US at an official event on the role of the military in the Montreal Protocol.
Last month, Nobel laureate Mario Molina, Zaelke, and several others put out a report warning about the threat of abrupt climate change, and laying out some "fast action" strategies to include regulatory measures that could begin within 2-3 years, be substantially implemented in 5-10 years, and have an impact.
Last week, in related news, beverage giant Coca Cola committed to phasing out the use of HFCs in its nearly 10 million refrigeration units by 2015. According to an article in Greenbiz.com, Coca Cola has agreed to convert the company's nearly 10 million vending machines worldwide "with HFC-free units [that] will reduce carbon emissions by 52.5 million metric tons over the life of the new equipment, which is roughly equivalent to taking 11 million cars off the road for a year."
So, even as carbon holds center stage at the COP 15 in Copenhagen this week and beyond, keep an eye out for news - like this article in the Economist or this piece in the LA Times about the "Forgotten 50%" of GHG emissions. The way things are going, we will need these efforts to buy the world time for future legally binding CO2 reductions to kick in.
This summer, I spent an angelic three months in Ann Arbor with my wife and newborn. One night in July, our side of the street had a blackout and suddenly the hot, humid, 98 degree air, kept at bay by modern technology, became our worst enemy -- threatening our delicate newborn and the store of breast milk (we have taken to calling "liquid gold") in the freezer. We kept the freezer shut, moved to the cooler basement, and hunkered down until the power came back on.
Around the world, with global temperatures and heat waves projected to rise and increase over the coming decades, staying cool and keeping everything from food to medicine refrigerated will be crucial to the health and survival of billions. And for the past several decades, that has meant the use of Hydrofluourocarbons or HFC's -- invented in 1928 to replace the explosive and dangerous gases used in refrigeration.
HFC's are governed by the Montreal Protocol ("MP"), created to protect the planet's thin ozone layer. Durwood Zaelke, President of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, and head of the International Network for Environmental Compliance & Enforcement, calls the MP the "best climate treaty to date." According to Zaelke, the MP has "already delayed climate change by up to 12 years by reducing climate emissions by a net of 135 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent", phasing out "nearly 100 other gases that harm the ozone layer and warm the climate, cutting production and consumption of targeted chemicals by 97%."
Anyone following the global climate negotiations in Copenhagen for the past two weeks has heard an enormous amount about carbon and carbon dioxide. As the second leading contributer to a mix of greenhouse gases "GHG's" that both keep our globe warm enough for humans to occupy and threaten to turn up the temperature in years to come - this makes perfect sense. But according to Zaelke, this is not enough. "We need meaningful action in Copenhagen to address CO2, but CO2 is only half the climate problem. We also need to take fast and aggressive action to reduce the...non-CO2 half of warming. Reducing black carbon soot, tropospheric ozone, methane, and HFCs, as well as expanding biosequestration through biochar production, are strategies that can help delay abrupt climate change while we wait for reductions in CO2 to kick in."
Parties to the MP will be looking to the Copenhagen climate negotiations for further support for a fast HFC phase-down. The two treaties would address different aspects of HFCs with the Kyoto Protocol addressing downstream emissions and the MP phasing down the upstream production and consumption. Zaelke, whose team won a 2008 Climate Protection award for their work, believes that "fast HFC cuts can prevent a decade of warming and reduce the equivalent of up to 100 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide." Zaelke warns that "we could win the battle against CO2 and still lose the war against climate change if we let HFCs continue to grow" that will "warm the world almost half as much as CO2 emissions by 2050." They have launched a Fast Action campaign to focus on these other climate change leveers.
Over the past year, Zaelke's team has participated in a diverse set of meetings and negotiations to put HFCs on the radar as the world gathers to tackle GHG reductions in Copenhagen. In April, the Federal States of Micronesia and Mauritius launched an initiative to amend the MP, the very successful 1989 treaty to preserve the earth's protective ozone layer. These two nations, joined by 39 others, pledged to amend the MP next year to phase out. More recently, Zaelke brought this message to Washington, DC, as he spoke to officers representing Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the US at an official event on the role of the military in the Montreal Protocol.
Last month, Nobel laureate Mario Molina, Zaelke, and several others put out a report warning about the threat of abrupt climate change, and laying out some "fast action" strategies to include regulatory measures that could begin within 2-3 years, be substantially implemented in 5-10 years, and have an impact.
Last week, in related news, beverage giant Coca Cola committed to phasing out the use of HFCs in its nearly 10 million refrigeration units by 2015. According to an article in Greenbiz.com, Coca Cola has agreed to convert the company's nearly 10 million vending machines worldwide "with HFC-free units [that] will reduce carbon emissions by 52.5 million metric tons over the life of the new equipment, which is roughly equivalent to taking 11 million cars off the road for a year."
So, even as carbon holds center stage at the COP 15 in Copenhagen this week and beyond, keep an eye out for news - like this article in the Economist or this piece in the LA Times about the "Forgotten 50%" of GHG emissions. The way things are going, we will need these efforts to buy the world time for future legally binding CO2 reductions to kick in.
December 17, 2009
The Failure of the Green Movement
The United Nations Climate Change Conference may technically succeed by the end of this week. On Friday - or more likely, after a theatrical all-night session lasting well into Saturday - officials representing the 192 countries gathered in Copenhagen will probably put their pens to paper, inking a new agreement calling for reductions in global CO2 emissions.
But even if the delegates achieve this outcome, it is likely that there will be little to cheer. As of today, most observers at Copenhagen are deeply pessimistic that a new agreement will prove substantive in nature.
This week, a long-feared, seemingly intractable stand-off came to the fore between the major industrialized economies of the United States and European Union, and the poorer developing nations led by India and China. At stake is who bears the financial burden for stopping CO2 emissions - and for many, the stakes and the burden are much too high. With increasingly fraught exchanges between the US and Chinese delegations, and African members of the G77 briefly storming out of the summit, a new draft text released on Tuesday was stripped of any concrete or binding emissions targets, let alone a firm date by which emissions should peak.
Noted, delegates may still pull a rabbit out of the bag. If President Obama arrives in Copenhagen armed with a more serious offer than his initial 17% emissions reduction, he may just be able to twist the arms of the Chinese and Indian leaders, particularly if his willingness to bargain also leads to another dramatic concession by his EU partners. The shape of a new financing mechanism could conceivably be bolted together, hopefully to be spelled out more fully after the summit. And if the thorny question of whether to ditch the Kyoto Treaty or start afresh with a new global legislative platform can be answered, one of the main obstacles towards a North-South agreement will be removed.
But as time ebbs away, and the mood grows increasingly grim and surreal at the Bella Center, there is growing talk that some world leaders are simply going to avoid the summit, and thus escape being tainted with failure. And so the moment for the world to come together on behalf of its own future wellbeing, appears to be receding by the hour.
How did we come to this? And where can we go from here?
Whatever chorus of criticisms is leveled against Copenhagen in its aftermath, one thing is clear - the science underpinning climate change is not on trial. Climate change skeptics have had a field day in recent weeks, first with the so-called 'Climategate', a set of leaked emails from the Climactic Research Unit at the UK's University of East Anglia apparently showing environmental data had been falsified, and then Al Gore's unlikely claim that the North Pole could be entirely ice-free within five years. But the former VP is right to state that the hysterical denunciations of conservatives are really just "a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing", and while his opponents will invariably claim that the failure of Copenhagen reveals a fracturing of the scientific consensus and the beginning of a widespread rejection of the established data, such claims should be readily dismissed. This is not why the negotiations will have failed.
But another charge which is often made by the skeptics against scientists, might just speak to the underlying reason for Copenhagen's failure - the arrogance of the climate change lobby, which translated into a failure to generate the necessary support of populations.
Over the last decade, the supporters of international climate change legislation, whether they be politicians, diplomats, academics or journalists, have increasingly taken the support of the public for granted. Of course, there was a time when environmental concerns didn't rank too high on the agenda of the American public, that dark era of George W. Bush, and for some of the 1990s and early 2000s, cheap and unlimited oil. But even during this barren period for the green movement, it was assumed that at some point the time would be ripe for a legislative advance, and that the facts would speak for themselves.
There was little genuine effort to build a mainstream societal coalition in favor of reasonable and coherent climate change solutions, which both addressed persisting and legitimate concerns about the domestic economic effects of transitioning an advanced, oil-dependent, industrialized economy to something radically cleaner and greener, and avoided becoming a front for a host of other unconnected and unpopular concerns, ranging from veganism to social justice, a cause which as recently as yesterday was still being supported in the context of Copenhagen by celebrity eco-warrior George Monbiot, writing in The Guardian. "This is a battle to redefine humanity" claims Monbiot. No it's not. It's a battle to get 192 governments to put some money into scientific innovation and robust development strategies.
And because that's what international climate change action ultimately comes down to, perhaps that's why the green lobby didn't really feel the need to get ordinary people interested or passionate about Copenhagen, or to frame the search for a global agreement as anything more than a chiefly bureaucratic exercise. But in doing so, and failing to communicate with and harness populations except in the most tokenistic and shameful ways - see the at once boring and sensationalist COP15 YouTube channel - this became a self-fulfilling prophecy. This week at Copenhagen, the eyes of the international media might have been watching, and many people dimly aware that big things were afoot. But there was never any more than a fraction of the public pressure or incentive that could have been brought to bear on self-interested, disagreeable diplomats to hammer out an agreement worthy of humanity.
The prescription for success is simple. The green movement must begin its work anew. It must not only have good science, but good communication. It is that which will make a grand political strategy and force for change. Anything else is just hot air.
Dex Torricke-Barton is a consultant for Global Expert Finder, a project of the UN Alliance of Civilizations.
But even if the delegates achieve this outcome, it is likely that there will be little to cheer. As of today, most observers at Copenhagen are deeply pessimistic that a new agreement will prove substantive in nature.
This week, a long-feared, seemingly intractable stand-off came to the fore between the major industrialized economies of the United States and European Union, and the poorer developing nations led by India and China. At stake is who bears the financial burden for stopping CO2 emissions - and for many, the stakes and the burden are much too high. With increasingly fraught exchanges between the US and Chinese delegations, and African members of the G77 briefly storming out of the summit, a new draft text released on Tuesday was stripped of any concrete or binding emissions targets, let alone a firm date by which emissions should peak.
Noted, delegates may still pull a rabbit out of the bag. If President Obama arrives in Copenhagen armed with a more serious offer than his initial 17% emissions reduction, he may just be able to twist the arms of the Chinese and Indian leaders, particularly if his willingness to bargain also leads to another dramatic concession by his EU partners. The shape of a new financing mechanism could conceivably be bolted together, hopefully to be spelled out more fully after the summit. And if the thorny question of whether to ditch the Kyoto Treaty or start afresh with a new global legislative platform can be answered, one of the main obstacles towards a North-South agreement will be removed.
But as time ebbs away, and the mood grows increasingly grim and surreal at the Bella Center, there is growing talk that some world leaders are simply going to avoid the summit, and thus escape being tainted with failure. And so the moment for the world to come together on behalf of its own future wellbeing, appears to be receding by the hour.
How did we come to this? And where can we go from here?
Whatever chorus of criticisms is leveled against Copenhagen in its aftermath, one thing is clear - the science underpinning climate change is not on trial. Climate change skeptics have had a field day in recent weeks, first with the so-called 'Climategate', a set of leaked emails from the Climactic Research Unit at the UK's University of East Anglia apparently showing environmental data had been falsified, and then Al Gore's unlikely claim that the North Pole could be entirely ice-free within five years. But the former VP is right to state that the hysterical denunciations of conservatives are really just "a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing", and while his opponents will invariably claim that the failure of Copenhagen reveals a fracturing of the scientific consensus and the beginning of a widespread rejection of the established data, such claims should be readily dismissed. This is not why the negotiations will have failed.
But another charge which is often made by the skeptics against scientists, might just speak to the underlying reason for Copenhagen's failure - the arrogance of the climate change lobby, which translated into a failure to generate the necessary support of populations.
Over the last decade, the supporters of international climate change legislation, whether they be politicians, diplomats, academics or journalists, have increasingly taken the support of the public for granted. Of course, there was a time when environmental concerns didn't rank too high on the agenda of the American public, that dark era of George W. Bush, and for some of the 1990s and early 2000s, cheap and unlimited oil. But even during this barren period for the green movement, it was assumed that at some point the time would be ripe for a legislative advance, and that the facts would speak for themselves.
There was little genuine effort to build a mainstream societal coalition in favor of reasonable and coherent climate change solutions, which both addressed persisting and legitimate concerns about the domestic economic effects of transitioning an advanced, oil-dependent, industrialized economy to something radically cleaner and greener, and avoided becoming a front for a host of other unconnected and unpopular concerns, ranging from veganism to social justice, a cause which as recently as yesterday was still being supported in the context of Copenhagen by celebrity eco-warrior George Monbiot, writing in The Guardian. "This is a battle to redefine humanity" claims Monbiot. No it's not. It's a battle to get 192 governments to put some money into scientific innovation and robust development strategies.
And because that's what international climate change action ultimately comes down to, perhaps that's why the green lobby didn't really feel the need to get ordinary people interested or passionate about Copenhagen, or to frame the search for a global agreement as anything more than a chiefly bureaucratic exercise. But in doing so, and failing to communicate with and harness populations except in the most tokenistic and shameful ways - see the at once boring and sensationalist COP15 YouTube channel - this became a self-fulfilling prophecy. This week at Copenhagen, the eyes of the international media might have been watching, and many people dimly aware that big things were afoot. But there was never any more than a fraction of the public pressure or incentive that could have been brought to bear on self-interested, disagreeable diplomats to hammer out an agreement worthy of humanity.
The prescription for success is simple. The green movement must begin its work anew. It must not only have good science, but good communication. It is that which will make a grand political strategy and force for change. Anything else is just hot air.
Dex Torricke-Barton is a consultant for Global Expert Finder, a project of the UN Alliance of Civilizations.
December 16, 2009
The Protesters Offer the Best Hope at Copenhagen
At first glance, the Copenhagen climate summit seems like a Salvador Dali dreamscape. I just saw Archbishop Desmond Tutu being followed by a swarm of Japanese students who were dressed as aliens and carrying signs saying "Take Me To Your Leader" and "Is Your Species Crazy?". Before that, a group of angry black-clad teenage protesters who were carrying spray cans started quoting statistics to me about how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere can safely absorb. (It's 350 parts per million they pointed out, before sucking their teeth.) Before that, I saw a couple in a pantomime cow costume being attacked by the police, who accused them of throwing stones with their hooves.
But the surrealism runs deeper and darker than this. Inside the Bella Centre, the rich world's leaders are defiantly ignoring their scientists and refusing to sign a deal that will prevent our climate from being dramatically destabilized. The scientific consensus shows the rich world needs to cut 40 per cent of our emissions of warming gases from 1990 levels by 2020 if we're going to have even a 50-50 chance of staying this side of the Point of No Return, when the Earth's natural processes start to break down and warming becomes unstoppable. Yet the scientists at Climate Analytics calculate our governments are offering a dismal 8-12 per cent cut - and once you factor in all the loopholes and accounting tricks, it becomes a net increase of four per cent.
Privately, government negotiators admit there's no way the negotiations will end with the deal scientists say is necessary for our safety. Indeed, it looks possible that this conference won't deepen and broaden the Kyoto framework, but cripple it. Kyoto established a legally binding international framework to measure and reduce emissions. The cuts it required were too small, and the sanctions for breaking it were pitifully weak - but it was a start. Kyoto's current phase expires in 2012, but the treaty's authors believed its architecture would be retained and intensified after that. The developing countries assumed that's what they were here to do. But the US is proposing to simply ditch the Kyoto infrastructure - won over decades of long negotiations - and replace it with an even weaker voluntary deal. In their proposal, every country will announce cuts and stick to them out of the goodness of their hearts. No penalties, no enforcement.
So at the center of this summit is a proposition stranger than any number of arrested cows or Nasa-quoting hoodies: we're playing Russian roulette with the climate, and our most powerful governments are filling the barrels with extra bullets, one by one.
Yet this conflagration here in Copenhagen is heartbreaking and heartwarming all at once. Our governments are showing their moral bankruptcy - but a genuinely global democratic movement is swelling to make them change course. Mass democratic agitation is the only force that has ever made governments moral before; it will have to do it again.
An army of dedicated campaigners is gathering here, and they are prepared to take real risks to oppose this sham-deal. The protest march on Saturday here must have been the most genuinely global demonstration in history. Under banners saying "There Is No Planet B", "Nature Doesn't Do Bailouts" and "Change the Politics, Not the Climate", there seemed to be people from every nation on earth. Lawrence Muli from Kenya's youth delegation told me: "We are having the worst drought in memory in Kenya. The seasons have changed in ways we don't understand. My family can't grow crops any more, so they are going hungry. I am here to say we won't die quietly."
Next to him was Bhuwan Sambhu from Nepal, who has seen his glaciers retreat dramatically in his short lifetime. Just behind them was Manuel Wiechers from Mexico City, who said his hometown has been devastated by the worst rains on record. At his side was Utte Richter, a 76-year-old German woman who said: "It would be immoral to stay at home when these decisions were being made, with everything they mean for the world. This system is near the end of the road, and we must change to a new way."
The same arguments are heard in the corridors of the Bella Centre, where the representatives of the poor countries are refusing to sign up to a deal that will dry out or drown much of their land. The government of Tuvalu - the low-lying island that is already being drowned by rising seas - has calmly, with great dignity, interrupted meetings that presume we can carry on emitting carbon, pointing out this means "we will die". Lumumba Di-Aping, the chief negotiator for the G77 block of developing countries, wept as he explained: "The more you defer action, the more you condemn millions of people to immeasurable suffering." He said our governments are acting "like climate skeptics. If they really believed global warming was happening, how could they do this?"
Today, these two strands of protest - inside the conference, and outside - will combine. Some of the delegates are expected to walk out of the Bella Centre talks in disgust. At the same time, brave young protesters supporting their message will be trying to break in, to express their revulsion at the betrayal of us all going on there. Of course, the parts of the global media that serve the interests of the polluting rich will be keen to shift the story on to "vandals" and "violent protest". There may be a minuscule minority of protesters who behave unacceptably. But in reality, there are two forms of vandalism about to happen in this city. There is the cutting of a few fences as part of an act of mass civil disobedience. It is an attempt to symbolically resist the much bigger act of vandalism - the trashing of our own habitat, by leaders too short-sighted and too money-addled to listen to the science.
Isn't it violent to knowingly condemn whole countries to drown? Isn't it vandalism to knowingly let the world's most crucial farming land crust over, its most precious rivers run dry, and its hurricanes become super-charged? Isn't that immeasurably worse than breaking a fence and cutting a cordon? Couldn't resistance to this destruction-machine justify this tiny act of destruction? The young protesters who will do this have proved themselves, so far, the sanest force in town. They have ensured that the corporate lobbyists punching holes in the deal are followed and shamed wherever they meet. They chant: "It's not your business - it's our climate."
When I hear the activists, I remember something Farley Mowat, the Canadian conservationist, wrote in the 1990s: "The last three decades of this century have witnessed the ignition of the most significant internal conflict ever to engage the human species. It is not the struggle between capitalism and communism or between any other set of 'isms'. It is the conflict between those who possess the means and will to exploit the living world to destruction, and those who are banding together in a desperate and last-ditch attempt to prevent the New Juggernaut from trashing our small planet."
This week, the small band of the sane got a little bit bigger and a lot more global. For today, it is vastly outgunned by the forces of ecological destruction, and it will certainly not be able to ensure a sane deal in Copenhagen. But think of all the other movements that were small at first and held up impossible dreams. They called him "Martin Loser King"; they said civil rights would never come; now everyone says he was right and there's a black President (although alas not a green one).
As Archbishop Desmond Tutu pointed out here, they said the Berlin Wall would never fall, and they said apartheid would never die; now they say we cannot make the transition from an economy powered by coal and oil to one powered by the sun, the wind and the waves. But unlike previous protest movements, we can't wait for it to accumulate speed over generations. Each tonne of carbon brings us closer to climatic - and climactic - tipping points. This is a leap human beings must make in one generation.
We know it can be done. We have the knowledge and the science. If we refuse to do it - out of inertia and denial and so a few fossil fuel corporations can carrying on raking in profit and bribing our politicians - that will be this summit's most surreal scene of all.
But the surrealism runs deeper and darker than this. Inside the Bella Centre, the rich world's leaders are defiantly ignoring their scientists and refusing to sign a deal that will prevent our climate from being dramatically destabilized. The scientific consensus shows the rich world needs to cut 40 per cent of our emissions of warming gases from 1990 levels by 2020 if we're going to have even a 50-50 chance of staying this side of the Point of No Return, when the Earth's natural processes start to break down and warming becomes unstoppable. Yet the scientists at Climate Analytics calculate our governments are offering a dismal 8-12 per cent cut - and once you factor in all the loopholes and accounting tricks, it becomes a net increase of four per cent.
Privately, government negotiators admit there's no way the negotiations will end with the deal scientists say is necessary for our safety. Indeed, it looks possible that this conference won't deepen and broaden the Kyoto framework, but cripple it. Kyoto established a legally binding international framework to measure and reduce emissions. The cuts it required were too small, and the sanctions for breaking it were pitifully weak - but it was a start. Kyoto's current phase expires in 2012, but the treaty's authors believed its architecture would be retained and intensified after that. The developing countries assumed that's what they were here to do. But the US is proposing to simply ditch the Kyoto infrastructure - won over decades of long negotiations - and replace it with an even weaker voluntary deal. In their proposal, every country will announce cuts and stick to them out of the goodness of their hearts. No penalties, no enforcement.
So at the center of this summit is a proposition stranger than any number of arrested cows or Nasa-quoting hoodies: we're playing Russian roulette with the climate, and our most powerful governments are filling the barrels with extra bullets, one by one.
Yet this conflagration here in Copenhagen is heartbreaking and heartwarming all at once. Our governments are showing their moral bankruptcy - but a genuinely global democratic movement is swelling to make them change course. Mass democratic agitation is the only force that has ever made governments moral before; it will have to do it again.
An army of dedicated campaigners is gathering here, and they are prepared to take real risks to oppose this sham-deal. The protest march on Saturday here must have been the most genuinely global demonstration in history. Under banners saying "There Is No Planet B", "Nature Doesn't Do Bailouts" and "Change the Politics, Not the Climate", there seemed to be people from every nation on earth. Lawrence Muli from Kenya's youth delegation told me: "We are having the worst drought in memory in Kenya. The seasons have changed in ways we don't understand. My family can't grow crops any more, so they are going hungry. I am here to say we won't die quietly."
Next to him was Bhuwan Sambhu from Nepal, who has seen his glaciers retreat dramatically in his short lifetime. Just behind them was Manuel Wiechers from Mexico City, who said his hometown has been devastated by the worst rains on record. At his side was Utte Richter, a 76-year-old German woman who said: "It would be immoral to stay at home when these decisions were being made, with everything they mean for the world. This system is near the end of the road, and we must change to a new way."
The same arguments are heard in the corridors of the Bella Centre, where the representatives of the poor countries are refusing to sign up to a deal that will dry out or drown much of their land. The government of Tuvalu - the low-lying island that is already being drowned by rising seas - has calmly, with great dignity, interrupted meetings that presume we can carry on emitting carbon, pointing out this means "we will die". Lumumba Di-Aping, the chief negotiator for the G77 block of developing countries, wept as he explained: "The more you defer action, the more you condemn millions of people to immeasurable suffering." He said our governments are acting "like climate skeptics. If they really believed global warming was happening, how could they do this?"
Today, these two strands of protest - inside the conference, and outside - will combine. Some of the delegates are expected to walk out of the Bella Centre talks in disgust. At the same time, brave young protesters supporting their message will be trying to break in, to express their revulsion at the betrayal of us all going on there. Of course, the parts of the global media that serve the interests of the polluting rich will be keen to shift the story on to "vandals" and "violent protest". There may be a minuscule minority of protesters who behave unacceptably. But in reality, there are two forms of vandalism about to happen in this city. There is the cutting of a few fences as part of an act of mass civil disobedience. It is an attempt to symbolically resist the much bigger act of vandalism - the trashing of our own habitat, by leaders too short-sighted and too money-addled to listen to the science.
Isn't it violent to knowingly condemn whole countries to drown? Isn't it vandalism to knowingly let the world's most crucial farming land crust over, its most precious rivers run dry, and its hurricanes become super-charged? Isn't that immeasurably worse than breaking a fence and cutting a cordon? Couldn't resistance to this destruction-machine justify this tiny act of destruction? The young protesters who will do this have proved themselves, so far, the sanest force in town. They have ensured that the corporate lobbyists punching holes in the deal are followed and shamed wherever they meet. They chant: "It's not your business - it's our climate."
When I hear the activists, I remember something Farley Mowat, the Canadian conservationist, wrote in the 1990s: "The last three decades of this century have witnessed the ignition of the most significant internal conflict ever to engage the human species. It is not the struggle between capitalism and communism or between any other set of 'isms'. It is the conflict between those who possess the means and will to exploit the living world to destruction, and those who are banding together in a desperate and last-ditch attempt to prevent the New Juggernaut from trashing our small planet."
This week, the small band of the sane got a little bit bigger and a lot more global. For today, it is vastly outgunned by the forces of ecological destruction, and it will certainly not be able to ensure a sane deal in Copenhagen. But think of all the other movements that were small at first and held up impossible dreams. They called him "Martin Loser King"; they said civil rights would never come; now everyone says he was right and there's a black President (although alas not a green one).
As Archbishop Desmond Tutu pointed out here, they said the Berlin Wall would never fall, and they said apartheid would never die; now they say we cannot make the transition from an economy powered by coal and oil to one powered by the sun, the wind and the waves. But unlike previous protest movements, we can't wait for it to accumulate speed over generations. Each tonne of carbon brings us closer to climatic - and climactic - tipping points. This is a leap human beings must make in one generation.
We know it can be done. We have the knowledge and the science. If we refuse to do it - out of inertia and denial and so a few fossil fuel corporations can carrying on raking in profit and bribing our politicians - that will be this summit's most surreal scene of all.
December 15, 2009
December 14, 2009
Copenhagen Climate Talks SUSPENDED, In Chaos, As Countries Walk Out Of The Conference (UPDATED)
Scroll down for updates
The UN international climate change conference is in chaos as the G77, which represents 130 developing countries "pulled the emergency plug" suspending the talks over wealthy countries' reluctance to discuss a legally binding emissions treaty.
Jeremy Hobbs, Executive Director of Oxfam put out this statement:
Africa has pulled the emergency cord to avoid a train crash at the end of the week. Poor countries want to see an outcome which guarantees sharp emissions reductions yet rich countries are trying to delay discussions on the only mechanism we have to deliver this - the Kyoto Protocol.
This not about blocking the talks - it is about whether rich countries are ready to guarantee action on climate change and the survival or people in Africa and across the world.
"Australia and Japan are crying foul while blocking movement on legally binding emissions reductions for rich countries. This tit for tat approach is no way to deal with the climate crisis."
African countries have refused to continue negotiations unless talks on a second commitment period to the Kyoto Protocol are prioritized ahead of broader discussions under a second LCA track. Australia, Japan and others have succeeded in stopping Kyoto Protocol discussions as a result. Of the two tracks of negotiations underway in Copenhagen the Kyoto Protocol is the only one which includes a mechanism for legally binding emissions reductions by rich countries.
UPDATE: 7:07 AM EST:
The Australian news site, News.com.au reports more on the walkout:
The G77, a group which represents 130 developing countries, walked out because it is concerned the existing Kyoto protocol will be abandoned.
Australia's Climate Change Minister Penny Wong confirmed that organisers were trying to fix the problem and coax back the developing world.
Many countries at the UN climate summit want a brand new treaty to tackle climate change, but the developing world wants the Kyoto protocol to continue as well.
UPDATE: 11:51 EST
Reuters reports that Africa has returned to the discussions after a half day suspension.
"We're going back," Pa Ousman Jarju from the delegation of Gambia, told Reuters after a meeting of the African group.
The protest held up a session due to start at 1030 GMT, just four days before a summit of 110 leaders aims to agree a U.N. pact to combat global warming that could bring more heatwaves, floods and rising sea levels.
He said that the Danish hosts gave assurances that there would be more focus on African nations' demands for an extension of the Kyoto Protocol, the existing pact for curbing emissions of greenhouse gases.
Read more from Reuters here.
There has been limited information coming out of the conference about the flap, and what it means for negotiations going into the final days of the conference.
Check back for more breaking updates on this story.
The UN international climate change conference is in chaos as the G77, which represents 130 developing countries "pulled the emergency plug" suspending the talks over wealthy countries' reluctance to discuss a legally binding emissions treaty.
Jeremy Hobbs, Executive Director of Oxfam put out this statement:
Africa has pulled the emergency cord to avoid a train crash at the end of the week. Poor countries want to see an outcome which guarantees sharp emissions reductions yet rich countries are trying to delay discussions on the only mechanism we have to deliver this - the Kyoto Protocol.
This not about blocking the talks - it is about whether rich countries are ready to guarantee action on climate change and the survival or people in Africa and across the world.
"Australia and Japan are crying foul while blocking movement on legally binding emissions reductions for rich countries. This tit for tat approach is no way to deal with the climate crisis."
African countries have refused to continue negotiations unless talks on a second commitment period to the Kyoto Protocol are prioritized ahead of broader discussions under a second LCA track. Australia, Japan and others have succeeded in stopping Kyoto Protocol discussions as a result. Of the two tracks of negotiations underway in Copenhagen the Kyoto Protocol is the only one which includes a mechanism for legally binding emissions reductions by rich countries.
UPDATE: 7:07 AM EST:
The Australian news site, News.com.au reports more on the walkout:
The G77, a group which represents 130 developing countries, walked out because it is concerned the existing Kyoto protocol will be abandoned.
Australia's Climate Change Minister Penny Wong confirmed that organisers were trying to fix the problem and coax back the developing world.
Many countries at the UN climate summit want a brand new treaty to tackle climate change, but the developing world wants the Kyoto protocol to continue as well.
UPDATE: 11:51 EST
Reuters reports that Africa has returned to the discussions after a half day suspension.
"We're going back," Pa Ousman Jarju from the delegation of Gambia, told Reuters after a meeting of the African group.
The protest held up a session due to start at 1030 GMT, just four days before a summit of 110 leaders aims to agree a U.N. pact to combat global warming that could bring more heatwaves, floods and rising sea levels.
He said that the Danish hosts gave assurances that there would be more focus on African nations' demands for an extension of the Kyoto Protocol, the existing pact for curbing emissions of greenhouse gases.
Read more from Reuters here.
There has been limited information coming out of the conference about the flap, and what it means for negotiations going into the final days of the conference.
Check back for more breaking updates on this story.
December 10, 2009
Why President Obama’s Copenhagen Efforts Matter
Call it Hopenhagen if you like, but make no mistake -- President Obama's decision to attend and speak at the United Nations climate conference has significant implications for governments and corporations around the world.
The White House has said the President will speak toward the end of the conference in order to push negotiations over the top, but it is the content of his speech that will determine whether or not he is successful.
The world is looking to the US for guidance, and as the leader of the global economy, a formal US position on climate change carries significant weight with the global community. President Obama's delivery of the US position on climate change will likely determine whether the US will play a leadership role in climate change, or surrenders that position to China or European Union.
What's at stake? Primarily, America's ability to capitalize on the economic opportunity of climate change. To say that nothing will come of Copenhagen is short-sighted. COP15 will undoubtedly have significant impact; however the nature of that impact and how it will affect the US is not yet clear.
The US is known for capitalizing on markets to attract business and innovation, and COP15 represents another moment where it must seize the opportunity -- this time with climate change. But COP15 also represents a significant risk to US economic growth if it does not act because, for the first time, there are serious contenders abroad.
Progress in Copenhagen could spur breakthroughs in fuel cell, biofuel and solar technologies, allow the manipulation of catalysts at the nano scale, and lead to the invention of a number of other technologies yet to be discovered. Unlike Kyoto however, failure by the US to establish a clear leadership position may not stall the international process as it did before; rather it may open up new opportunities for other countries to take the lead.
In recent months, fast growing nations such as China have signaled commitment to progress on reducing emissions and developing carbon markets, and it is exactly this opportunity they have in mind.
In the 1990s, China was exempted from reductions imposed under Kyoto because the UN considered the country a developing nation, facing economic challenges so serious it could not possibly meet imposed targets. Today, China is transforming its procurement and use of energy and the policies that govern it. They are investing in wind turbines, nuclear, solar and a host of technologies that reduce their reliance on oil and coal, and diversify their long-term energy strategy in the process. By 2011, China plans to reduce emissions at the level of nearly twice Germany's annual emissions output. Impressive environmental goals, but it is clear that economics are driving these decisions.
Of course cleaning up emissions is the right thing to do for our environment and our economy. I got the idea for my own company while studying environmental management in my undergraduate program in the mid-1990s. I firmly believe we must be responsible stewards of the earth and providing business with the proper incentives is the best path to environmental stewardship. But we also must realize that progress on emissions and energy reductions from a policy perspective represents a potential boon for U.S. innovation and business.
My company is growing fast because our customers - mostly Fortune 500s - can save money by using our technology to better manage their sustainability metrics (energy, GHG, water, etc). I am proud to say we are a living, breathing example of innovation that is creating "green jobs" .
America has a long and vibrant history of innovation. But without clear direction from policy on climate change, our innovation engine is idle. We need to take charge of our own destiny; companies need government leadership in policy to help pave the way for success, and that's why Obama's speech is so critical.
A vacuum has resulted in the absence of leadership since the Kyoto Accord, and has given rise to a false debate regarding whether or not we need to take any action at all. But it is clear that the world needs action from both an environmental and economic perspective. While the science behind global warming will likely always be debated, it cannot be argued that the environment is changing and that the global economy needs a new engine. With clear, aggressive, and comprehensive policy on climate change, we may get to solve both problems with one solution. But as long as we lack clear direction from our leaders, global business will be forced into a holding pattern.
President Obama faces a significant challenge. It will be difficult for him to make significant and binding commitments on climate change, especially while such legislation is still being debated at home. But if Mr. Obama can successfully channel his ability to gather consensus in Copenhagen, it may pressure Congress to pass binding legislation.
Right now, the US is recognized as the leader in clean tech innovation. But if clear policy signals are not received from the current administration at COP15, business is not likely to react and the opportunity will be seized by other economies. And the jobs will go with them.
In this light, the US opportunity in Copenhagen is not just about climate change, it's about remaining at the epicenter of the clean tech economic revolution. The Obama administration has the formidable task of ensuring that the US comes out on top, and to demonstrate that what's good for the environment is also good for the US economy.
The White House has said the President will speak toward the end of the conference in order to push negotiations over the top, but it is the content of his speech that will determine whether or not he is successful.
The world is looking to the US for guidance, and as the leader of the global economy, a formal US position on climate change carries significant weight with the global community. President Obama's delivery of the US position on climate change will likely determine whether the US will play a leadership role in climate change, or surrenders that position to China or European Union.
What's at stake? Primarily, America's ability to capitalize on the economic opportunity of climate change. To say that nothing will come of Copenhagen is short-sighted. COP15 will undoubtedly have significant impact; however the nature of that impact and how it will affect the US is not yet clear.
The US is known for capitalizing on markets to attract business and innovation, and COP15 represents another moment where it must seize the opportunity -- this time with climate change. But COP15 also represents a significant risk to US economic growth if it does not act because, for the first time, there are serious contenders abroad.
Progress in Copenhagen could spur breakthroughs in fuel cell, biofuel and solar technologies, allow the manipulation of catalysts at the nano scale, and lead to the invention of a number of other technologies yet to be discovered. Unlike Kyoto however, failure by the US to establish a clear leadership position may not stall the international process as it did before; rather it may open up new opportunities for other countries to take the lead.
In recent months, fast growing nations such as China have signaled commitment to progress on reducing emissions and developing carbon markets, and it is exactly this opportunity they have in mind.
In the 1990s, China was exempted from reductions imposed under Kyoto because the UN considered the country a developing nation, facing economic challenges so serious it could not possibly meet imposed targets. Today, China is transforming its procurement and use of energy and the policies that govern it. They are investing in wind turbines, nuclear, solar and a host of technologies that reduce their reliance on oil and coal, and diversify their long-term energy strategy in the process. By 2011, China plans to reduce emissions at the level of nearly twice Germany's annual emissions output. Impressive environmental goals, but it is clear that economics are driving these decisions.
Of course cleaning up emissions is the right thing to do for our environment and our economy. I got the idea for my own company while studying environmental management in my undergraduate program in the mid-1990s. I firmly believe we must be responsible stewards of the earth and providing business with the proper incentives is the best path to environmental stewardship. But we also must realize that progress on emissions and energy reductions from a policy perspective represents a potential boon for U.S. innovation and business.
My company is growing fast because our customers - mostly Fortune 500s - can save money by using our technology to better manage their sustainability metrics (energy, GHG, water, etc). I am proud to say we are a living, breathing example of innovation that is creating "green jobs" .
America has a long and vibrant history of innovation. But without clear direction from policy on climate change, our innovation engine is idle. We need to take charge of our own destiny; companies need government leadership in policy to help pave the way for success, and that's why Obama's speech is so critical.
A vacuum has resulted in the absence of leadership since the Kyoto Accord, and has given rise to a false debate regarding whether or not we need to take any action at all. But it is clear that the world needs action from both an environmental and economic perspective. While the science behind global warming will likely always be debated, it cannot be argued that the environment is changing and that the global economy needs a new engine. With clear, aggressive, and comprehensive policy on climate change, we may get to solve both problems with one solution. But as long as we lack clear direction from our leaders, global business will be forced into a holding pattern.
President Obama faces a significant challenge. It will be difficult for him to make significant and binding commitments on climate change, especially while such legislation is still being debated at home. But if Mr. Obama can successfully channel his ability to gather consensus in Copenhagen, it may pressure Congress to pass binding legislation.
Right now, the US is recognized as the leader in clean tech innovation. But if clear policy signals are not received from the current administration at COP15, business is not likely to react and the opportunity will be seized by other economies. And the jobs will go with them.
In this light, the US opportunity in Copenhagen is not just about climate change, it's about remaining at the epicenter of the clean tech economic revolution. The Obama administration has the formidable task of ensuring that the US comes out on top, and to demonstrate that what's good for the environment is also good for the US economy.
December 8, 2009
December 7, 2009
We Are Now in a Crucial Moment — It’s Time to Make a Decision
Editor's note: This guest post was written by former Vice President Al Gore for the Hopenhagen movement. The world has arrived at a moment of decision. As long as we continue to depend on dirty fossil fuels like coal and oil to meet our energy needs, and dump 90 million tons of global warming pollution into the atmosphere, we move closer and closer to several dangerous tipping points—points which scientists have repeatedly warned would, if crossed, threaten to make it impossible for us to avoid irretrievable destruction of the conditions that make human civilization possible on this planet. I’ve said it numerous times already, but right now we are trapped in a dangerous cycle—borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf, and then burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that’s got to change. Right now, here in the US and all over the world, people are demanding action. There is a much broader consensus than there was when President George H.W. Bush negotiated—and the Senate ratified—the Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992. And there's much stronger consensus than when we completed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. The road to the signing of an agreement in Copenhagen will not be easy, but the world has traveled this path before. More than twenty years ago the US signed the Montreal Protocol, a treaty to protect the ozone layer, and strengthened it to the point where we banned most of the major pollutants that created the hole in the ozone over Antarctica. And we did it with bipartisan support: President Ronald Reagan and Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill joined hands to lead the way. We can do it again and solve the climate crisis, protecting our planet for future generations. -- Help turn Copenhagen into Hopenhagen at Hopenhagen.org
November 25, 2009
Sorting Blinks From Winks In The Copenhagen End Game
In the world of military intelligence, much time is spent trying to distinguish "blinks" -- unpremeditated random actions -- from "winks" -- deliberate moves designed to communicate intent and draw out a response. The climate change negotiations have now entered a phase where a team of tame "spooks" is needed by anybody trying to make sense of the myriad messages emerging from the hectic schedule of pre-Copenhagen meetings.
The APEC Summit saw confident headlines that the US and China had agreed to a Danish proposal to make the Copenhagen outcome non-legally binding. On closer examination these reports came from a US press conference following an informal Heads breakfast. Meanwhile the real US-China Summit two days later agreed that both countries are "striving for final legal agreement" at Copenhagen, and the Chinese confirmed they are still "studying" the Danish proposal. A "Pre-COP" Ministerial meeting held in parallel in Copenhagen showed a range of conflicting messages from countries; with Saudi Arabia defending the Kyoto Protocol, some developing countries backing a new single negotiating process but a strong push from Brazil and others to maintain a legally binding Copenhagen outcome.
Even the US seems unclear what it wants: on the one hand, Obama is promoting an agreement at Copenhagen which has "immediate operational effect", but his lead negotiator is discussing a mid-year deadline for completing a treaty. Of course, these outcomes need not be mutually exclusive, but in the fevered atmosphere of the end game confusion is predictably interpreted as conspiracy.
This is damaging to the negotiations. The APEC story drowned out the positive announcements of new mitigation commitments by Brazil and South Korea. It also markedly increased the already high level of distrust between countries. Conversations in the negotiating corridors increasingly circle round what these events imply about the motivations of the main players. Is the US Administration acting in good faith but hamstrung by a hostile Congress? Or is there a subtle strategy to neuter the international regime and avoid pressure to increase US commitments? Will China align with its traditional allies in the G77? And if so, can it support the proposals from the industrialized countries? Will India stick with its oft-quoted red lines, or are these merely negotiating chips to be relinquished in return for new finance? The inability to sort blinks from winks - and conspiracy from confusion - makes countries fearful of making the bold diplomatic moves needed to make Copenhagen a success. It also fuels an increasingly pessimistic media cycle and undermines public faith in the effectiveness of the international negotiations.
This is the wrong way to approach the climate change process. We are not back in the Cold War trying to determine the aggressive intent of a declared and secretive enemy. Copenhagen is a multi-polar negotiation between highly interdependent countries who are aiming to preserve their mutual climate security. It is not a game any one nation can win, but it is one we can all lose.
Stripping away the confusion the underlying dynamics of the Copenhagen end-game are rather more straightforward:
There is no credible alternative to a legally binding international agreement to limit global climate change below 2°C; any "bottom-up" system of country pledges will always fail to drive the necessary scale and pace of reductions as it does not help countries take on domestic interest lobbies.
The US will not accept a binding target unless China and India also agree to be bound to commitments that are internationally verifiable.
But China will not commit to decarbonise its economy unless the US accepts a binding and ambitious emissions reduction target.
The majority of developing countries will not agree to any new framework unless it binds developed nations and contains significant new medium term public finance for adaptation, forestry and clean energy.
Europe and Japan - who have met their reduction commitments under the binding Kyoto Protocol - can only accept the weak US commitments which are on the table if a new agreement is at least as binding as Kyoto, and the US commits to comparable emission reductions by 2030 at the latest.
This is the inexorable logic of the multilateral negotiations and leaves a clear set of decisions for the US. The Obama administration will struggle to convince the US Senate to pass a domestic Climate Bill if it cannot show that this is part of a wider international effort that delivers climate security for America. A binding international agreement that commits China and India to real emission reductions would show the value of US leadership. To achieve this, the US will have to agree to be bound itself and to put its 2030 mitigation target and some commitment to medium term finance on the table.
None of this need breach the wise position of the US negotiators that they are not prepared to sign up to an international agreement unless they are confident they can pass the domestic legislation needed to implement it. The administration has a good story to tell of how committing to US legislation has catalysed serious emission reduction commitments from all major economies.
The US has more room for manoeuvre than it currently thinks. If President Obama wants to make real the leadership he has proclaimed so eloquently in his speeches, now is the time to send a clear, unified and unambiguous message to the other Parties. We want a 2°C agreement; we will put forward what is needed to secure this; we expect others to agree to be bound by their promises - as we agree to be bound by ours; this will require a legally binding treaty. We may need more time to agree final details, but we are ready to make substantial and lasting commitments in Copenhagen.
All of this leads to a simple conclusion: if political leaders are unable to reach a binding international agreement in Copenhagen in December they must come up with a credible plan for concluding that agreement no later than June 2010, before US Congressional mid-term elections. Allowing the process to drag on beyond June 2010 risks a repeat of the Doha WTO negotiations, which have limped along without resolution for over a decade. Reaching agreement by June 2010 is challenging but achievable if Copenhagen provides the necessary political impetus.
Specifically, Copenhagen needs to do three things:
Give a clear political mandate to negotiators to reach agreement on all key issues by at the latest June 2010 and to enshrine this agreement in a legal instrument or instruments.
Set out in as much detail as possible the content of the eventual legal instrument(s), including emissions reduction targets for developed countries, nationally appropriate mitigation actions for developing countries, the long-term financing architecture, and the international framework for measurement, reporting and verification of commitments.
Maintain momentum through commitments to immediate action before 2012, including quick-start funding for adaptation, tackling deforestation and low carbon growth plans.
There are no fundamental obstacles of interest to such an agreement, but it will require great diplomatic skill and significant trust between countries to deliver; neither of which is yet apparent in the current negotiations. There are still some countries trying to block any substantive deal, but they are now a vanishing minority. In contrast, the impetus to agreement is supported by an unprecedented range of global business, finance, labour, faith and civil society coalitions who are aligned around the common elements of a Copenhagen deal.
In the final weeks towards Copenhagen it will be easy to be caught up in the day-to-day turmoil of events, but while fascinating as a spectator sport, this chatter is not what will determine the final outcome. The world is close to an ambitious deal; what is missing is the trust needed to cement the process through to a legal conclusion. Trust will be built through plain speaking not hints, spin and clever tactics. That is why Obama must go to Copenhagen along with other leaders. Only a personal face-to-face commitment will generate the trust needed to seal the deal.
The APEC Summit saw confident headlines that the US and China had agreed to a Danish proposal to make the Copenhagen outcome non-legally binding. On closer examination these reports came from a US press conference following an informal Heads breakfast. Meanwhile the real US-China Summit two days later agreed that both countries are "striving for final legal agreement" at Copenhagen, and the Chinese confirmed they are still "studying" the Danish proposal. A "Pre-COP" Ministerial meeting held in parallel in Copenhagen showed a range of conflicting messages from countries; with Saudi Arabia defending the Kyoto Protocol, some developing countries backing a new single negotiating process but a strong push from Brazil and others to maintain a legally binding Copenhagen outcome.
Even the US seems unclear what it wants: on the one hand, Obama is promoting an agreement at Copenhagen which has "immediate operational effect", but his lead negotiator is discussing a mid-year deadline for completing a treaty. Of course, these outcomes need not be mutually exclusive, but in the fevered atmosphere of the end game confusion is predictably interpreted as conspiracy.
This is damaging to the negotiations. The APEC story drowned out the positive announcements of new mitigation commitments by Brazil and South Korea. It also markedly increased the already high level of distrust between countries. Conversations in the negotiating corridors increasingly circle round what these events imply about the motivations of the main players. Is the US Administration acting in good faith but hamstrung by a hostile Congress? Or is there a subtle strategy to neuter the international regime and avoid pressure to increase US commitments? Will China align with its traditional allies in the G77? And if so, can it support the proposals from the industrialized countries? Will India stick with its oft-quoted red lines, or are these merely negotiating chips to be relinquished in return for new finance? The inability to sort blinks from winks - and conspiracy from confusion - makes countries fearful of making the bold diplomatic moves needed to make Copenhagen a success. It also fuels an increasingly pessimistic media cycle and undermines public faith in the effectiveness of the international negotiations.
This is the wrong way to approach the climate change process. We are not back in the Cold War trying to determine the aggressive intent of a declared and secretive enemy. Copenhagen is a multi-polar negotiation between highly interdependent countries who are aiming to preserve their mutual climate security. It is not a game any one nation can win, but it is one we can all lose.
Stripping away the confusion the underlying dynamics of the Copenhagen end-game are rather more straightforward:
There is no credible alternative to a legally binding international agreement to limit global climate change below 2°C; any "bottom-up" system of country pledges will always fail to drive the necessary scale and pace of reductions as it does not help countries take on domestic interest lobbies.
The US will not accept a binding target unless China and India also agree to be bound to commitments that are internationally verifiable.
But China will not commit to decarbonise its economy unless the US accepts a binding and ambitious emissions reduction target.
The majority of developing countries will not agree to any new framework unless it binds developed nations and contains significant new medium term public finance for adaptation, forestry and clean energy.
Europe and Japan - who have met their reduction commitments under the binding Kyoto Protocol - can only accept the weak US commitments which are on the table if a new agreement is at least as binding as Kyoto, and the US commits to comparable emission reductions by 2030 at the latest.
This is the inexorable logic of the multilateral negotiations and leaves a clear set of decisions for the US. The Obama administration will struggle to convince the US Senate to pass a domestic Climate Bill if it cannot show that this is part of a wider international effort that delivers climate security for America. A binding international agreement that commits China and India to real emission reductions would show the value of US leadership. To achieve this, the US will have to agree to be bound itself and to put its 2030 mitigation target and some commitment to medium term finance on the table.
None of this need breach the wise position of the US negotiators that they are not prepared to sign up to an international agreement unless they are confident they can pass the domestic legislation needed to implement it. The administration has a good story to tell of how committing to US legislation has catalysed serious emission reduction commitments from all major economies.
The US has more room for manoeuvre than it currently thinks. If President Obama wants to make real the leadership he has proclaimed so eloquently in his speeches, now is the time to send a clear, unified and unambiguous message to the other Parties. We want a 2°C agreement; we will put forward what is needed to secure this; we expect others to agree to be bound by their promises - as we agree to be bound by ours; this will require a legally binding treaty. We may need more time to agree final details, but we are ready to make substantial and lasting commitments in Copenhagen.
All of this leads to a simple conclusion: if political leaders are unable to reach a binding international agreement in Copenhagen in December they must come up with a credible plan for concluding that agreement no later than June 2010, before US Congressional mid-term elections. Allowing the process to drag on beyond June 2010 risks a repeat of the Doha WTO negotiations, which have limped along without resolution for over a decade. Reaching agreement by June 2010 is challenging but achievable if Copenhagen provides the necessary political impetus.
Specifically, Copenhagen needs to do three things:
Give a clear political mandate to negotiators to reach agreement on all key issues by at the latest June 2010 and to enshrine this agreement in a legal instrument or instruments.
Set out in as much detail as possible the content of the eventual legal instrument(s), including emissions reduction targets for developed countries, nationally appropriate mitigation actions for developing countries, the long-term financing architecture, and the international framework for measurement, reporting and verification of commitments.
Maintain momentum through commitments to immediate action before 2012, including quick-start funding for adaptation, tackling deforestation and low carbon growth plans.
There are no fundamental obstacles of interest to such an agreement, but it will require great diplomatic skill and significant trust between countries to deliver; neither of which is yet apparent in the current negotiations. There are still some countries trying to block any substantive deal, but they are now a vanishing minority. In contrast, the impetus to agreement is supported by an unprecedented range of global business, finance, labour, faith and civil society coalitions who are aligned around the common elements of a Copenhagen deal.
In the final weeks towards Copenhagen it will be easy to be caught up in the day-to-day turmoil of events, but while fascinating as a spectator sport, this chatter is not what will determine the final outcome. The world is close to an ambitious deal; what is missing is the trust needed to cement the process through to a legal conclusion. Trust will be built through plain speaking not hints, spin and clever tactics. That is why Obama must go to Copenhagen along with other leaders. Only a personal face-to-face commitment will generate the trust needed to seal the deal.