The Obama administration is counting on the world to accept the president’s emissions and finance targets and keep the U.S. in the final agreement. The last act in the drama of Copenhagen unfolds this week.
By Keith Schneider
US Climate Action Network
COPENHAGEN – Like all spellbinding human drama the global conference on climate change, which today entered its second and last week, represents the accumulated chapters of an urgent script – the fate of the planet – absorbing characters including the new U.S. president, and a final act that is not yet clear.
Everybody and every corner of the world has a stake. Island nations, some of them starting to be swamped by rising seas, want huge cuts in climate warming gases to save increasingly fragile economies and culture. Arid nations already challenged by deeper and longer droughts – from the Sahel of Africa to Australia – see action on the climate as essential to preserving their ability to produce enough food.
Rich nations see the advantage of a new clean energy economy that produces technology and jobs to achieve reductions in climate-changing emissions. And the small group of senators and representatives with outsize fury, expected to arrive here this week from the United States to contend there is no climate change at all, have staked their reputations on disrupting the momentum for meaningful action that is building here.
A Week To Go
Still, seven days into the Copenhagen conference and with just five days to go, there is no clear consensus among negotiators or activists with NGO organizations about how this momentous drama will end.
The big narratives that are converging here break down like this. Developing nations are seeking large cuts in carbon emissions – 30 to 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 – and big investments by rich nations to finance their low carbon economies. The European Union wants somewhat smaller reductions in emissions targets by 2020 – 20 percent below 1990 levels, and 30 percent if other wealthy nations reach agreement – and have indicated publicly that it is willing to spend $3 billion to $4 billion annually over the next few years to help developing nations. Japan’s new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, said earlier this year that his country’s emission reduction target is 25 percent below 1990 levels and the country is willing to invest substantially in a global fund for developing nations.
But arguably the biggest story is what the rest of the world will do here with the clear positions made public by the United States. There are just two numbers that really make a difference.
Targets and Audiences
The first is "in the range of 17 percent" below 2005 levels, which is how much carbon the Obama administration says it will agree to remove from U.S. emissions by 2020. The second is $1.4 billion, which is how much the United States indicates it is willing to contribute over the next few years to a global climate change fund for developing nations. The president and his lead negotiators in Copenhagen, Todd Stern and Jonathan Pershing, have made clear there is not much wriggle room in the numbers. In order for the U.S. to stay in the final agreement, it must incorporate emissions and finance targets close to what the U.S. says it will accept.
Though many nations and writers disagree, from the perspective of an American journalist who’s written extensively for years about environmental politics and economics, both numbers represent the start of the U.S. transformation to a clean energy economy and a renewal of the country’s traditional role at the head of the class as a leader in responding to the warming climate.
Both numbers, though, also are well below what science says is needed to save the planet. Global pressure may prompt the US to commit to a bit larger target – say 20 percent reductions below 2005 levels, the same target contained in a climate and clean energy proposal under consideration in the Senate – or more money, But Obama aides have made clear the increases will not be much more.
On long-term targets, the proposed US cut in emissions are 80 percent by 2050, which is consistent with the targets proposed by developing and developed countries.
But as yesterday’s largely peaceful march – 968 people were detained by police and just 19 of those were held for further investigation -- the call for action in the next few years is far more aggressive among citizens, and many of the developing nations represented at the talks.
So here is what the breakthrough moment is shaping up to be at the Copenhagen conference -- whether the world will accept the U.S. targets. If the world doesn’t accept the president’s emissions and finance targets then the Obama administration has given every indication that it could drop out of the final agreement.
Charm Offensive
But Obama and his aides have launched a focused message campaign here to avoid that possibility. The administration established a U.S. Center, which has hosted cabinet secretaries and other top aides to talk about all that the United States is doing to combat climate change and accelerate the clean energy economy. They’ve also made it plain that the president is fighting a ferocious counter attack from the fossil fuel industry and the allies it has funded in the Senate and House.
The aim of the charm offensive is to help delegates and NGO staffers absorb the lessons from what President Obama has achieved this year – from enacting a recovery bill in February that contains $110 billion for clean energy practices and technology to deciding this month to regulate carbon dioxide as a threat to health under the Clean Air Act.
If Obama is successful in making this case and leveraging his ample storehouse of global goodwill the last chapter of this conference could be the first scenes of a new era in diplomacy, science and economics. The final chapter here could produce an international agreement that includes the United States and contains clear steps and a finance plan to cool the planet and heat up the global economy.
Keith Schneider, a journalist specializing in environmental journalism, is media and communications director at the US Climate Action Network. Reach him at kschneider@climatenetwork.org