Some signs of new life for an agreement in Copenhagen
By Brooks B. Yeager
Executive Vice President for Policy
Clean Air-Cool Planet
It’s all come down to the wire. The possibility of a meaningful political deal, declared dead by Chinese negotiators as late as Wednesday night, has been given new life, but only just. The rescue began with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s news conference Thursday morning. Ms. Clinton announced the willingness of the U.S. to play its role in an effort to raise $100 billion per year in funds for adaptation and clean development in the poorer and most vulnerable countries of the world – an overall figure that, for the first time, matched the scale of the need articulated by developing country leaders.
The Clinton offer had the desired effect, with senior officials from Africa, the small island states, and even India calling it constructive and, in effect, looking towards China for the next move. Ms. Clinton had made clear that the U.S. offer could only be made good “in the context of a strong accord in which all major economies stand behind meaningful mitigation actions and provide full transparency as to their implementation,” a direct reference to the Chinese reluctance to have their emissions reduction progress reviewed internationally. The Chinese, in response, let it be known that there were a number of ways in which they could “enhance their regular national communications” under the framework convention to assure full transparency of their commitments.
These two offers, seemingly so pedestrian, are in fact what was necessary all along to unlock the basic political agreement that is possible here in Copenhagen. The U.S. financial commitment will require difficult political lifting at home, with a number of Senators already opposing any additional “foreign aid” for climate purposes. The Chinese offer, fully detailed, could be the breakthrough that Congress most passionately desires, locking China into an international network of emission reduction commitments for the first time.
There remains controversy about whether all this is enough. An internal U.N. analysis, leaked to the Guardian yesterday, indicates that the overall emissions path issuing from the various commitments of the major emitters would likely fail to keep the world below 2° warming, and might in fact result in a warming almost twice that high. The Arctic is melting at a total global warming of less than 1°.
President Obama, addressing the other Heads of State a few minutes ago, made it clear that, after 20 years of negotiations over climate change, the world faces a stark choice: “The reality of climate change is not in doubt, but our ability to take collective action to address climate change is in doubt. We can move forward together, or … we can have the same stale arguments, year after year, until the danger of climate change grows irreversible.” There are some who argue that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” Others, this writer among them, believe that a long journey starts with a single step.
Tags: arctic policy, arctic warming, clean air-cool planet, Climate action, climate negotiations, climate policy, COP-15, copenhagen
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