It’s hard to know what to think. Is the Obama administration really looking for a Do-Over, and would it really be preferable to wipe the slate clean, and begin again?
Recent comments from Obama officials suggest that we won’t have an agreement in Copenhagen.
Certainly, three years of intense negotiations seem to have gotten us nowhere. The Bali Summit was marked by community and a sense of strong purpose — Canada, the US, and Australia excepted — but Poznan was a discouraging bust. The election of President Obama promised serious action, but many are now concerned that we might we get too much action.
With the looming deadline and immense pressure, cracks are beginning to show: The Guardian is reporting that European Union negotiators are clashing with their American counterparts, and it could lead to a rift that won’t be mended before Copenhagen.
Europe has been pushing to retain structures and systems established under the Kyoto Protocol in any subsequent international climate agreement. But US negotiators have told European counterparts that the Obama administration intends to sweep away almost all of Kyoto’s architecture and replace it with a system of its own design.
Any whiff of Kyoto, the theory goes, and the US Senate won’t must the two-third support required to pass an international treaty.
Unlike his predecessor, the Obama administration is engaging on climate change, so EU stakeholders don’t wish to criticize. But they are worried that starting from scratch will take years, and delay meaningful climate action until 2015 or later. And therein lies the rub. According to the best science available now, emissions must peak by 2015 — or 2020 at the latest — or several dangerous tipping points could be broached that will create millions of climate refugees, and huge uncertainty. We just don’t know.
So this seems like an enormous gamble.
US stakeholders are arguing that each country be allowed to write its own set of rules, and be allowed to meet its required emissions targets in whatever way it deems best. Such a provision makes sense for the US, which needs to get an international climate bill through the Senate with a two-thirds majority. But EU sources told The Guardian that this provision will scuttle any hope of meaningful progress at Copenhagen, and create loopholes that many countries will exploit to avoid emission responsibilities for decades to come.
But others, including former Kyoto negotiators for the US government, don’t see the problem. As the world’s largest historical contributor to global warming, the US must be a key player in creating a solution.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu suggested that a new dynamic was at work, telling people not to have high expectations for Copenhagen. “You have to bring more people along,” he said, “So don’t tee it up as now or never.”