US political commitment needed for climate deal

ANALYSIS:Vested interests – governmental and private business – are making it almost impossible to obtain a legally binding treaty to combat global warming

LAST FRIDAY, the final day of the UN climate change talks in unseasonably warm and sunny Barcelona, six environmentalists kitted out as Martians with shiny silver space-suits, green-painted faces and bobbing antennae on their heads said it all: “You humans sure talk a lot!”

They were humorously reflecting the sense of frustration felt by many over the slow progress being made by delegates representing over 180 countries in setting the agenda for next month’s conference in Copenhagen. And with less than 30 days left to go, who could blame them?

After all, the negotiators have been talking almost non-stop since the last climate change conference in Poznan in December 2008, spending two weeks in Bonn last April, another two weeks there in June, two weeks in Bangkok last month and then last week’s final preparatory session in Barcelona. None are more frustrated than the 43-strong Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), which are among the most vulnerable to rising sea levels. They include the Maldives, a collection of 1,200 coral atolls in the Indian Ocean, where ministers recently held an underwater cabinet meeting to dramatise this threat.

Grenada’s ambassador Dessima Williams, who currently chairs AOSIS, recalled that many countries had put forward draft treaty texts under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) nearly six months ago.

“There are no practical obstacles whatsoever. All that’s lacking now is the political will to finish the job.”

Referring to the virtual certainty that next month’s conference will not produce a new treaty aimed at limiting climate change, she said: “Weak political declarations are not the solution. Leaders must come to Copenhagen ready to sign on to new targets under the Kyoto Protocol, and a new broader treaty to bind all countries.”

A mere “politically-binding agreement” has also been dismissed by Stanislaus Lumumba, chairman of the G77. Anyone who knew politics would realise that political promises were worth very little, he said. “Tell me of any politician who delivered on his political manifesto. Is it Gordon Brown? Is it [Australian prime minister] Kevin Rudd?”

The G77 group of 130 developing nations generally sings from the same hymn sheet, but not exclusively. Saudi Arabia, for example, regards a more ambitious agreement in Copenhagen as a threat to its lucrative oil trade and blocked consensus in Barcelona on several key issues of importance to more vulnerable countries.

But then, as Swedish negotiator Anders Turesson put it, the main reason why the climate talks are so complex and difficult is that the long-term aim is “to redirect development into a low-carbon future, change the fundamentals of industrial civilisation as we know it and create a new paradigm for developing countries”.

So it’s no wonder that “there’s a lot going on”, he said in an oblique reference to the vested interests at stake. These are represented by the likes of the US Chamber of Commerce, which claims to speak for more than three million businesses, including large corporations, and spent $91 million (€61 million) on lobbying last year.

The chamber is now lobbying against the Kerry-Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Bill, currently before the US Senate, which could cut greenhouse gas emissions in the US by up to 20 per cent by 2020 by promoting renewable alternatives to the use of fossil fuels; it cleared the Senate’s environment committee last week.

But the chamber’s libertarian views on environmental policies have led to defections – most recently by Apple and two energy companies, Pacific Gas Electric and Exelon – and they are also disowned by a growing number of corporate leaders, such as Jeff Immelt, chairman and chief executive of the General Electric (GE) conglomerate.

At a recent press conference with Danish climate minister Connie Hedegaard, who will chair the Copenhagen conference, Immelt said: “In business, you always say when is the right time, and we think the right time is now . . . GE and other big companies have really said it’s time for the US to drive forward the need for solutions.”

But even though the US, under President Obama, is now actively engaged in the UN climate change negotiations after the eight years lost during the Bush administration, it still refuses to “put numbers in the table” – either a mid-term (2020) emissions target cut or a figure for aid to help developing countries adapt to climate change.

The EU, which has so far put forward an indicative global aid figure of €22-€50 billion a year, regards a US emissions target cut at least to match its own unilateral offer of a 20 per cent reduction by 2020 as an essential ingredient of Copenhagen’s success.

“We need that,” Turesson said after the Barcelona conference concluded last Friday. But when Dr Jonathan Pershing, rapid-firing head of the US delegation, was pressed on this issue by journalists in the same dreary grey and windowless briefing room just half-an-hour later, he said: “I have no information to say there will be a number . . . we’re studying this question, and a decision has yet to be made.”

Meanwhile, in Washington, top US climate official Todd Stern was lashing developing countries for “citing chapter and verse of dubious interpretations . . . designed to prove that they don’t have any responsibility for action now, rather than thinking through pragmatic ways to find common ground to start solving the problem”.

This was taken to be a reference to the brief boycott by African countries as well as to the stance adopted by China and other major developing economies that it’s up to the US and other developed countries – which share historical responsibility for the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – to make the deepest cuts.

However, it has been clear for some time that the penny has dropped in China, as well as in India, Brazil, Indonesia and other major developing nations. They have announced measures to cut the “carbon intensity” of their economies and are determined to do a deal in Copenhagen, as all parties agreed in Bali two years ago.

Since then, there has been a “Countdown to Copenhagen” on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s website (http://unfccc.int/2860.php). If it doesn’t deliver the goods, and delegates postpone tough decisions for another year, momentum could be lost. There’s still a slim chance, especially if Obama and Chinese president Hu Jin-Tao talk turkey at their forthcoming summit in Beijing.

Frank McDonald is Environment Editor