Weathervane: A Climate Policy Blog from Resources for the Future

Feb10

A 'Stern' Assessment of Copenhagen

Top U.S. climate negotiator Todd Stern didn’t mince words Tuesday when urging a group of key international players to sign on to the Copenhagen Accord, suggesting that not doing so would risk turning the nascent text into a “stillborn.”

In remarks delivered at Center for American Progress (video here), Stern said he’s confident the negotiating bloc known as BASIC—Brazil, China, India and South Africa—will come around to the Accord, given “the clear assent their leaders gave to the Accord in Copenhagen.”

The 194 nations party to the United Nations’ climate change negotiations had until (roughly) January 31 to submit their emissions reductions plans. According to the U.S. Climate Action Network, some 95 countries representing 80 percent of the world’s emissions—including the members of the BASIC bloc—have associated themselves with the Accord.

But as Andrew shrewdly pointed a few weeks back, a joint statement issued by the BASIC nations certainly isn’t making the Copenhagen Accord negotiating process any easier:

It appears that these countries are willing to submit their actions, as pledged in the Accord, but do not view this submission as implying any “association”—at least in the sense likely envisioned by the UN secretariat and most developed countries. Even if China, India, Brazil and South Africa technically “associate”, they do not see this as creating any obligations under the UNFCCC (such as the submission of targets, which they claim to do voluntarily), and certainly not as giving the Accord legitimacy as a negotiating text. It seems that in their view, they made a political pledge in Copenhagen to submit their actions—which just happened to be included in the Accord—and they will do so in order to uphold that pledge, but they will not do so because it is an obligation created by the Accord.

Despite his pointed remarks, Stern didn’t turn a blind eye to the U.S. domestic climate policy landscape. He urged Congress to pass strong energy and climate legislation this year saying doing so would provide negotiators “a foundation of both leverage and credibility.” He quick to emphasize, however, that he believed further progress on the Copenhagen Accord was possible—and indeed critical—absent U.S. legislation.

He drew two key contrasts between using the Accord and returning to the two tracks of the Copenhagen process. The first was the past versus the future—that returning to the two track Copenhagen process negotiations means continuing to live in a world where development and emissions levels in 1992 are all that matter. This should not be the case, and the Copenhagen Accord reflects both how the world has changed since then—a “developing” country is now the world’s largest polluter—and how it will change in the future—by covering the countries that will be responsible for 97 percent of the world’s emissions growth through 2030.

Stern also drew a sharp divide between negotiations in the UNFCCC—carried out by career negotiators and going nowhere—and the Copenhagen Accord—carried out by heads of state and able to crack a few key issues in a short time. Given this experience, why should the former continue to be more important than the latter? If the goal is progress, why not stick with how progress was actually achieved? Of course, the implication is that some nations prefer delay.

The critical point here is that, perhaps partly because of the uncertainty in Congress, Stern is trying to paint the BASIC nations into a corner in an effort to secure a more pragmatic approach to negotiations in 2010. By arguing that the Accord represents science and progress, and that the two track negotiations represent favoring procedure and living in the past, he is setting up a more fundamental choice that should not inherently depend on one country or another’s mitigation plans (even one as important as the United States). Ultimately, because this is not just a negotiating tactic but also the right thing to do from a scientific perspective, the United States may succeed after all. There is no doubt, however, that there will be plenty of diplomatic fireworks first.

Andrew Stevenson, a research assistant at Resources for the Future and regular contributor to Common Tragedies, contributed to this post.

Tiffany Clements is managing editor of Weathervane.

Published: Feb-10-10 | 0 Comments

Jan07

Post-Holiday Post-Mortem: Surveying the Wreckage of COP-15

COP-15, International, China, United States, REDD

Pony image courtesy Cheesy42 via Flickr

If I may, I’d like to start with a holiday-appropriate metaphor. Let’s pretend that you are convinced you’re getting a pony for Christmas. You’re absolutely sure of it; the momentum built up from the Christmas presents of years past is too strong for this year’s gift to be anything but a pony. As the year creeps closer to Christmas morning, you see warning signs that suggest you might not get your pony this year. Mom and Dad are struggling to make ends meet, the pony market is down overall, and you live in a high-rise apartment. Regardless, you keep thinking that pony is coming because it has to. This is the year of the pony.

When Christmas comes, you rush downstairs to find … no pony. All you got was a pair of socks. They’re nice socks. Thick and warm, they’re made of SmartWool, so they’ll keep your feet dry. They will be great socks to wear the day when you eventually get a pony. Your friend, who wasn’t expecting to get anything for Christmas got the same socks and is actually pretty stoked, considering he didn’t expect to get anything. It doesn’t matter to you, though, because you had your heart set on a pony and all you got was a stupid pair of socks. Worst December ever.

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When people ask me how Copenhagen turned out, I tell them it depends on what they were expecting going in. For some, expectations for the conference were huge, a-pony-for-Christmas huge. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that many of them view the results as a dismal failure. Negotiations on text for what would have become the Copenhagen Agreement or Protocol (or whatever official sounding name for a document you prefer) did not progress well enough over the course of the year to produce a great outcome at COP-15.

The U.N. tried to lower expectations in the preceding months, and after meetings in Bangkok and Barcelona, it was pretty clear Copenhagen was not going to deliver on what many were hoping for, namely legally binding emissions targets. The Copenhagen Accord, the result of two weeks’ worth of brain-numbing negotiations and some impressive ad hoc diplomacy by President Obama, to turned out to be something like (to stick with the metaphor) a comfortable pair of warm socks: underwhelming and perhaps disappointing to a lot of people, but still useful, probably more helpful than we realize, and something on which we can stand in the future.

What actually came out the meeting? The Copenhagen Accord, a three-page document that reiterates the international community’s commitment to reduce emissions enough to prevent a 2 degree Celsius rise in global temperatures. It asks developed and developing countries to commit to mitigation actions under the basic structure of the Kyoto Protocol (and submit them by January 31), and establishes a framework for monitoring, reporting, and verifying nations’ emissions reductions. Along with recognizing the importance of reducing emissions for deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) and market approaches to emissions reductions, it also establishes mechanisms through which developed countries can provide financial support to developing countries for adaptation purposes.

The Accord, while not officially adopted by the Conference, will help move the process forward. Before you start making hotel reservations in Mexico City for December, let’s take a look back on some the important things we saw in Copenhagen and how they might affect the process moving forward.

Do we need to scrap the COP? – If there was one thing that was pretty clear after two weeks in the snow and fog of Copenhagen, it’s that the current structure for international negotiations is very limited in what it can achieve. It would be difficult to get 193 nations to agree on something trivial like who was the best Bond (quite obviously Connery), so getting them to agree on how best stop a global catastrophe is not going to be a walk in the park. The UNFCCC structures and processes, however, make progress painfully difficult at times.

The final result of the COP is a perfect example. After weeks of arguments, stalemates, and walkouts, it took five heads of state trapped in a room together (President Obama and the leaders of Brazil, China, South Africa, and India, also called BASIC) to come up with three pages of somewhat vague agreements to be solidified at a later date. Most of the plenary was happy enough to have some kind of outcome and voted to approve the politically binding (not legally) Accord. To adopt an accord, however, requires a unanimous vote of approval from the delegates. Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Sudan all felt that the Accord developed by the big kids did not include their particular interests or they were not properly consulted, and at least four of them voted against the Accord. Thus, instead of adopting it, the COP took note of the Accord, meaning that it acknowledges its existence and COP members can voluntarily comply with it, but it currently has no legal authority. None of this means that the Accord is not significant, but it shows how fragile COP proceedings can be. All it takes it one cheesed-off country (or one that is scared of economic specters) to stand between the world and a binding international climate agreement.

So are there alternatives? Indeed there are and they may become more attractive as nations look to move forward from Copenhagen. It’s clear that the complexities of climate change are a bit overwhelming for the UNFCCC process. Parallel conversations need to happen to more effectively address major issues and disagreements. As I said before, the Accord was written between the U.S. and BASIC. Those nations represent more than 50 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions. Throw the EU, Japan, and the rest of the world’s 17 largest economies and you have over 90 percent of emissions represented in one room that is much smaller and more manageable than the Bella Center. Dialogues between these critical nations can help break some of the loggerheads encountered in the COP discussions. There are two possible avenues through which parallel negotiations can help:

Bilateral and multi-lateral talks: What if the U.S. and China went into Copenhagen with a semi-formal agreement for technology sharing and measurement, reporting and verification (MRV)? Or if the EU worked out a deal with Brazil, South Africa, and Indonesia for funding programs for REDD and adaptation that could easily be plugged into UNFCCC institutions? Major emitters working directly with each other to smooth out differences and reach understandings before entering COP negotiations may help cut down on the static and grease the skids for legally binding outcomes that robustly address major issues.

Major Economies Forum: About that smaller room I mentioned earlier. The MEF can play a substantial role in advancing COP discussions if it wants to. It can provide a more intimate setting in which the U.S. and EU can talk about monitoring emissions and trade restrictions with China and India without the chaos and pressure of the COP negotiations. The MEF also does not have entrenched categories of Annex I and Non-Annex I countries that were established by the Kyoto Protocol, so the distinctions between developed (US, EU, Japan, etc.) and emerging (BASIC and others) are more flexible and can better reflect the economic realities in each nation.

These suggestions are not advocating a total dismantling or abandonment of the UNFCCC process. Instead, these negotiations can occur outside the process, but the end results can be designed so they can easily plug into on-going COP discussions. There will likely be issues regarding equity for developing countries and many of them will probably resent not being actively involved in the process. But going outside the COP may lead to significant progress on climate change and could also spur action within the COP as well. If you don’t want to take my word for it, you can listen to Rob Stavins and Joe Romm instead.

Et tu, China? – Going into Copenhagen, it looked like the U.S. was once again going to end up looking like the bad guy. Leave it to China to beat us at our own game. Without the U.S. to hide behind anymore, China—and India to a lesser extent—stepped forward to block huge progress. For the two weeks of the COP, China stonewalled and refused to budge on its demands for the developed world. Then in the final hours, when things got real with the various heads of state, China showed the proceedings exactly how serious it was taking things by sending a mid-level official to talk to the leaders of the other nations. Even after Obama managed to track down Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and get him talking, China still vetoed the inclusion of language requiring a 50 percent reduction in total global emissions and 80 percent reduction from developed countries by 2050. Following the meeting, British Climate Secretary Ed Miliband called China out for trying to hijack the conference and being an obstacle to progress.

China’s actions, while discouraging, are not entirely surprising. It had all the leverage in this situation. Unlike other countries like Brazil and, to some extent the U.S., there was no domestic political pressure for the Chinese to reach a deal. The Chinese know they are key to any international agreement, and they know how big a role they play in U.S. domestic climate debates. Why should they move when they hold all the cards? It is also pretty clear that the Chinese have no desire to be an international leader on climate change. They have announced what they consider strong reductions (45 percent reduction in carbon intensity by 2020) and they have been going nuts on the renewable energy front, but they don’t want to commit to anything that’s going to cut into their economic growth over the next few decades. If the U.S. and EU are looking to form some kind of coalition of the willing for climate change, they’d be better off going after Brazil, Indonesia, and other emerging economies first. Everyone else might have to be on board first before the Chinese decide to play.

The more things change, the more they stay the same – The Obama administration entered 2009 looking to reclaim American leadership on climate change. The U.S. was engaged and negotiating in good faith for the first time in eight years. But, ever the realist, Obama wouldn’t sign anything that has no chance of passing the Senate. Consequently, U.S. negotiators would not commit to anything that was not laid out in domestic legislation. What domestic legislation am I talking about? Well, uhh …

It’s pretty simple. The world can’t take effective action without the U.S., and the U.S. can’t act effectively without domestic legislation. Things cannot move forward until the Senate acts. Obama cannot make “transformative and inspiring commitments” that will not pass a filibuster vote, let alone the 67 votes needed to ratify an international treaty. Copenhagen may have some effect on the Senate debate in 2010, and that debate will loom very large over future COPs just as it did in Copenhagen.

REDD in the face – If you followed our on-the-ground reporting, then you know the silver lining in all the chaos and tomfoolery was the advances in REDD and protecting tropical forests. The negotiations regarding the REDD text were consistently the most promising. While a final agreement was not reached, there were some promising developments. First, the U.S., Australia, Japan, Norway, Britain, and France pledged $3.5 billion for REDD programs over the next three years. Second, the Accord acknowledged how important REDD is to achieving robust emissions reductions and discussions are going to continue into the future. There are still some issues to iron out, like national vs. sub-national monitoring systems, but saving the forests was one of the rare things on which almost everyone could agree. Insert tree-hugging hippie joke here.

Copenhagen was a disappointment in a lot of ways, and a disaster in some ways (I’m not going to talk about logistical problems here), but it had real outcomes that matter. It is not the solution many were hoping for, and the world is currently a long way away from keeping temperature rises from 2 degrees Celsius. But things are moving forward. Think of Copenhagen as a baby step, with really nice wool socks.

Daniel F. Morris is a Research Associate with Resources for the Future and a regular contributor to Common Tragedies

Published: Jan-07-10 | 2 Comments

Dec23

Why Copenhagen Avoided a Legally Binding Treaty

COP-15, China, Congress

Pen and Paper image courtesy Shot_by_Cam via Flickr Before we all explode in wrath and despair over the Copenhagen conference's failure to pursue a legally binding climate agreement, let's pause to remember that a legally binding agreement never was possible. There are two reasons—the United States Senate and China.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol was a legally binding treaty to limit the emissions of greenhouse gases, but the United States never ratified it and China, as a developing country, was not subject to its limits. The Obama administration cannot get a Kyoto-style treaty though the Senate. As for China, it has repeatedly made clear that it will not accept any limit on its emissions that might crimp the rapid growth of its economy.

Kyoto was essentially a European idea, and it is in Europe that the support for a successor treaty has been strongest. Kyoto and the American reaction to it illustrate different concepts of law, The Europeans, after more than a half a century of highly successful experience with the European Union and its predecessors, are well accustomed to the idea of aspirational law that sets a goal or standard with the understanding that member states may take some years to climb into compliance. American law has a harder edge, carrying an assumption that it is enforceable immediately on enactment, with consequences for violators. One objection to Kyoto among Americans, and not only in the Bush administration, was that it depended upon little more than moral suasion for enforcement. To Europeans, drawn by the enormous incentives to belong to the European Union, moral suasion suffices. But for an agreement that would affect most of their country's manufacturing industry and much else, American politicians do not find moral suasion nearly good enough.

Anyone watching the current struggles in the Senate to hold the Democrats' 60 votes together for the health care bill will understand the odds against gathering the 67 votes required to ratify a treaty that forces action on emissions. But the Senate might give its blessing to the Copenhagen Accord, the statement that came at the end of the conference, since it's cast in terms of voluntary cooperation and doesn't legally commit anybody to anything. It only sets a direction, like the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change. That's why President George H. W. Bush was able to persuade the Senate to ratify it.

The basic flaw in the Kyoto regime was its failure to engage either of the countries that are the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, China and the United States. The great achievement of Copenhagen was to demonstrate that both of them are now taking an active part in the world's efforts to reduce emissions. But as Copenhagen also showed, that isn't likely to be accomplished by a legally binding treaty.

J.W. Anderson is Resources for the Future’s journalist in residence.

Published: Dec-23-09 | 0 Comments

Dec22

I Spent $100 Billion and All I Got Was This Lousy National Communication

China, COP-15, Congress, United States

U.S. Capitol Image courtesy Cliff1066 via Flickr

For most climate policy scholars, analysts, advocates, and makers, the last gasp before a much-needed two-week break will be trying to make sense of what happened in Copenhagen, and what it means for the short-and long-term global response to climate change. It would be easy to get bogged down in analyzing the chaotic process that produced the Copenhagen Accord, but I will focus on what the outcome means for the United States cap-and-trade debate over the next several months.

The central outcome of the conference appears to be similar to what many expected: a quid-pro-quo between China and the United States on financing and verification (aka transparency). In one sense, you could look at it as the developed world providing $30 billion in fast start financing from 2010-2012 and pledging to raise $100 billion per year by 2020 so that China and other major economies will write a report once every two years about their mitigation actions and discuss it with the international community. To many this will not seem like a particularly attractive “deal”.

On the other hand, it would also be valid to view the outcome as the United States wresting major concessions from China et al. in an 11th-hour drama that no other developed nation had the stomach, or clout, for. As a direct result of United States consistently taking a hard (but ultimately more credible) line in negotiations regarding developing country actions, the fundamental division of the Kyoto days is gone and has been replaced by the embryo of an arguably much more equitable system. Although there is still some differentiation, all major emitters have embraced the principle that they must take action and subject that action to international review. Barack Obama stared down Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, and Wen blinked first.

While the real outcome of the accord lies somewhere in between, it is worth examining how these narratives and Copenhagen overall will play out in the Senate.

The most important point is that President Obama has made a major bet on cap-and-trade with the pledge to help raise $100 billion in financing by 2020. Based on past contributions to multilateral initiatives, and depending on whether all nations (ala the Mexico Proposal) or just developed nations contribute, the United States would be expected to put forward at least $10 billion, and likely $20-25 billion, of this financing. While the United States could probably reach its short-term mitigation commitments through the Clean Air Act or a European-style limited cap-and-trade system combined with fuel economy and efficiency programs, it is hard to envision increasing the foreign aid budget for climate much beyond the $1.0 billion included for FY2010 or $3 billion for FY2011 requested by John Kerry (D-MA). Using allowance price and offset volumes projected by U.S. government analyses, the Waxman-Markey bill would generate about $28 billion in international funding by 2020—including about $20 billion in private-sector offset purchases. While this fact has largely been overwhelmed by domestic economic concerns in the cap-and-trade debate thus far, expect these provisions to draw much greater scrutiny—and support from the administration—as legislation moves through the Senate. Especially critical will be provisions for reducing tropical deforestation, which is a large percentage of the Waxman-Markey funding and received a $1 billion boost from the administration in Copenhagen.

But the second (and much more helpful) line of analysis has already made its way through to moderate Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who noted the willingness of China and India to participate in an international agreement as a positive for ongoing work in the Senate. In the weeks leading up to Copenhagen the Republican narrative had coalesced around the supposed fallacy of U.S. leadership—that if we act and impose costs on our economy, other countries will not follow but just ignore us and keep on polluting and stealing U.S. jobs. The framework negotiated by President Obama (and the product of years of work in the UNFCCC and dozens of bilateral meetings) and the events of the last few weeks provide a clear counter to this argument. Once the United States came forward with a mitigation pledge, China and India came forward with theirs. Once the United States pledged to help raise substantial mitigation and adaptation funding, China and India agreed to subject their actions to international scrutiny. Although the divisive rhetoric between China and the United States dominated much of the first 10 days of negotiations, the Copenhagen process has shattered once and for all the myth of developing country inaction.

This leads to my next point: Copenhagen further solidified the notion that the world can only go so far without the endorsement of the United States Congress. The counter-argument could be made that, absent the United States, the world could have moved forward with a successor to the Kyoto Protocol much more easily, with new legally binding mitigation commitments for developed nations. But this misses the point that the United States is on the right side here—both politically and substantively. While securing action from all major economies is most critical to domestic politics in the United States, it is also essential in Australia, Japan, Canada, and other developed nations that have struggled to convince domestic constituents that climate policies are worth the cost. None of these countries has the political clout to stand up to the G77 + China bloc, and benefitted immensely from U.S. efforts that can now be used to increase support at home. Substantively, it is also simply not defensible to say that the climate problem can be solved without meaningful commitments from China, India, and other major economies. Without U.S. leadership, it is unlikely the new system would have included their actions in such a meaningful way. Furthermore, forcing the transition to an architecture of domestic commitments backed by international review has also increased the credibility of the entire system. The power of U.S. leadership is both a positive and a negative—the United States can shape the nature of the international system to suit its interests and benefit the world, but can also hold progress hostage absent further domestic action.

No doubt the administration will continue to move forward on energy, technology, and land use initiatives, and increase the role of the G20, Major Economies Forum, and bilaterals that produced substantial progress this year even without U.S. legislation. Indeed, Copenhagen proved that these fora will remain vital with or without a cap-and-trade system. They can advance common interests without being held up by roadblocks or a lack of progress on other issues. However, the holy grail of climate policy—a global legally binding instrument—will continue to remain elusive absent further action from the U.S. Congress.

Andrew Stevenson is a research assistant at Resources for the Future and regular contributor to Common Tragedies.

Published: Dec-22-09 | 1 Comment

Dec07

Negotiating Copenhagen's Non-Negotiables

China, COP-15, International

World Flag image courtesy tamaradulva via Flickr As the conclusion of the Copenhagen process draws closer by the day, nations are beginning to put a fine point on their most critical negotiating positions. Although there will be dozens of issues to be worked out next year—some of which will not be trivial—the strength of the “political agreement” in Copenhagen appears to be turning on three issues: financing, verification and trade. Securing a final deal in 2010 is not dependent on resolving each of the issues in Copenhagen, which indeed may be impossible, but cementing the “wrong” outcome on any one could seriously threaten the prospects for the next international climate change conference to be held in Mexico City.

Much has been made of the recent joint declaration from Brazil, South Africa, India and China (which no one in the western world seems to have seen) outlining their “non-negotiable” issues for Copenhagen: no legally binding commitments, no unsupported (unfinanced) actions, no verification of unsupported actions and no climate-related trade measures (such as border adjustments). More numerically-oriented points may also have been part of the discussion, but these four points are worth examining in further detail.

As discussed previously, the United States has made legally binding commitments (but not “caps”) for all major emitters a key component of its Copenhagen position, spurred on by the perception that this is one of the primary reasons the United States could not join Kyoto. While Indian and Chinese negotiators may not want to concede this point yet, it appears their leaders have a different perspective. Buried in the joint statements between Presidents Hu and Obama and Prime Minister Singh and President Obama are the words “stand by these commitments” and “stand behind these commitments” in reference to the climate actions they also pledged to take. It seems hard to believe these similar phrases got into both documents by accident, and while it would be a significant step, it is not inconceivable to get from “standing behind” commitments in an international statement to binding commitments in an international agreement.

The second point is similarly contradictory with recent events, as both China and India have not only been taking unsupported climate mitigation actions for several years (mostly in the guise of energy), but they have recently announced carbon-specific intensity targets. Indeed, both have stressed that their pledges are domestic actions taken in pursuit of domestic objectives.

The third is likely to be more difficult to resolve. Now that countries have put forward their mitigation numbers the next logical and most important deal for developing countries is on financing. One big concession the developed world wants from all major emitters is a commitment to international verification of their actions. This seems like the next likely deal, much more critical for securing congressional support than China bumping up its debatably strong pledge a few additional percentage points (something they are not expected to do). There has been movement towards a “fast start” fund of approximately $10 billion, and calls for recognition of “need” of approximately $100 billion to $150 billion in 2020—but this is likely to be the red line for the developed world in Copenhagen. It remains to be seen if this will be enough to secure the verification deal or if it will need to wait until more concrete 2020 numbers can be put on the table.

The fourth and final point could be the most challenging, as it blurs ideological and partisan lines. Some free-trading moderate Republicans will not vote for a bill with border measures, while some manufacturing-state Democrats will not vote for a bill without them. Internationally, the only real positive outcome in Copenhagen is to make sure they are not taken off the table. Down the road, a difficult deal will need to be struck potentially involving strengthening or better enforcement of intellectual property protections or other trade agreements, and likely a new international regime linking trade and climate.

Although this is certainly open for debate, the quantitative pledges by major emitters and the rushed, somewhat contradictory nature of the BASIC proposal reveals that the Copenhagen process, and particularly the re-engagement of the United States, has put large developing nations back on their heels. The United States’ willingness to get tough on large developing nations in the negotiations and President Obama’s outreach at the highest levels seems to be squeezing down the space for China, India and others to credibly defend a world where they have no international obligations on climate.

Andrew Stevenson is a research assistant at Resources for the Future and regular contributor to Common Tragedies.

Published: Dec-07-09 | 0 Comments

Oct23

The Chinese Straw Man

China, International, COP-15

Target image courtesy cliff1066 via Flickr Earlier this week, things were looking as good as they have in months for a global climate deal in Copenhagen. The Times of India reported on a leaked letter from Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh suggesting India reshape its positions and break with the G-77 developing country negotiating bloc—including on the critical issue of the future of the Kyoto Protocol. That came after President Hu Jintao pledged China would reduce its “carbon intensity” a notable margin by 2020, for the first time linking its objectives to climate change instead of just energy security. In addition, two of the world’s top-five emitters recently announced new targets or expanded on existing pledges to cut emissions—Brazil committing to an 80 percent reduction by 2020 from deforestation in the Amazon and Indonesia pledging to reach 26% below business-as-usual overall by 2020.

But then came the backpedalling. Ramesh’s suggestions were quickly squashed and China and India announced that they were in lockstep for Copenhagen, committed to refusing the developed world’s efforts to impose “binding” “carbon caps” and protecting the Kyoto Protocol, which the United States and EU are trying to “kill”. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s (ENRC) allocation hearing on Wednesday—a critical domestic issue but completely unrelated—was clouded by one member prominently highlighting this refusal, and arguing that the United States should wait to impose a carbon cap until they come around.

There’s just one problem—no one is demanding that developing countries take on binding carbon caps like those Kyoto imposes on other developed nations and emerging legislation would place on the United States. This developing country rhetoric is a straw man argument in the purest sense. This is not the Copenhagen agreement that the United States is advocating, with support and similar proposals from many other developed and developing nations.

In this agreement, developing nations such as China, India, Brazil and Indonesia would be required to implement a law along the lines of the “American Clean Energy Leadership Act” (ACELA) passed by the Senate ENRC in June 2009. These laws would include some quantitative objectives such as renewable energy mandates, or in the case of tropical forest countries reductions in deforestation rates, and bend the emissions curve in a substantial way below business-as-usual projections. Developing nations would pledge internationally to implement this policy (in some sort of international “registry” or “schedule”), and open up their books to international scrutiny of progress (“measurement, reporting and verification”).

Developed countries, meanwhile, would be subject to the same international commitment and scrutiny, but unlike developing countries their pledge must include a cap on carbon emissions. So to make the international deal work, the United States needs a policy that not only bends the emissions curve with clean energy, it caps emissions outright (something like ACELA + CEJAP (the Senate draft “Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act”), or a policy that includes both like ACES (the House-passed “American Clean Energy and Security Act”).

This is the fundamental Copenhagen deal that is emerging: China, India and other large developing countries commit to ACELA-like policies; the United States, E.U., Japan and other developed countries commit to ACELA + CEJAP (or ACES). Down the road as per-capita emissions, gross domestic product and energy consumption begin to converge; all countries would be required to adopt a cap.

This difference is not trivial, and no doubt will still cause hand-wringing in the United States both on passing the cap and ratifying the agreement. But the Chinese straw man reveals an important insight—the fully equivalent Byrd-Hagel deal is not out there now, and will not be for another 15-20 years. However, as large developing countries learned in Bangkok, neither is the extension of Kyoto that absolves them of binding commitments or international scrutiny. Despite cries of bait-and-switch, the “death” of Kyoto has been the writing on the wall for years and was surely a surprise-in-rhetoric only.

The compromise for both sides is clear, and the stakes could not be higher. The question is; will they take the deal?

Andrew Stevenson is a research assistant at Resources for the Future and regular contributor to Common Tragedies.

Published: Oct-23-09 | 0 Comments

Sep17

Thursday's Reads

Cap and Trade, COP-15, International, China, Renewables, Morning Reads

AFP: A week of meetings in Washington, Pittsburgh, and New York may be make or break for international climate discussions. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon makes a plea for action in this NYT op-ed. Meanwhile, U.S. Climate Envoy Todd Stern says talks will likely trickle into 2010, meaning Copenhagen may not be the end all be all for international negotiations.

Guardian: Beijing sends some mixed messages on climate.

WSJ: Despite some hailing the potential for positive energy policy in its autocracy, Portland State University professor Bruce Gilley says the structure of the Chinese government is a great impediment for movement on a carbon cap.

WaPo: A March 2009 memo from the Treasury Department is stirring up chatter over administration estimates on the costs of cap and trade.

Reuters: A group of more than 180 investors called for a strong global climate agreement, saying such a plan would lead to a flood of growth in a low-carbon economy.

WSJ: Sen. Lamar Alexander warns of the perils of renewable energy sprawl.

Politico: Signs the climate bill may be on its last legs in the Senate.

And, what can we learn from tracking our trash?

Did we miss something today? Let us know, leave a comment or email clements@rff.org.

Published: Sep-17-09 | 0 Comments

Sep15

Tuesday's Reads

International, Renewables, Obama Administration, China, Morning Reads

NYT: Hawaii is embarking on a number of experimental energy projects to transition its grid from imported fossil fuels to locally-produced renewable sources like wind and geothermal energy.

Reuters: Chinese President Hu Jintao is expected to present more details on his country’s plan to address climate change at a U.N. summit later this month.

WaPo: A new report suggests the best way to curb the growth of anthropogenic greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may be to cut off their catalyst: humans. In the U.S. each new baby results in 1,644 tons of CO₂emissions. Stop having babies, slow the problems associated with too much carbon in the atmosphere.

Reuters: Investment banks stake their claim in carbon markets as COP-15 approaches and the U.S. hammers out a deal to create a carbon-trading scheme.

NYT: A new report from the World Bank calls for dramatic action to stop the adverse effects of global climate change, encouraging governments, industry and citizens to fight against the “inertia” of fossil fuel consumption and inaction.

WaPo: The Department of the Interior is coordinating its efforts to create regional climate change response centers across the country.

NYT: A new report from Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council finds a switch from coal to renewable could mean a total of 11.3 million people working in the electricity sector and related jobs by 2030 if governments phased out fossil fuels and invested in alternatives.

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Published: Sep-15-09 | 0 Comments