Is it too late to reach a climate deal in Copenhagen?

The countdown to COP15 in Copenhagen tells me, at the moment of writing, we have only 63 days left to pave the way to seal a safe deal. It seems impossible. Is it really?

Sergio Abranches

The meeting in Bangkok failed to reach a consensus on a new draft agreement for a global comprehensive deal. One which would meet the scientific requirements of avoiding a 2^oC warming, and reducing our emissions to stabilize them at 350 ppm.

The draft agreement we have so far is an open one. It contemplates options for all possible outcomes: a bold deal, a compromise deal, a symbolic deal.

As a response to the lack of progress on the diplomatic front towards a climate consensus, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said negotiators had just 10 days left to secure a global climate deal. He also said governments must not be hindered by domestic troubles, according to Reuters/NYT. Ban Ki-Moon was referring to the existing opportunities for formal negotiations, and was still counting Bangkok as a ongoing one. As Bangkok fails, there will only be 5 days left to secure the deal, during the official preparatory meeting in Barcelona, November 2-6.

Prime-minister Gordon Brown is said to host an informal gathering of the Major Economies Forum (MEF), in early November. MEF was created by president Obama, in March 2008, to facilitate dialogue between mature and emerging economic powers. The inaugural meeting was held in Washington, at the end of April, and the first full meeting in L’Aquila, Italy, in July. Neither was very helpful for consensus making.

Obama has asked Gordon Brown to host a new one to discuss the points that are deadlocking a climate change agreement. But MEF doesn’t have a formal diplomatic role. That’s why Ban Ki-moon is considering convening an extra formal meeting, also in November, to create yet another opportunity for countries to deal with the obstacles on the way to Copenhagen.

Ban Ki-moon is doing his best, but clearly the UN lacks the power and the authority to break the deadlock. The key players that can lead to a deal are indeed in the MEF. They are the pivotal veto players as far as climate change politics is concerned: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. They can reach and agreement and give the guidelines for official negotiators to seal the deal in Copenhagen.

UK Prime-minister Gordon Brown was the first to say he will be in Copenhagen to try to persuade reluctant leaders to seal the necessary deal. His presence could be a differentiating factor. But, as Ban Ki-moon has said to Reuters: “It is true, a fact of life, that without U.S. participation, this deal cannot be done.” He is also right to alert that “it seems it may be difficult for President Obama to come with strong authority (to Copenhagen) because this bill is still in the Senate.”

President Obama’s leadership in Copenhagen depends critically on what happens to the Kerry-Boxer bill. If he goes with empty hands to the Kingdom of Denmark, his presence may be ineffective. How could he ask any country to commit to take concrete actions to curb emissions, if he is not able, or willing, to unite the Democratic majority and use it to get a climate bill, that commits the US?

The Obama Administration seems comfortable with the fact that Congress will not vote the bill this year. It is a political mistake. Showing complacency with political bickering, or despondency with the majority’s inability to approve such an important bill amounts to relinquishing Executive leadership.

It is true that the bill and Obama are in a crossfire. Environmental radicals say the Kerry-Boxer bill is not enough. That it falls short of US responsibilities towards global warming. The high-carbon lobbyists and several Republicans say that the bill, and Obama are putting the US economy in jeopardy adopting actions inspired by terror science fiction. Both opinions, are wrong, and both lead to the same conclusion, already proved mistaken: costs are too high and benefits too little. There is no higher cost than the consequence of global warming.

This verdict of insufficiency serves as an alibi for other Nations to reject commitments of their own. India’s Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said that much: “the Senate bill, which calls for a 20 percent cut in emissions by 2020, fell short of what would be needed to get India to make binding commitments of its own at upcoming international climate talks in Copenhagen.”

Obama is under pressure to go to Copenhagen. The question is whether he will go as a sort of “motivational speaker”, or as a powerful political persuader. To have a leading role he needs the Senate to vote the Kerry-Boxer bill within the next two months. It depends on Obama’s leadership among the Democratic majority. As John Bruton, the EU Ambassador to the US, has said in a recent interview: we should “hope President Obama will be put in a position that he can go to Copenhagen in December because the U.S. has legislation passed or is near being passed.” He added that having the bill passed on the Senate “would enable the U.S. to lead by example on climate change. I’m really hoping a return trip to Copenhagen will be possible for the president.”

It depends as much on the Senators as on what Obama is willing to do. If the President sets aside other priorities and dedicates his agenda, over the next two months, to secure the Senate majority vote for the bill, he would return to Copenhagen empowered to lead the deal.

Those who seriously argue that the Kerry-Boxer bill is insufficient are missing the point. It may not fulfill all that will be asked from the US as a contribution proportional to its emissions to the global mitigation goal. The US will certainly have to do more in the near future than is written into the bill. But the bill is a sound starting point. This criticism fails to see the difference between having no policy and having a real policy. The distance between 0% and 20% of emissions reduction is much greater than the distance between, say 20% and 40%. The first one measures the shift from the status quo to a new situation, a new framework for action; from inertia to action. The second one, is simply the distance between an initial target and an enlarged one, within the same framework.

To be fair to the high-carbon lobbyists and the Republicans: they see this difference, and that’s why they try to thoroughly disqualify the bill.

A climate change bill can trigger a paradigm shift for the US economy, in the same way that a sufficiently comprehensive deal can be the beginning of a paradigm shift for the global economy.

Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia’s Earth Institute, writes that it is too late to seal a detailed international climate deal. He is right. But that’s not what Copenhagen should be about: a detailed agreement. It should try to get, as he says, a political framework. A political framework, however, that contains principles and defined targets that will serve as binding parameters for the ensuing negotiations of a detailed Protocol. We do have time to work out the details until 2012. That would give us two years (2013-14) to enforce new policies and adapt to the new Protocol. Meanwhile, less complex policies and regulations could be agreed upon and implemented along 2010 and 2011, already oriented by the principles and clear targets settled in Copenhagen.

I agree with Sachs, that “a range of real actions that can begin to tackle the global threat of catastrophe” is much better than one more political statement. We should fight for it in Copenhagen. However, a set of real actions, to be meaningful, do require a comprehensive agreement with clear principles, and effective, quantitative global targets. All relevant nations must commit to these principles and targets. Every country should start implementing the range of real actions that will allow each nation individually, and humankind globally, to move effectively towards meeting those agreed goals. Everything else could be dealt with in the upcoming years. But we must make no mistake: failure to reach a meaningful comprehensive and concrete agreement in Copenhagen amounts to a political and diplomatic disaster that will cost us all dearly. Especially if the US also fails to start implementing a serious climate policy within a very few months.

Tags: Climate Change, COP15, Global climate politics, globalwarming, Green, India, Obama