EPA’s ruling a new factor at COP15 talks

The announcement by EPA’s administrator, Lisa Jackson, that the agency has finally ruled greenhouse gases posed a danger to human health and the environment has already become a factor in the background talks at COP15, in Copenhagen.

Sergio Abranches

The ruling greatly strengthens the Federal Government capabilities to mitigate GHG emissions. One of the main lines of the off the record comments by negotiators, observers, and analysts in Copenhagen on the first day of the conference was the relatively weak contribution by the US to the global mitigation efforts. This conclusion was based on the White House’s announcement of the quantitative targets president Obama would bring to the negotiation. The17% reduction over 2005 emissions was considered too small compared to EU’s, or even most of the emerging economies’ proposals.

A negotiator told me that the US target would be a factor for his country’s standing in the climate talks. His government will carefully ponder whether the US is making a contribution at the level considered necessary from large developed emitters. If not, they’ll downsize their own commitment.

EPA’s announcement led to immediate reactions. All parties are assessing the agency’s capability to move beyond the targets to be voted by Congress that are serving as a guideline for President Obama’s own commitment.

The general opinion is that EPA’s mandate is a broad one, and has been reinvigorated by the Supreme Court’s decision requiring the agency to investigate whether greenhouse gases were a danger to the human health and the environment and take action accordingly.

EPA’s ruling might give the US Federal Government a different route to join the global endeavor to curb carbon emissions, using its own autonomous means of regulation.

The US government has obviously timed the announcement to coincide with the opening of COP15’s talks. And it got the full desired effect.

There is much side talks, maneuvering and political wrestling outside the formal trek of the conference, and EPA’s ruling adds new data to these political moves preceding the moment when decisions will begin to take shape.

COP is not only multilingual. It has its own language. It divides the official world, for instance, between the “diplomats” and the “politicians”. The diplomats have the stage for most of the meeting, until the last day, when the politicians arrive. One cannot be effective without the other. But the politicians have not only the final word. They can modify long matured diplomatic decisions on the spot. This ability is a source of both risk and hope.  Right now, the bets along the corridors of the Bella Center, where COP15 takes place, take the politicians more as a source of hope, than risk.