Pres. Obama in Copenhagen to Negotiate Landmark Climate Treaty

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18 December 2009 :: J.E. Robertson

The Copenhagen climate conference is intended to round out two weeks of global negotiations with an agreement of some sort aimed at securing major progress on carbon emissions limits. It remains uncertain whether an agreement will be reached, so Pres. Obama’s trip is being treated as a “high-stakes gamble” in the US media. In fact, Obama will be one of 115 heads of government in attendance, and the White House’s statement that while his attendance cannot guarantee agreement, a decision not to could scuttle negotiations, seems the most level-headed.

190 nations have been involved in the negotiations and the second week has seen increasingly angry demonstrations outside the venue, with protesters surrounding the conference and negotiators effectively “locked in”, forced to stay focused on the matters at hand, while Danish police fired teargas at demonstrators. A number of international campaigns have sought to pressure world leaders to find common ground to halt or reverse climate destabilization; the pressure group Avaaz: the World in Action has gathered 13.7 million signatures, urging a “real deal now”.

Obama will also hold select bilateral meetings, with Chinese premier Wen Jiabao and Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, as well as other world leaders, “on the sidelines” of the climate negotiations today. Brazil and Denmark are among the other nations whose leaders are scheduled to meet with Pres. Obama, as the COP15 delegates seek to hammer out a viable and binding global commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

When Pres. Obama and Pres. Medvedev meet, their agenda will reach beyond carbon emissions and climate change negotiations, however. They are expected to discuss ongoing negotiations on a new nuclear arms reduction treaty. US and Russian negotiations have been meeting in Geneva, holding talks described as “intense”, in the interests of mutual nuclear disarmament. The plan will be a second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (StART 2), aimed at moving the world closer to Pres. Obama’s vision of “a world without nuclear weapons”.

More aggressive reductions may be in the works, with both presidents planning to return their negotiators to Geneva to work on an unprecedented array of nuclear arms limits, on categories of weapons never before regulated by non-proliferation treaties. Medevedev is also showing himself to be a different kind of Russian president. In his 2009 state of the nation address, he called for sweeping democratic reforms in Russia, calling Russia’s heavily resource-based economy “embarrassing” and “primitive”.

Pres. Medvedev also called for a new knowledge economy, based on human ability and know-how. He laid out a series of challenging social goals, like raising education levels and opening access to advanced technology and knowledge to the entire population, in hopes of out-competing the resource and manufacturing economies of the developing world and establishing the Russian Federation as a direct competitor to the US, EU and Japan as major centers of technological research and development.

The climate issue is one where Obama and Medvedev could again find common ground, if they are able to rally their respective legislatures to establish strict limits on emissions. Both nations produce, refine and consume enormous amounts of carbon-based fuels, making them potential rivals on climate policy, or potential allies. One key requirement of the Copenhagen negotiations is that every nation sign on to a transparency agreement that allows the international community to assess their progress on cutting emissions.

While China stands opposed to any agreement that requires it to participate in a system of transparent review of its progress on emissions or on how it distributes funds oriented toward emissions reduction, Russia may be more amenable. Medvedev signed his nation’s long-awaited “climate doctrine” before departing for Copenhagen, to lend “credibility” to his negotiating efforts there.

According to the Bellona Foundation, an Oslo-based environmental NGO:

In its essence, as published on the Kremlin website today, the climate doctrine is not an action plan to reduce greenhouse gasses produced by Russia so much as it is an acknowledgment of the fact of anthropogenic climate change, a call for further studies by Russia on how it and other countries will be impacted, and a call to take cover from what climate change will dish out.

So, Russian government officials are pushing it somewhat to say that the doctrine in and of itself will bring about the 40 percent spike in energy efficiency Medvedev will be promising other leaders here tomorrow.

While the Kremlin is not committing to a specific plan to reduce overall carbon emissions, the acknowledgement that climate change is anthropogenic (human-caused) and a commitment to increase energy efficiency by 40% across the Russian Federation, is an important step toward agreement on the principles under consideration at Copenhagen. While real transparency is difficult to expect from a Russian economy with so many problems of corruption and central control, if Russia moves closer to the US administration’s position, China may do more to strengthen a global pact.

Pres. Obama urged delegates and world leaders in attendance to understand that Copenhagen was not strictly an occasion for debate and complaint, but for action. He crisply intoned that “the time for talk is over” and urged concerted global action to forge an agreement that meets the needs of those nations most affected by climate destabilization and allows heavy carbon-burning nations to transition smoothly. He also was clear about his view that transparency has to be part of the climate agreement, in order to ensure fairness, the proper valuation of energy resources and ensure that dangerous activities are abandoned.

Obama had to alter his schedule dramatically, attending an emergency meeting of 20 world leaders, who seek to resolve remaining differences and salvage the elusive climate pact the conference was designed to create. There is speculation the negotiations could continue into the night and the conference be prolonged as the US president’s presence, along with that of other committed heads of government, implicitly demands a bold resolution.

Newsweek’s ‘The Gaggle’ blog rated the president’s climate speech on a number of points:

Taking the lead. No U.S. president has ever squarely confronted the U.S.’s impact on global climate, currently responsible for about a quarter of the world’s emissions. Obama humbly took his wraps, admitting that his country is the world’s largest economy and second largest emitter, and that the burden of a sweeping solution falls in large part to U.S. leaders. “America bears our share of responsibility in addressing climate change, and we intend to meet that responsibility.” Angry delegates from small developing countries have wanted an apology since the talks began. Could it have been stronger? Perhaps, but they still got one. Grade: A minus.

On specifics, Obama gets a C grade, and Newsweek raises the important question of his actual authority to establish climate-linked emissions-reduction policies, without action from Congress. MotherJones magazine, among numerous other sources, suggests Pres. Obama has the legal authority, if not the responsibility, to establish emissions-cutting policies, under the authority of the Clean Air Act, other environmental regulatory law, and multiple Supreme Court rulings, whether or not Congress signs on with any specific new measures.

On “calling out other polluters”, Obama was given a B plus and on “mitigation funding”, a B minus. The US is pledging $100 billion to developing nations, over 10 years, through a transparent process meant to be part of a global climate deal agreed at Copenhagen, to help them transition to a green energy economy and to adapt to the ravages of anthropogenic climate destabilization. Emergency negotiations were intense and have been described as “fruitful”.

Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Denmark’s prime minister, said of last night’s first round of emergency talks: ”We discussed how we can make progress and we had a very fruitful, constructive dialogue… for almost two hours,” while Hasan Mahmud, Bangladesh’s environment minister, said “After experiencing Bali, I anticipated that these talks would end late.” He added that “We don’t want to go home empty-handed. And if that means things running late, then so be it.”

Obama’s address at the Bella Center was delayed today as world leaders continued intense negotiations over sticking points on the unprecedented global climate pact being considered. By 11:45 am (1 hour and 45 minutes after Obama’s address had been scheduled to begin), the US, China and India were still negotiating new concessions on emissions cuts and transparency. Negotiations are now expected to continue into Saturday, but pressure is on not to close the negotiations until a substantially bold and sweeping new climate pact is agreed.

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