Greenpeace

Given that global warming pollution has officially fallen from the agenda of the Senate, legislative proposals on the table to reduce the political, economic, and environmental impact of the oil industry provide an opportunity for Congress to slightly vindicate itself. On Friday the House passed legislation that finally removes special protections that oil companies have received for decades, such as limitation on liability for the damage caused by oil spills, exemptions from environmental review, and the ability to avoid US safety standards altogether. In light of the BP oil disaster, passage of these policies should be a forgone conclusion.

The Senate is expected to vote soon, maybe tomorrow, on it’s own package of policies in response to the Gulf disaster. The House passed the bill 209 to 193. With an astounding 30 Reps not voting, including 21 GOP, it is possibly a good sign for the Senate vote this week, as it may mean many conservative Representatives felt it politically impossible to vote no.

At the same time, it was not a disappointment, but a relief, that the Senate Majority Leader concluded the Senate should take a break from proposals to cap global warming pollution. It is shocking that this announcement to end the effort to solve the world's most dire and pressing problem comes with five months left in 2010. However, the Senate level of ambition to pass effective climate policy has waned from weak to damaging. With the gluts of industry giveaways, the latest bill drafts proposing a carbon cap exemplify that the legislative effort is carjacked by polluting industry lobbyists. If they have truly stopped trying for now, Congress must not think that they can simply pick up where they left off, because they are nowhere near producing legislation to overhaul America's economy to become modern, competitive, and sustainable.

This election season, members of Congress owe it to their children's future to use their campaigns to build momentum for energy policy that keeps the planet livable. What this Congress will have failed to produce is a set of policies that contains three broad elements that dissipated from legislative proposals in the Senate.

First, Congress must campaign for slashing global warming pollution in a manner that is fast and furious. We need to do whatever it takes. This is not about balancing the required efforts and bail outs of polluting industry. It is about taking deadly serious the pollution that made 2010 the hottest year on record. It is about stopping perverse subsidies that provide seven times more public funding for coal, oil, and gas than for renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and geothermal.

Second, Congress must campaign for significant financial assistance to help poor countries adapt to the devastating climate changes occurring already, and to develop cleanly, so that our efforts at home to protect the planet are not in vain. International climate financing is part of a fair and reasonable commitment from the United States, a wealthy country with the greatest historical share of global warming pollution, and is vitally necessary for achieving an effective global climate change agreement.

Third, Congress must campaign to protect and encourage the use of all existing tools for reducing global warming pollution, which includes laws they passed decades ago like the Clean Air Act. The Clean Air Act is the reason why the administration can now require long-overdue pollution abatement technologies for the nation's dirtiest smokestacks, and why efficiency standards for America's cars will not be pitifully behind requirements in China. Members of Congress who are serious about stopping climate catastrophe will provide encouragement and support for other public officials, such as in state legislatures, the EPA, and the White House, to act quickly on this global emergency.

Some say that Bonn is going as well as the the Bali negotiations in 2007 were going at this point in the process. The negotiators may soon have a negotiating text ready for the next round of talks, happening in Bonn this August. The most troublesome negotiating text regards “land use, land use change, and forestry” (also known as LULUCF), which contains a loophole large enough to negate all the pollution cuts under Kyoto.

Wealthy countries are scheming to include tricky accounting to avoid reducing global warming pollution. Developing countries are working hard to fix this loophole.

While negotiators are making progress in many other areas, the LULUCF shenanigans beg the question: Is everyone negotiating in good faith?

Comparing Bonn to Bali seems far-fetched. The Bali climate summit resulted in the Bush administration agreeing to a 2-year plan to culminate in a global climate agreement covering all the key issues. The Bali Action Plan deadline was the meeting in Copenhagen last December, and we saw how that turned out.

The Bush administration was filled with climate deniers and probably would not have cared so much that Copenhagen failed. President Obama, on the other hand, cared a lot about the outcome of Copenhagen, and I believe him when he says he wants the US to be part of a global climate treaty. Nonetheless, the Obama administration’s perspective and strategy on the international climate negotiations remains curious.

The US government pointed to the Copenhagen Accord as a laudable outcome of Copenhagen, as well as the result of US leadership. But this Accord did not really fulfill the Bali Action Plan. All countries did not sign it, and it was not a legal document. There are two reasons why the US having praised Copenhagen relates to problems with the negotiating strategy now in Bonn, especially since they keep bringing up the Accord.

The Copenhagen Accord really was a summary of all the political progress that had been made since Bali. Large developing countries like China, Brazil, and India for the first time announced targets and deadlines for reducing global warming pollution and protecting forests. Wealthy countries announced significant financial contributions, for helping poor countries adapt to the effects of climate change caused by wealthy countries. It makes sense to laud these developments, as long as we point out the truth that they are far from enough. Praising Copenhagen lowered the bar for what we can expect from the US position.

Even more relevant to continuing negotiations in Bonn, in hindsight the second reason that praising the Copenhagen Accord is problematic is the US doesn’t really agree with it. Almost as soon as the negotiators were back in Washington, they were contradicting what they signed. The Accord called for significant climate finance to be housed in and distributed by the UNFCCC, which the administration argues now should be managed elsewhere. Even it didn’t conflict with what the US signed in Copenhagen, this is a problematic change of position. There are few venues Parties could agree on for equitably assisting developing countries deal with climate change – the World Bank being one of the less transparent and less green alternatives promoted by the United States.

There is now agreement by all Parties in Bonn that a green climate fund will be established. The US says they like the World Bank as a home for climate funding because the bank has a proven track record of being able to manage large funding streams, and that the US is extremely worried about accountability. This argument really is ironic since the US also is not providing much money, and that the administration is admittedly using double counting in coming up with fast-start finance. Insufficient climate finance from the United States is the biggest obstacle to a global treaty, a problem that – unlike a commitment to emissions reductions – does need to be solved by Congress. So far, the administration has managed to scrounge up less than half a billion dollars.

Since the US negotiators constantly refer to the need for legislation, it does not bode well that the latest Kerry-Lieberman ‘climate’ legislation, the American Power Act, includes little to no long term international climate finance, and nothing for reducing deforestation. In comparison, Norway just signed a $1 billion agreement for a moratorium on deforestation in Indonesia. Certainly this bilateral agreement is another reason that progress is being made in Bonn on deforestation. Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) is believed to be one area where all countries are very close to an agreement.

There’s currently a bit of a controversy broiling over how to describe the outcome of the Copenhagen climate conference, especially in regards to the so-called “Copenhagen Accord.” Some call it a good first step, some call it a complete failure.

But it is possible to discuss the Copenhagen Accord frankly while avoiding both the disingenuous spin that calls it a fantastic success as well as the unproductive criticism that labels it an abject failure. I see the Copenhagen Accord as a part of the broad global discussion moving us towards addressing global warming, which is exactly how the UNFCCC views it.

Some have hailed the Copenhagen Accord as a positive step forward for international climate negotiations. But there must have been some hard thinking behind those positive declarations that came from the environmental community. I understand and agree with the idea that we should give praise where it’s due to the US administration for their efforts to get commitments to reduce global warming pollution from countries like China, India, Indonesia, and Brazil, which now collectively represent about a third of global warming pollution.

However, praise for Obama and his administration’s work to secure these commitments has no place in a discussion of the Copenhagen Accord, as these commitments were mostly announced before the Accord was even established. So far, only Moldova and the Marshall Islands have used the Copenhagen Accord to announce pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and their share of emissions is about .03% of the global total.

There’s another reason to avoid the Accord in conversations about any positive influence of the US administration: US officials have stated that they don’t even agree with some aspects of the Accord. In particular, the administration has a contradictory position regarding the Accord’s mechanism for helping fund poor countries’ efforts to adapt to climate change. They want this fund to be housed outside of the UNFCCC, but the Accord clearly says this “green fund” will be within the UNFCCC. So I guess the US doesn’t want to “associate” with this part of it.

Many people have said that the Copenhagen Accord actually represents a breakdown of the international negotiation process. In this line of thinking, the Accord epitomizes a failure to have a real binding agreement in Copenhagen. Certainly the Accord represents something less than the US-proposed alternative to a global treaty, “pledge and review,” which was an outcome publicly opposed by most of the environmental community. (Essentially, “pledge and review” would have let countries state whatever arbitrary target they wanted, and then not even be bound to meet that, as they would be given the opportunity to “review” that commitment and adjust it to whatever they determine is feasible at the time of the review.)

One reason critics say the Accord represents failure is its textual incoherence: It was written to be a legal instrument of the UNFCCC, but that’s not how it’s turned out.

It is very important, in fact, to remember that the Copenhagen Accord is not a legal instrument. Most countries were absent when it was negotiated, and many may not ever officially “associate” with it. Today is three days after the January 31st deadline for associating with the Accord that was set by Secretary General of the UNFCCC, Yvo de Boer. But Secretary de Boer still has not heard from well over half of the member countries (USCAN has a great chart that tracks who has associated with the Accord and what commitments they've made here). Of those he has heard from, all who have submitted targets for reducing pollution have placed conditions on those targets. All of developed countries, with the notable exceptions of the United States and Canada, have said that a condition of their commitment is connection with a global, legal agreement.

My own position is that the Copenhagen Accord deserves neither praise nor lambasting. The thing I believe most strongly is that it should not become a distraction to continuing the UN-hosted negotiations toward a global treaty that includes the United States.

I “take note” of the Copenhagen Accord, as does the UNFCCC. Now let’s get on with the rest of the conversation.

It has come now to the police beating protestors. Tensions are extremely high at the Copenhagen climate talks. Security in the conference center apparently is afraid that their safe bubble will burst if they allow Friends of the Earth to remain inside. How ironic is that? I’m tempted to make this a rant post, but I will try to focus on one theme: negotiating.

Since before Barcelona, over a few weeks ago now, it seems there has been virtually no movement on the most important aspects of a climate agreement. How much will countries commit on paper to reduce their emissions? How much money will wealthy countries commit to help developing countries make sure global emissions reductions are sufficient to avoid catastrophe?

The purpose of ‘negotiating’ is to determine who should do how much – the idea being that negotiating Parties come to the table with at least some flexibility. Hence, one problem in most people’s minds. Some Parties (e.g., US) have come to the table with zero flexibility on how much global warming pollution they will reduce.

Complete inflexibility actually means that Parties are not negotiating at all – they are in Copenhagen just to convince all the other Parties to accept their position. So, the other Parties (e.g., EU), who have already stated some flexibility in their position (20 or 30% emissions reductions by 2020), effectively remain inflexible as well because the conditions for changing their positions rely on the flexibility of other Parties.

But the talks in Copenhagen should not be negotiations anyway. ‘Negotiating’ has a similar connotation as ‘bargaining,’ where everyone tries to get the best deal even if it hurts the other person. We cannot solve global warming with this approach. In actuality, it’s even worse than this! The predominant attitude is that a ‘deal’ can be reached where nobody has to sacrifice anything. This relates to our US climate legislation, which commits to spend zero public dollars on the worst problem of human existence. US policymakers have negotiated away any possibility that the legislation will work.

A saner attitude toward developing climate policy in Copenhagen is for countries to come to the table explaining how they can help solve this crisis. Think of it like your little brother has just fallen into a frozen pond. Who can run the fastest to go find help? Who has a rope? Who is the strongest and can try to pull little brother out? Who has ideas for making sure little brother doesn’t fall in again?

The EU is offering to cut 30% emissions, but only if others will do more? The US will not commit to reduce one whit unless China agrees to complete transparency? Right now countries are using lack of action as leverage to get other countries to do more. But let’s be clear that lack of action means more pollution, and therefore is a decision to cause harm. The approach that ‘I will if you will’ in this case is blackmail, hostage taking, and a game of chicken all at once.

This is not a climate bazaar, where everyone is trying to get the best deal. This is a global problem that everyone needs to come together to solve. Either we all get a good deal, or there is no deal.

 

 

A few days ago I gave a presentation here in Copenhagen on why President Obama should not extract his talking points for the international negotiations from the House-passed climate bill.

As we know, their weak stated target of 3% under 1990 by 2020 cannot ensure the planet sees peak emissions by 2015. Scientists tell us this is what we need to avoid reaching a tipping point to runaway climate disruption. However, the President and his delegates here in Copenhagen so far refuse to commit to a serious 2020 target or to say the US will sign something legally binding.

The administration so far has acted as if they are powerless in the face of a vacillating Congress. This despondence has led them to already speak as if it is a foregone conclusion that the serious work will continue in “about 6 months.” There can be no doubt they want to wait for the Senate to finish, but waiting for the Senate is a serious problem for two big reasons.

First, the developing Senate bill may become worse than the House-passed bill with respect to the weak 2020 target. (Both bills already cripple the Clean Air Act’s potential to address global warming pollution.)

Second, the Senate may fail to pass a bill altogether in 2010. The administration cannot and need not wait for new legislation. If the Senate fails to pass a bill, does the world have to experience the same stalling strategy from the US administration next year?

Let’s be completely clear: this decision to wait for Congress is completely political. It’s not because the President is legally bound to wait for Congress. In fact, he could rightly say that Congress already gave him the power to sign an effective climate agreement and to implement it.

Once I finished my presentation here in Copenhagen, Kassie Siegel from the Center for Biological Diversity gave a good explanation of why the President can act now. You can see her paper here.

In 1987 the Congress passed the Global Climate Protection Act (GCPA), which gave the President the power to negotiate and sign an international climate agreement. More importantly, the GCPA gave the president “congressional executive authority,” which many trade bills have utilized to bring the US into subsequent binding international obligations without requiring Senate ratification.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court in 2007 decided that, through its passage of the Clean Air Act, Congress also gave the administration the ability effectively to implement the obligations that would come with an international agreement.

So the question is: Why does the President insist on pretending he doesn’t have the authority to act on the climate?

 

Yes He Can: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/assets/binaries/yes-he-can-president-obama-s

Biz As Usual: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/assets/binaries/business-as-usual

Presentation: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/assets/binaries/business-as-usual-presentation

Image: Climate change demonstrations in Oslo, during the Peace Prize Ceremony. © Christian Åslund / Greenpeace