Greenpeace

Was Copenhagen historic or a failure (or both)? To discern the value of the Copenhagen deal through the din of spin, look no further than the 9% drop in the European carbon market on Monday, where confidence vanished following President Obama's "historic accord."

Last week, President Obama made an audacious effort to save what was a floundering process in Copenhagen. Unfortunately, his administration's claim of "historic accord" is little but spin. What the world was waiting for — the sinking island nations, the 300,000 that the World Health Organization says die each year from global warming, and the carbon markets — were binding agreements to cut carbon pollution, end tropical deforestation by 2015, and provide financing to assist developing countries in leap-frogging dirty development with clean energy.

What they got was business as usual. Earlier this year the House passed a deeply flawed climate bill that falls short of what the science says is needed to roll back climate change. The bill's contents were what the president promised in Copenhagen, and his words were met with disappointment the world over.

There is spin from all sides about just what happened in Denmark. Let me share my observations from someone with a global, not just U.S., perspective. The European Union, already actively engaged in the Kyoto Protocol, offered to cut its pollution by 20% and said they would go up to 30% if the U.S. put more ambitious goals on the table. The EU also pledged 30 billion euro per year for financing clean technology and other initiatives in the developing world. China, already outpacing the U.S. in the development and deployment of renewable energy technologies, offered to decrease the energy intensity of its emerging economy. India pledged the same.

The U.S. pressed China to allow its efforts to cut global warming pollution to be independently measured. China resisted the U.S. proposal to allow the U.S. to come in and inspect its industry, but felt that the negotiations with the U.S. were making progress on this point when it accepted an EU proposal on reporting and occasional checks. Meanwhile, the U.S. was punching loopholes into the pact.

The deal could possibly be sealed if the U.S. offered financing for developing countries and resolved the issue of transparency with China.

Enter Hillary Clinton, offering to somehow figure out how to give an unstated contribution of money from an unknown source to a $100 billion fund. In the process, she offended the Chinese premier, who was in such a fury that his negotiating staff was in a panic.

Enter President Obama. His speech, clearly written for one audience — the U.S. Senate — said three things to the Heads of State in the room: hey foreign leaders, we don't want foreign oil; hey China, even though we've been building trust and negotiating all year, I'm going to scold you for the benefit of domestic politics; and hey world: even though these are negotiations, I have nothing to offer. It's my way or the highway.

The President laid out what the U.S. had offered the world for the last eight months, budging on nearly nothing. He put forward a goal of cutting pollution by 4% below 1990 levels — about one tenth of what the EU offered. In fairness, he had little to offer. The combination of the President's hesitance to lead to overcome special interests to achieve his own stated objectives — whether on a public option in health care or pollution reductions of any respectable size — and the power of the coal and oil lobbies put the his negotiators in the awkward positoin of negotiating without very much to give.

The Chinese premier stormed out of the room and refused to meet with the President. Finally, the President secured a meeting and hammered out a deal that has the value of the carbon markets today: very little.

So few people had a clue about the "deal" that when President Obama later announced it the EU negotiators were still forging a deal and G77 delegates were talking in the halls about the perilous state of the Summit. Ultimately, most signed on, because if they did not, then their countries would not get a cut of a $30 billion package for clean energy and adapting to current global warming. A few brave countries, not wanting to be bought, said "no" to the deal. The historic accord was "noted" by the process, a nod to its existence.

The world still expects great things of President Obama and the US, but we cannot expect him to save the world on his own. We can expect — and must demand — that the president leads in recommitting the U.S. to the democratic UN process, doubles his efforts through the EPA and other methods to cut global warming pollution without the loopholes, clean air act rollbacks, impending nuclear disasters, and green light for coal that we see in current legislation, and approaches the negotiations as what they are — negotiations to save millions of lives, dozens of countries, 70% of the world's species, and a future that is worth passing on to our children.

This article was cross-posted on the Huffington Post.

President Obama is due in Copenhagen this week for the UN Climate Summit, where he'll join over 100 other Heads of State to hopefully hammer out an effective, fair, and binding climate pact. But there is another delegation here from the US, and although they have no official capacity, they are leaving their mark. We could call them the "Flat-Earthers," but they are really a collection of Congressional Republicans bent on preventing the US from committing to a global treaty and from having the US change its energy infrastructure from one that's fueled by dirty fuels to one powered by clean and green technologies.

About a half-dozen climate deniers are here in Denmark, according to Politico "to oppose plans for cap-and-trade legislation, express their discontent with the scientific community that researches climate change and call for the United Nations to halt any negotiations until the academic scandal known as "Climate-gate" is resolved."

They’re lead by House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence of Indiana who said:

In the worst recession in 26 years, in the midst of an academic scandal and questionable science revealed in 'Climategate' and in the absence of a national consensus about policies that would bear upon the category known as climate change, we gather here to say, Mr. President, don't make promises in Copenhagen that we cant keep.

Rep. Pence would do well to read the United Nation's Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD), which finds that a pathway to a low carbon economy can lead to big economic benefits.

According to the report:

There is no inevitable trade-off between climate change mitigation and development. On the contrary, climate change mitigation is a process of global structural change which offers huge economic opportunities for developing countries.

Pence and his allies could also listen to their party’s 2008 vice presidential candidate, who, when she was governor of Alaska, wrote her to constituents:

Alaska's climate is warming. While there have been warming and cooling trends before, climatologists tell us that the current rate of warming is unprecedented within the time of human civilization. Many experts predict that Alaska, along with our northern latitude neighbors, will warm at a faster pace than any other areas, and the warming will continue for decades.

The stakes here are too high for deniers to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that they can’t see what’s really happening to our planet. By committing to strong emissions reduction targets and by creating the cleaner technologies to power our world, the US can again lead the world. The US, traditionally the world leader in innovation because of our unmatched university and research institutions, is poised to show the way, but without Congressional leadership progress will be almost impossible. There's still time for the Flat-Earthers to listen to reason. Congress will again take up climate in 2010, and Pence and his allies can get on the right side of history.

More than two months before 9/11, President Bush was warned that al Qaeda was plotting an attack within the United States. He failed to act. President Obama knows all too well that chemical plants represent one of the country's biggest security vulnerabilities. But the question remains: will he learn from his predecessor's mistake?

In a July 29th speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, described the risk. "We may be better prepared as a nation than we were on 9/11," she said. "But we are nowhere near as prepared as we need to be...a key piece of this is securing our nation's critical infrastructure...These are commercial facilities, chemical plants, emergency services..."

Three years ago, as a member of the Senate, Barack Obama understood these vulnerabilities and the risks that communities near chemical plants face. Ignoring intense pressure from the chemical industry, he led efforts in Congress to protect people working and living near these facilities. "We cannot allow chemical industry lobbyists to dictate the terms of this debate," he urged his colleagues.

Here's a video of President Barack Obama arguing passionately for stronger chemical security legislation as a Senator:

Unfortunately, the chemical industry prevailed and Congress rejected comprehensive legislation that would eliminate these risks and instead passed a temporary but fatally flawed law. That law actually prohibits the government from requiring the use of safer alternatives to dangerous chemicals. Although this law expires in October, it will be extended for one year to give Congress and the President time to make things right. The next step for Congress is in September when the House Energy and Commerce Committee expects to vote on a bill that is nearly identical to those authored by President Obama in the Senate.

The real test for President Obama is now. Unlike his leadership on health care, the president has been deafeningly silent on an issue that he and Vice President Biden championed in the Senate. This same "I'll sit it out during the season and maybe break a sweat in the last minutes of the finals" approach to legislation is dangerously similar to his approach to global warming legislation. That strategy resulted in coal and oil lobbyists hijacking the process and undermining the president's promises for clean energy jobs, world leadership, and meaningfully reducing global warming pollution. Will President Obama replay his global warming misstep with chemical security legislation?

No one doubts the magnitude of the risks. As President Obama once said, "these plants are stationary weapons of mass destruction spread all across the country." Chemical plants that store and use large quantities of poison gases in populated areas are especially big risks. According to industry's own reports to the Environmental Protection Agency, more than 100 million Americans live in "vulnerability" zones surrounding just 300 chemical plants. A catastrophic release of a gas like chlorine would form a toxic cloud or plume that would be hazardous for up to 20 miles downwind. According to a U.S. Naval Research Lab report, an attack at just one of these plants could put 100,000 people at risk of death or injury within the first 30 minutes of the incident.

Since Sept. 11th, scores of organizations representing a broad range of interests, including the Steelworkers, United Auto Workers, Teamsters, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Sierra Club, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, and Greenpeace have been pushed for stronger security standards at the country's chemical facilities.

While in the Senate, both President Obama and Vice President Biden authored, spoke out for and voted for several bills that would have ensured the use of safer chemical processes. In a 2006 floor statement introducing one of his bills Senator Obama said, "by employing safer technologies, we can reduce the attractiveness of chemical plants as a target... Each one of these methods reduces the danger that chemical plants pose to our communities and makes them less appealing targets for terrorists."

A growing number within the industry agree. Last year, the Association of American Railroads, which is the largest shipper of poison gases and is very concerned about its liability, issued a statement saying, "It's time for the big chemical companies to do their part to help protect America. They should stop manufacturing dangerous chemicals when safer substitutes are available. And if they won't do it, Congress should do it for them."

But, time and again since the 9/11 attacks, the chemical industry -- led by giants Dow and DuPont -- has shamelessly killed attempts to improve chemical security. In 2008 alone, the industry dispatched at least 169 lobbyists to kill comprehensive legislation.

The industry finds any requirement to use safer alternatives objectionable. They insist on the right to use any chemical or poison gas they deem best -- despite the risk to people working, living and going to school in the vicinity of their plants. The cost of converting these plants is relatively small. A survey of the 287 chemical plants that voluntarily converted to safer alternatives since 1999 found that 87 percent did it for less than a million dollars and one-third a reported a savings. As a result, more than 38 million Americans are no longer at risk from those plants.

In June, Democratic leaders in the House introduced legislation to require high risk chemical plants to assess safer alternatives. It would also conditionally require the highest risk plants to implement the safest and most cost-effective processes where feasible. When the bill was voted on in the House Homeland Security Committee, Republicans offered and won four amendments on behalf of the chemical industry to limit or prevent the use of safer chemical processes. As the Energy and Commerce Committee prepares to take up the bill in September, similar attacks on the bill are expected. The ranking Republican on Energy and Commerce, Representative Joe Barton (R-TX), has long opposed this legislation. In 2003 he told National Journal, "I don't see a burning need to legislate."

Eight years after the worst terrorist attack on American soil in history, our most vulnerable targets remain at risk. Simple, inexpensive, and common sense changes, like substituting or reducing the amount of lethal gases stored on-site, would protect millions of people from harm. As Senator, Barack Obama took on the chemical industry to protect our health and security. We need him to take the same stand as President and tell Congress to pass the strongest chemical security legislation possible this year. As he said in the Senate, "We cannot allow our security to be hijacked by corporate interests."

For more key information on this issue, go here.

This post originally appeared on Huffington Post.

 

When 17 heads of government descend on Washington Monday for President Obama’s Major Emitters Forum, he will hear the same demand from each of them: that the United States take big action, immediately, to slash climate pollution – or risking putting a real global solution to the climate crisis at risk.

Even though President Obama was elected on a platform of delivering action on global warming, and has passionately reiterated those pledges since becoming president, he will have to overcome enormous skepticism from his international negotiating partners. At this summit, it is they who will be repeating Ronald Reagan’s maxim about Soviet overtures at the beginning of the glasnost era: Trust, but verify.

The presidents and prime ministers have good reason to doubt: for all Obama’s talk (and President Clinton’s before him) about the urgency of the climate crisis, the United States has done little to nothing to address global warming pollution, even as almost every other developed country has at least started down the road to a climate-friendly economy.

Of course, there are some sprigs of hope: the House Energy and Commerce committee is currently debating a bill that constitutes a good first step in the transition to a prosperous clean energy economy. But even that bill currently falls short of the 25-40 percent short-term cuts in U.S. pollution that scientists say is necessary to avoid the worst impacts of global warming: massive droughts, floods, extreme weather, and extinction of endangered species like the polar bear, not to mention a $3.8 trillion drag on the economy.

That bill, however, faces huge challenges: Republicans and even some Democrats with close ties to the coal industry are likely to try to water it down even further. And even if it makes it out of the House intact, it will be a big political challenge to pull together the 60 votes necessary to pass major legislation in the Senate.

If the United States doesn’t take action that matches its responsibility, it’s unlikely other countries will meet theirs: China will continue to build new, very dirty coal fired power plants, and tropical countries like Indonesia, Brazil, and the Congo will continue to allow giant agricultural interests to burn down their forests. And the climate will rapidly careen out of control.

But President Obama can single-handedly avert that fate with a little political hardball. His Environmental Protection Agency recently declared the climate change does indeed represent a threat to human health and welfare – giving the Obama administration the authority to unilaterally limit climate pollution through the Clean Air Act.

No negotiation with ornery senators necessary. No bargaining with committee chairmen seeking to protect some home-state polluter that makes big campaign contributions. Just an honest look at the science – and what it’s going to take to deliver future generations a living planet.  But so far, the Obama administration has danced around this authority and implied they’re only using it as a back-up in case Congress doesn’t act.

If Obama is serious about getting other countries to act in concert with the United States to meet this global challenge, that’s got to change. A firm declaration that he will regulate carbon dioxide to the maximum extent possible will bring developing countries to the table in a serious way.

It will also ensure that Congress passes a reasonably strong bill: if they don’t pass something commensurate with what Obama does through the Clean Air Act, he can just veto it. It’s hardball, sure, but it’s what it will take to solve this great crisis.

--Phil