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In Copenhagen, The U.S. Realized That Global Warming Negotiations Were All About Keeping Industrial Jobs, By William Hawkins
By William Hawkins
HawkinsUSA@aol.com
Understanding how the Copenhagen Accord that ended the UN Climate Conference in December is being implemented is essential to understanding why the "cap and trade" legislation that narrowly passed the U.S. House last summer is stalled in the Senate. Business lobbyists are now rallying to shift the focus of legislation from curbing energy use to control climate change to promoting expanded energy production to support economic growth and jobs creation.
The message from Copenhagen was that the UN process has never been about the weather. It has always been about economic growth within a highly competitive international arena. President Barack Obama confronted this fact during his personal diplomacy leading to the Accord. It was a game changer for the president. With the United States trying to drag itself out of the Great Recession, a recommitment to material progress and the creation of "jobs that can't be outsourced" has assumed top priority.
The Copenhagen conference was supposed to be the climax of two years of negotiations that started in Bali. The goal was a new treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that will expire in 2012. The plan had been to impose on the "rich" developed countries a requirement that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions be cut by 25-to-40 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels. Such a drastic measure would have locked the developed countries into a permanent recession. Meanwhile, the developing countries, led by the BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) coalition, would not have had any mandated restrictions on their GHG emissions because they refuse to have any limits placed on their "right" to economic growth.
The two-track formula, where the developed countries (mainly the U.S., Europe and Japan) would have to do everything and the emerging powers would not have to do anything, was the basis of the Kyoto Protocol. In UN terminology it is called the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities." It is why the United States under President George W. Bush refused to participate. The Obama administration held to the negotiating position of the Bush administration. The U.S. view is there should only be one track. The Obama administration spent 2009 trying to persuade China to accept mandated targets. The BASIC coalition insisted on the Kyoto precedent exempting them from targets. The conference collapsed over this fundamental conflict.
Into the void stepped President Obama who negotiated directly with BASIC. The Accord, which the full conference only "noted" and did not officially adopt, put matters on a one-track basis. No country would have mandates imposed on it. Each country would be free to pursue its own policies in its own interests. It would be the wide open competitive world that BASIC wanted; only with the United States in the game too.
Though the Accord continues to demarcate the developed (Annex I) and the developing (Non-Annex I) countries, the practical obligations are now the same. All countries need only list with the UN their voluntary targets for limiting GHG emissions every two years, and they will monitor their own implementation as a matter of sovereign right. The 25-to-40 percent GHG reduction target is now only a "recommendation" for the developed countries. The developing countries have a lesser "recommendation," a 15-to-30 percent cut from a "business as usual" (BAU) projections for 2020. Such an imprecise and vague standard renders national reporting meaningless. Even though the BASIC countries "communicated" their targets by the January 31 deadline set by the Accord, the UN Environmental Program (UNEP) cannot project how much of the UN goal is being met by the Non-Annex I states. For the Annex I states, pledges are running at less than half the UN recommendation and, even then, will not likely be fulfilled.
Looking at the attitude of the BASIC countries expressed in their pledges should keep the United States from adopting measures that would cripple it in global competition. Brazil has pledged a 36-to-39 percent reduction from the BAU scenario. But its main policy is "an 80 percent reduction in Amazon deforestation." In the energy sector, the reduction ranges only from 6.1-to-7.7 percent with a focus on efficiency and alternative fuels. Brazil's more meaningful target is for 5-to-6 percent annual economic growth.
The targets set by China and India use their own standard outside the UN framework. Beijing will "reduce the intensity of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP in 2020 by 40 to 45 percent compared with the level of 2005." India has pledged a 20-to-25 percent reduction in "emission intensity" between 2005 and 2020. This means total GHG emissions will continue to grow as their economies expand. Chinese envoys stated this at the June UN climate meeting in Bonn. China and India will simply try to be more energy efficient, something they would be striving to do anyway.
Beijing's statement on the UNEP site declares, "This is a voluntary action taken by the Chinese government based on its own national conditions." The UNEP cites the assertion by Minister of State for Environment and Forests Shri Jairam Ramesh, "I have been saying time and again that India, of all the 192 countries in the world, owes a responsibility not to the world but to itself, to take climate change seriously. We are not doing the world a favor. Please forget Copenhagen; forget the UN. We have to do it in our own self-interest. Our future as a society is dependent on how we respond to the climate change challenge." Devoid of spin, New Delhi's response will be to put Indian development first.
The Copenhagen Accord did not create a competitive world where people strive to improve their condition, it just confirmed it. And in so doing, rejected the "limits to growth" model that the global Green movement had been pressing the UN to mandate. America must now act to protect its national interests as its rivals are doing. The Great Recession has given the public a taste of what negative economic growth means to living standards and career opportunities, financial stability and the survival of business firms.
Under the Accord, the Obama administration reported to the UNEP the GHG target set in pending Congressional legislation, a 17 percent reduction by 2020 from 2005 levels (which is only a 4 percent cut from 1990, the UN base year). The United States retains the freedom to decide how -- or even if, this goal will be met. The approach favored by Congress is no longer viable in the post-Copenhagen world. Imposing unilateral restrictions and higher costs on American economic activity will only cripple an already fragile national economy.
In his Feb. 3 address to State governors on energy policy, President Obama did not mention cap and trade, or any legislation. What he did say was, "I happen to believe that climate change is one of the reasons why we've got to pursue a clean energy agenda, but it's not the only reason. So even if you don't believe in the severity of climate change, as I do, you still should want to pursue this agenda. It's good for our national security and reducing our dependence on foreign oil. It's good for our economy because it will produce jobs. We can't afford to spin our wheels while the rest of the world speeds ahead." He also noted in regard to China and others, "they're very aggressive about wanting to make sure that these clean energy jobs are in their countries."
He went on to outline "a strategy of more production, more efficiency, and more incentives for clean energy. We're willing to make some tough decisions on issues like offshore drilling, so long as we protect coastlines and communities. We are moving forward on a new generation of nuclear power plants, although we want to make sure that they are safe and secure. One of the things that we're going to be talking about today is investing in the kind of technology that will allow us to use coal, our most bountiful natural resource here in the United States, without polluting our planet."
President Obama is treading a thin line. The Greens are a core element of the Democratic Party base. Many Green leaders have denounced the Accord as a failure and reject the idea of "clean" energy as a delusion. But there is a larger block of the public that gives material progress top priority.
In Copenhagen, the president was confronted with foreign governments that were working much harder to gain competitive advantages than to combat climate change. Reality has dictated a new course in energy and industrial policy from what was on the agenda when the Obama administration first entered office a year ago. Economic growth has regained its proper status as king of the hill.
-- William Hawkins is a Washington based industry analyst who can be reached via HawkinsUSA@aol.com.
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