An Apology

Obama Declares Victory Over CO2

Faced with the prospect of continued bickering over the shape of a new climate agreement to extend the Kyoto Protocol, President Barack Obama’s bold leadership has apparently saved the world.

The U.N. Climate Change Conference, scheduled for December in Copenhagen, was clearly headed for failure before Obama’s intervention. The Copenhagen conference has been considered by many scientists and political leaders to be the world’s final chance to agree on aggressive greenhouse gas emission cuts before the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period expires in 2012, leaving CO2 emissions unregulated by any legally binding international treaty.

Short term emission cuts between now and 2020 are widely regarded as the most important factor in determining whether the world will be able to avert catastrophic climate change, so the failure to adopt a new agreement now would likely make climate disaster unavoidable. Luckily, Barack Obama has publicly endorsed Danish Premier Lars Lokke Rasmussen’s proposal to give “the troubled U.N. climate negotiations breathing space by aiming for a politically binding agreement in Copenhagen. Legally binding details would be worked out later.” (Reuters - APEC nations back face-saving climate plan)

Obama explained the thrust of the proposal to press assembled at a hastily convened news conference at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

When faced with the prospect of failure, it was important to me and to the entire world to rescue the Copenhagen talks and redefine the situation in a way that made success possible. We have, I think, done that.

A lot of folks fail to consider the fact that CO2 emissions have already dropped as a result of the economic crisis. I was thinking about that in the shower this morning and came up with a way to leverage that emissions drop into an agreement at Copenhagen, so as soon as I dried off I called up Lars and we worked out this new plan.

What we are going to do in Copenhagen is adopt a political agreement that the U.S. will cut back CO2 emissions from fossil fuels by 5.6% in 2009. According to the Energy Information Agency, that’s how much emissions have already dropped due to the economic meltdown, so we don’t have to lift a finger to make that commitment.

The rest of the world will be so happy that the U.S. is finally doing something that they’ll agree to pretty much anything, so we plan to ask developing countries like China and India to take on the bulk of the greenhouse gas reduction burden. That will leave the U.S. free to carry on with business as usual.

Not bad, huh? Now we have a chance to succeed at Copenhagen. The rest is up to the developing countries and I’m pretty sure they’ll be tickled pink with the agreement. And if not, it’s on them. We’ve done our part.

Building a Successful Climate Agreement

For the last few weeks, politicians from developed countries around the world have been stockpiling lipstick - to spruce up the pig they are about to unveil in Copenhagen.

It has become increasingly clear that the Obama administration is undermining the push for a global climate deal and would like, instead, to scale back the expectations for the Copenhagen Climate Conference, while still finding a way to take a victory lap at the close of the proceedings.

The central issues have been the same for over a decade - developed countries have to clean up the mess they made and stop trashing the place. It’s a fundamental principle of fairness, right?  You break it, you pay for it.  And that’s exactly what has happened with our climate.  The developed world got rich on cheap energy and, in the process, dumped enormous quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.  Now that it’s time to pay the bill, the developed world, led by the Obama administration, would like to avoid drastic cuts in their emissions while demanding that the less developed countries pick up part of the tab.

That’s sort of like going to lunch with a glutton that orders everything on the menu and then figures splitting the tab is a good plan.  Right.

The Washington Post reported today that “Less than a month before international negotiators meet in Copenhagen with the ambitious goal of crafting a deal that will curb the world’s greenhouse gas emissions for years to come, the Obama administration is considering scaling back by endorsing a limited, short-term climate pact instead.”  The theory is that such a short-term agreement can become a building block for a future, more comprehensive agreement.

The possible decision to support such an interim agreement — which falls far short of what many European and developing nations envisioned when President Obama took office — is an attempt to keep the U.N.-sponsored talks from being viewed a failure, say administration and congressional officials.

They emphasize that the trimmed-back approach should not be seen as a withdrawal of commitment, but rather as a first step: “An interim, operational deal is not meant to be seen as a substitute for a real agreement,” Todd Stern, the U.S. special envoy on climate change, said in an interview. “It’s meant to be seen as substantive building blocks to a full, legal agreement, and perhaps the best chance of getting such an agreement.”

Well, Todd, I’d like to respectfully suggest to you and your boss that the best building blocks to a full, legal agreement are a few frank acknowledgments: that the developed world created the problem, that wealth directly correlates to carbon footprint, that the poor will always bear the burden of climate change since they cannot afford to shield themselves from its consequences, and that the blatant inequity of that situation constitutes a deep and unacceptable immorality.

It is not too strong to say that the wealthy are knowingly committing murder with their continued inaction to slow greenhouse gas emissions.

Global Exchange will be at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen with a Climate Justice delegation. We will post frequent updates between now and the end of the conference and we make you one unbreakable promise. We will tell you the truth.

My suggestion for Barack Obama is that he put the first building block to a full, legal climate agreement in place by making the same commitment. Take your victory lap when you deliver a strong and just agreement, not when you have failed.

Washington Post: White House considering shift to more limited, short-term climate pact

Hey Obama! Stop the Censorship, Okay?

It’s ALWAYS a bad idea for a government agency to try to muzzle employees.  It invariably results in even more publicity for the point of view being supressed.  Ask George Bush how it worked out to try to shut James Hansen up.

Obama’s EPA seems not to have gotten the message.  On Thursday, November 5th, EPA officials asked Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel, attorney’s in EPA’s Region 9 office here in San Francisco to remove a YouTube video critical of cap-and-trade legislation currently in front of Congress.

I don’t know about you, but when someone tries to keep me from seeing something I make it a priority to take a look. Here’s the video.

Saving Kyoto

I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a series of blogs about the Kyoto protocol before the Copenhagen Climate Conference this December. Third World Network has saved me the effort. This piece by Lim Li Lin is tremendous.

Why we need to save the Kyoto Protocol
Lim Li Lin, Third World Network

The plot

Some developed countries are plotting the death of the Kyoto Protocol. The stage has been set. Misinformation has been circulated to the media and public that the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. The December 2009 UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, so the story goes, is to agree or lay the foundations of a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol – the so-called “post-Kyoto” agreement.

The truth

Nothing could be further from the truth. As one senior negotiator put it, “The Kyoto Protocol is not yoghurt, it does not have an expiry date”. Only the first commitment period of Annex I (developed countries) Parties’ greenhouse gas emission reductions, which began in 2008, ends in 2012. All other provisions and elements of the Kyoto Protocol remain in force. This is the way the Kyoto Protocol is structured. Second and subsequent commitment periods for Annex I Parties are to be negotiated on an ongoing basis.

The truth should come as no surprise. For three years already (since 2006), the international community has been negotiating the next commitment period for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol in a working group known, quite fittingly, as the Ad hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP). These negotiations are scheduled for completion in 2009, so that the second commitment period can enter into force by 2013, thereby ensuring there is no gap between the two commitment periods. The negotiations are not about ending the Kyoto Protocol, but implementing it.

In Bali (December 2007), the international community launched a second track of negotiations in parallel under the ‘Bali Action Plan’ – The Ad hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA). This working group aims to enhance the implementation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (the framework agreement, under which the Kyoto Protocol sets out specifically how much Annex I countries should reduce their emissions by, and how). The AWG-LCA’s work is to be concluded in 2009, and the agreed action will be for “now, up to and beyond 2012”.

Two tracks, two outcomes

The AWG-KP is a negotiating track under the Kyoto Protocol. The AWG-LCA is a negotiating track under the Convention. There are to be two outcomes in Copenhagen, and they are to be legally and substantively distinct.

For the AWG-KP, the legal outcome is clear – an amendment of the Kyoto Protocol according to the mandate clearly set out in its Article 3.9 for the amount of emission reductions by Annex I Parties in their subsequent commitment period. Twelve proposals for amending the Kyoto Protocol have been submitted by Parties. These will be discussed in Copenhagen, where an agreed amendment should be adopted at the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.

For the AWG-LCA, the legal outcome is less certain. It is still a matter that is being discussed. The Bali Action Plan only specifies that an “agreed outcome” should be reached and a decision should be adopted in Copenhagen. There are a number of options ranging from a decision of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention or a set of COP decisions, to another international treaty or Protocol under the Convention. (Note: The term “ratifiable outcome”, sometimes used by the UNFCCC Secretariat and some countries, implies a new international treaty).

The plan

Some developed countries want to have one single agreement (or lay the foundations for it) in Copenhagen, merging the two negotiating tracks and outcomes. This will mean the termination of the Kyoto Protocol after 2012.

This position has been advocated by a number of developed countries including Japan and Australia. The United States has said it will not become a Party to the Kyoto Protocol.

The Conclusions of the European Union Council on its position for Copenhagen refers to a “single legally binding instrument” and emphasizes the need for “a legally binding agreement for the period starting 1 January 2013 that builds on the Kyoto Protocol and incorporates all its essentials, as an outcome from Copenhagen in December 2009”. In effect, the EU is calling for the end of the Kyoto Protocol after the first commitment period.

The reason

Initially, it seemed that the main motivation for this position by some developed countries is to force “major economies/emitters” or “advanced developing countries” – i.e. China, India, Brazil, South Africa etc – to also take on internationally binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, by dismantling the distinction between Annex I and non-Annex I countries and lifting some developing countries to (or towards) the level of commitments taken on by the developed countries. (The Kyoto Protocol only sets quantified targets for Annex I countries, and the category of Annex I countries is established under the Convention.)

However, it now seems that the motivation may also be for some developed countries to lower the level of their commitments or avoid taking on internationally binding emission reduction commitments altogether. This mirrors the position of the US, which has recently been insisting on taking on emission reduction commitments/actions on a unilateral or domestic basis. By this, it means that it will only bind itself domestically through national legislation to reduce its emissions, and will not commit internationally (as all other countries have) to a multilateral system of emission reductions. It also means that its national target will only be what it determines itself, and is not subject to negotiation with the international community.

The US famously withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, but it remains a Party to the Convention. Under the Bali Action Plan, which the US agreed to, it is required to take on comparable efforts to other Annex I countries under the Kyoto Protocol. (The details are being worked out in the AWG-LCA negotiations.) This is the concession the international community has already granted to the US, which should really just join the rest of the world in becoming a Party to the Kyoto Protocol, not least because it the biggest historical emitter of greenhouse gases and continues to be among the most polluting on an absolute and per-capita basis.

It may be that the US position has spurred a race to the bottom—instead of drawing in the US to join the rest of the Annex I countries though the “comparability of efforts” provision in paragraph 1b(i) of the Bali Action Plan, the special treatment of the US may be instigating a “great escape” from the Kyoto Protocol by the other developed countries.

The implications

This has very serious implications. The Kyoto Protocol is the only legally binding international law that sets quantified commitment targets for each Annex I Party to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. There is an aggregate target, which all Annex I Parties must collectively meet in a given commitment period, and an individual (or joint, in the case of the European Community) target for each country.

These specific targets must be met within a specified time period, and there are international compliance measures if the Parties do not meet their targets according to the timetable.

The Kyoto Protocol has many flaws, but the prospect of losing the only international treaty that requires specific amounts of emission reductions by Annex I Parties, with a binding timetable and compliance measures is very dangerous, especially since there is no better alternative in place and the prospects of achieving this seem increasingly slim.

A failure to agree on subsequent commitment periods is a violation of international law. Under the Kyoto Protocol, Parties are clearly bound to establish second and subsequent commitment periods for Annex I Parties. Article 3.9 provides that,

“Commitments for subsequent periods for Parties included in Annex I shall be established in amendments to Annex B to this Protocol, which shall be adopted in accordance with the provisions of Article 21, paragraph 7” (emphasis added).

These are existing treaty obligations. Failure to comply with these provisions by failing to agree a second commitment period would be a breach by all Parties to the Kyoto Protocol - not merely Annex I Parties - of their legally binding obligations.

Under the single new agreement that some developed countries are proposing, the nature of the commitments may be different – nationally binding targets, as opposed to internationally binding targets. This would be a drastic downgrading of international disciplines, and would take the international climate change regime many steps backwards.

In addition, the new regime being proposed appears set to lock in very low levels of ambition. In the AWG-KP, Annex I Parties are promoting so-called “bottom-up” pledges that add up to aggregate targets that are far below what science and equity requires. Developing countries on the other hand are insisting on principled and scientific approaches to determining the level of aggregate emission reductions required. This aggregate figure should then be apportioned among the Annex I Parties. A system of national targets may mean that countries only do what they are politically prepared to do, instead of what science and equity requires, and this would not even be legally binding internationally.

If the Kyoto Protocol is abandoned and a single new agreement negotiated, this will mean risking that the new international climate change treaty may take many years to enter into force or may never enter into force, if insufficient countries ratify it. The negotiations will be more complicated and controversial, and could also likely take a very long time. This is something that the planet and the poor cannot afford.

The international compliance regime under the Kyoto Protocol also faces an uncertain future. While it can always be further improved, the risk is now the possibility of no longer having a system of international compliance.

The process

Legally, it is difficult to terminate the Kyoto Protocol because all Parties have to agree by consensus to end it. So what are the other options available to those who are plotting the Kyoto Protocol’s untimely demise?

Procedurally, developed countries are trying to merge the two working groups. They push for this in a step-by-step manner, asking for closer cooperation, coordination and collaboration, and for coherence and comprehensiveness. Rather than advance discussions under the AWG-KP they seem to be stalling them, while accelerating discussion under the AWG-LCA. At the same time, they are systematically transferring issues of interest to them from the Kyoto Protocol and the AWG-KP into the AWG-LCA.

For developed countries, there are a number of possible scenarios (which are not mutually exclusive). One is to formally collapse the AWG-KP into the AWG-LCA track, thereby effectively ending the negotiations for a second commitment period for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol and continuing with negotiations under the AWG-LCA track.

A second scenario is to fail to agree a further commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol. This would be a breach by all Parties of their obligations under Article 3.9 of the Kyoto Protocol to establish subsequent commitments periods for Annex I Parties. In this case, the Kyoto Protocol remains on the books but risks becoming an “empty shell”.

A third scenario is to seek a legally binding outcome under the AWG-LCA with the goal of superceding the Kyoto Protocol. If the elements of the Kyoto Protocol are moved into the AWG-LCA, and are discussed and concluded as part of a legally binding instrument under the Bali Action Plan process, then the Kyoto Protocol may effectively be rendered dead or meaningless. The developed countries would have effectively cherry-picked the elements of the Kyoto Protocol that they like, such as the market mechanisms, and transposed them into a new legal instrument.

On ‘Termination or suspension of the operation of a treaty implied by conclusion of a later treaty’, Article 59 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969) states that -

“1. A treaty shall be considered as terminated if all the parties to it conclude a later treaty relating to the same subject matter and:

(a) it appears from the later treaty or is otherwise established that the parties intended that the matter should be governed by that treaty;”

This means that a later treaty on the same subject matter could have the effect of terminating the earlier treaty.

The US?

The vexing question of the US, which is not a Party to the Kyoto Protocol, and which does not therefore have a quantified emission reduction commitment, is addressed in the Bali Action Plan in paragraph 1b(i) – there should be “comparability of efforts” between what it does under the Convention, and what other Annex I countries do under the Kyoto Protocol.

Developing countries have been insisting that the quantified Annex I Parties’ emission reduction commitments must be determined in the AWG-KP, as this is an issue under the Kyoto Protocol. The AWG-LCA should only then discuss comparable efforts by the US to the commitments determined in the AWG-KP for Annex I Parties.

The conclusion

The continued survival of the Kyoto Protocol is of the utmost importance, especially since there is no better alternative in place. In this regard, Copenhagen must deliver a legally binding outcome in the form of an amendment to the Kyoto Protocol for the second commitment period for Annex I Parties. This is the single most important component of the Copenhagen outcome.

Failure by Annex I Parties to agree to deep and binding targets under the Kyoto Protocol signals a departure by them from its legally binding provisions, from the agreed negotiating mandate, and from the legitimate expectation of all countries that have participated in good faith. It risks a “race to the bottom” towards a climate regime that lacks a scientifically sound aggregate target for Annex I Parties, internationally binding individual targets, and an international compliance system. All indications are that a far less robust climate regime is being drawn up by the developed countries.

At a time when the world needs and demands a fair and effective response to climate change, developed countries are walking away from the Kyoto Protocol, the only legally binding international law that sets quantified commitment targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in aggregate and for each Annex I Party. At the same time, they are passing the burden of mitigation and adaptation onto developing countries, denying their historical and current responsibilities. This is neither effective nor fair.

The Climate Convention calls on developed countries to exercise leadership in tackling climate change. For success in Copenhagen, developed countries must do so by honoring their legally binding commitment for a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, and by honoring their other commitments under the Convention relating to adaptation, finance and technology. They must implement their existing commitments, not shy away from them.

Success in Copenhagen and beyond requires an effort to bridge the implementation gaps that have undermined effective action and left a legacy of mistrust among the Parties. Nothing less than full implementation by developed countries will be required to secure success in Copenhagen and to provide the foundation for a genuine partnership among all countries to curb climate change and to achieve the ultimate objectives of the Convention.

West Coast Mobilization for Climate Justice

Waxman-Markey Passes 219-212

It would be great to feel like celebrating the 219-212 House of Representatives vote to pass the Waxman-Markey climate bill. But I don’t. The bill has serious problems and will probably get much worse in the Senate since conservative states hold more power there.

Our “progressive” leadership in the House behaved about as undemocratically as possible. No amendments were allowed without the approval of the leadership, so here are some of the amendments that were not considered.

• Restore EPA’s authority to regulate CO2
• Control financial speculation
• Reduce offset quantity
• Improve offset quality
• Ban international offsets
• Encourage allowance efficiency
• Strengthen renewable electricity standards
• Install solar panels on federal buildings
• Federal procurement of electric and hybrid vehicles
• Remove waste incineration from renewable definition

Pretty bad, huh. But here’s the capper. Roughly 25% of the bill’s content, 300 pages, was added at about 3am on the day of the vote, so most Members of Congress weren’t quite sure what they were voting on.

Here’s the sad truth. Lobbyists were all over Capitol Hill making sure that the financial interests of their employers were well served by Waxman-Markey. The 1200-plus pages that it now runs are more a reflection of the deals made than the process of controlling carbon. When bills get this complex, the people do not win.

Waxman-Markey’s progress through the House made it crystal clear that aggressive climate action will require getting the money out of American politics. Check out George Monbiot’s article, The Failed State of US Climate Change Policy, on this same subject.

If you’re ready to take action to reduce the influence of money on government, you may be interested in Public Citizen’s Fair Elections campaign.

Business as usual for lobbyists means inadequate action to prevent climate catastrophe.
 

Who’s On First?

Most of the climate geeks I know, including me, are obsessed with tracking the progress of either the Waxman-Markey climate bill (ACES), or the international climate negotiations leading up to the big United Nations Climate Change Conference this December in Copenhagen, or both.

We read everything we can get our hands on, talk to each other about the latest developments, and speculate about the implications. We devour information about the latest science on human-caused climate change and try to figure out how to overcome the depression that the latest science often triggers.

The amount of material produced on climate issues is huge. That’s a good thing since it is indicative of the importance attached to the issue. But it also means it has become impossible for any of us to know everything we want and need to know.

The only way to deal with an overload of information like the climate issue produces is to skip some stuff. One of the easiest and most effective ways to do that is to pick the smartest folks talking and let them do some of the filtering for you. That’s clearly better than listening to dummies, but it has some real dangers.

When we identify the sources we trust to tell us the truth about what’s going on with climate, what we’re really doing is choosing the information and views we will ignore. And unsurprisingly, many of us are listening to the same smart people. As we talk to each other and to our supporters, the views expressed begin to appear more and more like there is overwhelming consensus when what is actually occuring is more like the reverberation of sound in an echo chamber.

Say It Ain’t So, Joe

Joe Romm is a Clinton administration Energy Department alumnus, the author of Hell and High Water, and one of the smart folks that I listen to about climate issues.  He writes the Climate Progress blog, the “go to” source for good climate analysis and solid climate politics commentary.  Because he’s both smart and reasonably progressive, a lot of folks I know pay attention to and repeat his arguments. You can’t expect more than solid mainstream liberalism from him, but he’ll reliably take you as far down the progressive path as liberalism is allowed to go.

Joe posted a Climate Progress article recently that was quite remarkable. I don’t think it included a single thing that I could agree with. So, on this occasion at least, I’d like to try to muffle the echoes just a bit and push an opposing point of view. He’s still a good guy and you should read his stuff, but he’s about as wrong as it is possible to be about the usefulness of the EPA in controlling CO2 and about the importance of passing climate legislation prior to the international climate negotiations coming up this December in Copenhagen.

In his Climate Progress piece, Joe tries very hard to convince us that ACES needs to be passed right now, that the failure to do so will have devastating implications for the international climate negotiations, and that the EPA can’t effectively be used to control CO2 emissions if the cap and trade portion of ACES is not passed. Let’s go through Joe’s points one by one.

First, whatever Obama might do with the EPA — and it would take many, many years to put in place a program that could substantially reduce existing emissions (see below) — could be undone by a subsequent administration, which is not true of climate legislation.

Waxman-Markey will also take years to kick in, so even if true, there’s no advantage to ACES on that score. And who cares if a subsequent administration could do something different? No one is suggesting the EPA is a long term solution. The EPA could absolutely stop the permitting of new coal plants right now, while we are designing a better approach than the cap and trade system in ACES. ACES, on the contrary, gives a green light to new coal through 2020.

Second, whatever Obama might do with the EPA, the rest of the world would know that the United States political system is incapable of agreeing to binding targets, so that would certainly be all-but fatal to the international negotiation process or a bilateral deal with China.

Why would the international community give a hoot whether Obama chooses to meet targets negotiated in Copenhagen with a shovel or a hoe? The EPA and cap and trade are just tools. Frankly, it’s more likely that the weak targets in Waxman-Markey will place an outer limit on what can be negotiated in Copenhagen and kill the deal because of their clear inadequacy.

Third, if Congress rejects this bill, then, domestically, legislative action on greenhouse gas emissions will be dead for a long time.

Does the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2008 ring a bell? How about America’s Climate Security Act of 2007? And, of course, this year we have Waxman-Markey. We’re getting a cap and trade bill every year. And we will continue to get climate legislation every year until we get it right. It’s more dangerous to pass a weak cap and trade bill than to kill it precisely because we are likely to consider the job done instead of coming back to it year after year.

Fourth, the EPA authority is most easily translated into regulating emissions from new sources.

Exactly. Which is why the EPA can do an effective job of stopping new coal right now and should be allowed to do its job. Waxman-Markey, instead, eliminates the EPA’s ability to regulate new coal. If you want to send an email to Congress about keeping the EPA’s ability to regulate CO2 intact, we’ve made it easy to take action.

As Center for American Progress chief John Podesta explained in a recent Berlin speech, “it would be difficult for the EPA to enact a CO2 cap and trade without congressional cooperation.”

Well, to start with this is pretty much irrelevant since nobody wants the EPA to try to build a cap and trade system. But the Podesta reference is interesting. John Podesta is the head of the Center for American Progress and he brought Joe Romm on board as a Senior Fellow. Joe’s job at the Center for American Progress is basically to think and write about climate in the Climate Progress blog. Here’s the full context for the John Podesta quote Joe used.

But the boldest shot across the bow comes from a recent EPA decision to classify carbon dioxide emissions as a threat to public health—the so-called endangerment finding. This ruling has enormous implications, since it makes CO2 emissions eligible to be regulated under the Clean Air Act, as substances like SO2 already are, under a smaller cap and trade program. Although it would be difficult for the EPA to enact a CO2 cap and trade without congressional cooperation, the finding means that legally, the Administration has the authority to regulate carbon emissions under existing law – which is not a message gone unheard by opponents of climate change policy.

Podesta clearly regards the EPA’s legal authority to regulate CO2 as very significant. It may not be the tool best suited to the regulation of CO2, but it has the great advantage of being able to stop new coal plants dead right now. And in our current situation coal is our most significant problem.

Joe sums up his argument that Waxman-Markey must be passed, warts and all.

So I repeat my assertion that Waxman-Markey is the only game in town. If it fails, I see no chance whatsoever of stabilizing anywhere near 350 to 450 ppm since serious U.S. action would certainly be off the table for years, the effort to jumpstart the clean energy economy in this country would stall, the international negotiating process would fall apart, and any chance of a deal with China would be dead.

I think the best way to answer that assertion is with another quote from John Podesta’s speech.

The second point I want to make is that the United States is ready, willing, and able to negotiate an aggressive international climate treaty at Copenhagen, in 2009. I want to be clear—we are not tied, and the outcome of Copenhagen is not tied, to the timeline on any single piece of domestic U.S. legislation. The administration has a variety of tools at its disposal and, as I have demonstrated, is clearly keen to use them. Those that try to pin a successful outcome in Copenhagen to the U.S. legislative process are mistaken, and should focus on ways to move forward and find solutions rather than focus on ways to hang up the debate.

So I’m done picking on Joe Romm now. He really is one of the best sources around on climate issues, even though he went seriously off the rails on this one.

Here’s a thought for how to proceed with climate legislation prior to the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December. Let’s pull cap and trade out of the legislation for this congressional session and work on the remaining parts of the bill. There is a ton of good stuff there that, with a little bit of work (like beefing up the renewable electricity standard, removing nuclear and waste incineration from the renewable category, and tightening up the definition of biomass), could be acceptable to progressives and pass with ease.

Nearly all of the distasteful bargains with the devil are in the section on cap and trade. Let’s not make them.

Instead, why don’t we go to Copenhagen with the knowledge that we have multiple tools at our disposal. Let’s not impose targets that are too weak in advance of the international negotiations. Instead, let’s allow the particulars of a strong and fair international deal negotiated in Copenhagen this December to guide our domestic legislation.

Now that’s a message I’d like to get into the echo chamber.

Clean Technology

I received an invitation recently to participate in a discussion with “clean tech” leaders and congressional staff about how to get green technologies into the hands of developing world countries through mechanisms associated with an international climate agreement. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to talk about this because it should be a key element in the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen this December.

It is tempting, though, to remind everyone that the cleanest technologies available to us are rakes, shovels, hoes and other human-powered farming implements.

That may seem like a stupid comment, but it’s actually quite important.

Small-scale farming by peasants throughout the world can be more effective at feeding the world and sequestering carbon than large-scale, industrial farming.  It is far preferable for peasants to control their own destiny on land they own and farm than for them to be forced off their land to become poor and chronically unemployed urban slum dwellers.

It’s also very important that indigenous peoples be left in control of their lands.  Doing so will ensure that their lands remain effective carbon sinks.

While clean technology is clearly a necessary replacement for the fossil fueled energy sector, it’s a mistake to always think in terms of technical solutions.  The clean technology solutions we have in mind are often more about generating profits for domestic companies than providing real benefits for the rest of the world.

When we discuss climate solutions, it’s important to remind ourselves that the best solutions leave people with the power to control their own destiny and generate their own solutions.

Who’s Unrealistic???

There is spreading pessimism about the prospects for a global climate deal in Copenhagen this December.

Todd Stern, the US Special Envoy on Climate Change, just returned from a trip to China, where he had high level discussions about forging the basis for an agreement with the Chinese. There was no substantive progress to report.  I don’t know what he expected, but it remains crystal clear what it will take to arrive at an agreement. The US just doesn’t seem interested in doing what it takes.

Here’s the 411…

The industrialized world created this mess. We’ve been dumping CO2 into the atmosphere for 150 years, like it’s our own personal garbage can. The developing world has started to do the same, but just recently. That makes about 3/4’s of the problem the responsibility of the industrialized countries. China figures that makes the financial responsibility primarily the industrialized world’s instead of the developing world’s.

Sounds reasonable to me. Unfortunately, that’s not the way our government, or the EU, or Japan, or Australia sees it. And that means impasse.

If we want a deal, we’re going to have to get over it and meet our responsibility head on. Until that happens, all the happy talk in the world isn’t going to change things.

Here’s an interesting quote from Bruce Braine of the International Emissions Trading Association.

It is going to be really tough to get the Chinese to make significant concessions by Copenhagen. There seems to be a lack of realism in the developing world about what the US can achieve at home.

Here’s a couple of clues, Bruce. Science doesn’t care what you or anyone else thinks can be realistically achieved in the US, and it isn’t the Chinese that need to make the significant concession.