Climate Summit in Copenhagen Depends on Fate of US Climate Bill
Jonathan Pershing thinks the Waxman-Markey bill is the key to success in Copenhagen. (image: iisd.ca)
As health care reform continues to dominate the Senate’s time, energy reformers are expressing concern that the Waxman-Markey climate bill may not be dealt with in time for the year’s biggest climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December. The meeting of world leaders in Denmark aims to reach a deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
Jonathan Pershing, the chief US negotiator at the UN climate talks that began in Bangkok on September 28, suggests that the success of upcoming negotiations to combat climate change rides heavily on the US’s stance on its own legislation. If the Senate could pass the climate bill before Copenhagen (or at least demonstrate that they favor passing the bill), there would be a much better chance that other nations would follow suit and cooperate with carbon caps and other regulations.
“We have a lot of things we want from countries,” Pershing told the Associated Press. “We want significant action from other developed and developing countries. … The less we can put on the table, the harder it is to achieve that outcome.”
According to the AP, any new climate pact must overcome hesitance on the part of all countries to establish concrete targets for emissions and stronger resistance of developing countries to agree to any deal without receiving billions of dollars of assistance in exchange. Whether developing countries can be persuaded to forego that demand, or if the developed nations of the West will have to concede that point remains to be seen.
Many leaders—especially those of developing nations—are skeptical about moving forward and committing to emissions goals until the first, big steps have been laid by rich, industrialized nations. To force them to adhere to the same standards as industrialized nations that are responsible for centuries of pollution is, in their view, to penalize them for their late industrialization while rewarding the countries who have historically been the heaviest polluters.
Specifically, all eyes are on the US, which failed to ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol after helping to negotiate its terms. Though President Obama and Chinese President President Hu Jintao of China pledged to take action against climate change at the UN conference in New York, the leaders of the two biggest greenhouse gas emitters must to do more than espouse rhetoric if they want to convince the rest of the world they’re going to cut back, too.
We’ve noted before that the roiling health care debate could overshadow the climate debate. Both issues are crucially important. Former President Clinton has said that the Senate can’t possibly tackle both at once. Will the Senate come to a decision on health care in time to tackle the cap and trade issue before Copenhagen? Increasingly, that favorable scenario seems slim.
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