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PDF versionClimate talks: hope on the brink of failure
U.S. puts forth new payment proposal
Dec. 17, 2009
Bolivian president Eva Morales addresses the conference
On Thursday morning, moments after the African nations complained that the U. N. climate change negotiations were going nowhere fast, U. S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared in a press briefing room announcing that the United States would contribute to a $100 billion international fund starting in 2020— as long as “all major nations” commit their emissions reductions to a binding agreement and submit those reductions to transparent verification.
By “all major nations,” she meant China, which has balked at any kind of outside verification of its climate change mitigation efforts.
With this nearly last-minute declaration, the United States changed the Copenhagen dynamic. For most of the two week conference, as the developing nations and European countries talked about setting up a global fund that would help developing economies contend with climate change, American officials were quiet about money, trying to change the discussion by focusing on China’s refusal to place its announced emissions limits within an international agreement and to accept monitoring and verification of its pledged emissions limits.
U.S. delegation members acknowledged to some of the environmentalists present at the conference that a refusal by the United States to make a specific commitment to long-term funding could be perceived as the conference’s deal-killer.
China’s special envoy for climate change, Yu Qingtai, told Reuters Thursday “Copenhagen is too important to fail,” signaling that perhaps China had decided to help pull the negotiations back from the brink of failure as well.
Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope said after these two developments played out: “It seems likely that the world could take a major -- if not final -- step forward in the next 48 hours.”
There are still plenty of issues at play besides the U.S.-China face-off — requested deeper emissions cuts from major emitters, a firm agreement on a limit for the expected global temperature rise, the legal nature of any agreement that comes out of Copenhagen or that is forged down the road. But the tussle between the two economic powers was clogging the conference.
If the American initiative prompts any Chinese movement, there could be space for the summit to produce some sort of imperfect deal.
The U. N. climate conference agreed also on Thursday on the procedure for further negotiations. Delegates decided to continue the climate talks in two tracks, one on the Kyoto Protocol, another on the Climate Change Convention.
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The decision came after the Danish Presidency of the conference had consultations on procedure with the delegates, starting Wednesday afternoon.
The developing countries, represented by Group of 77, have in particular expressed fears that the developed countries would “kill the Kyoto Protocol” in Copenhagen. The G-77 backed the new proposal on procedure.
The conference also agreed to establish a contact group between the two negotiation tracks, headed by the Danish Minister Connie Hedegaard. Negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol began on Wednesday afternoon.
The Danish Prime Minister and President of the conference, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, asked the groups to work on a short deadline.
Watch the NCR Ecology channel and the NCR Today group blog for updates on the Copenhagen climate conference.
Rich Heffern is an NCR staff writer. His email: rheffern@ncronline.org.
Deniars: all anyone has to do
Deniars: all anyone has to do is park near Gary, Indiana and watch the smoke billow into the atmosphere--and think that this phenomenon is replicated everywhere corporations have built factories, everywhere bombs explode, everywhere electrical power is generated.
Air is a very thin and easily-damaged envelope around the earth.
The issue is much bigger than Al Gore or Mr. Obama or Democrats and Republicans.
The time-honored tradition of America's proud ignorance and zenophobia continues to be fueled by the disengenous rhetoric of the rabble-rousing Right Wing, no doubt driven by the sanctimonious and self-serving hysteria radio shock jocks who continue to laugh their way to the bank.
There was a time when I felt that reason and logic would prevail over the irrationality of the strident nay-sayers; nay-sayers on climate change, nay-sayers on universal health care, and nay-sayers on public policy. I realize now that the forces of reaction take such pride in their ignorance-their homespun, puerile and juvenile approach to complex problems-that there is no longer the possibility of rational discourse on any of these issues, or any other issue.
When a obvious self-serving pundit like Lou Dobbs can gain traction, when a lunatic like Glen Beck can actually draw an audience, when a egomaniac like Limbaugh can continue to spew his venom under the guise of "truth," I realize that the decline of the United States, so often bemoaned by the Conservatives is, in fact, a sad possibility.
The snake oil salesmen of the right who continue to vend doom and gloom may ultimately win a political battle, but that Pyhrric victory will offer scant hope to a majority of hard-working, decent people who only ask for social justice, equality and reasoned public policy.
Global warming has everything to do with the haves' and have-mores' greed which is also why our military-industrial killing machine is bankrupting us. Radix malorum est cupiditas. No wonder, deniars, that you are so prevalent in American society.
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