The Prospects for Global Cooperation to Address Climate Change at Copenhagen and After
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Representatives from China, the US and all of the other countries of the world will soon gather in Copenhagen, where they will work towards an international agreement to address climate change for the period after 2012. While there has been enormous progress this year, many observers have begun to worry that countries will be unable to fully bridge their differences in Copenhagen. Taking both the progress and remaining difficulties into account, we are optimistic that the global community will succeed in creating an international structure for equitably, effectively, and collectively addressing one of the greatest threats to humanity. Progress will be made at Copenhagen, but for a number of reasons, hammering out the full international agreement may take into next year.
Reasons for optimism in the United States and China
If one looks back at the progress made in the past year, there are reasons for optimism. The governments of the United States and China, the two largest greenhouse gas emitters in the world, have both taken unprecedented steps to address their greenhouse gas emissions, and both have made clear that they intend to increase their efforts and expand their cooperation in the future to increase the action against climate change sooner and more effectively. In the United States, President Obama has made clear that addressing climate change is one of his top administrative and legislative priorities. Under the guidance of his administration, the House of Representatives in June passed a climate bill that would cap and reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and put in place complementary policies needed to transition the United States to a clean energy economy. The Senate is considering a similar climate bill at present.
China also has taken very significant actions to reduce the growth of its greenhouse gas emissions in the last few years. Chief among these is the goal to reduce energy intensity by 20% from 2005 to 2010, which has led to a focus especially on improving industrial energy efficiency. China has achieved a 10.1% reduction in energy intensity from 2006-08, representing an avoidance of several hundred million tons of CO2 emissions. China also recognizes the importance of clean technology to its sustainable development, and is rapidly developing and expanding technologies such as better wind turbines and solar PV panels, electric vehicles, and high speed rail, that are essential to creating a low-carbon society. Further, during the United Nations Climate Summit in New York in September, President Hu Jintao announced that China would reduce its carbon intensity by “a notable margin” from 2005 levels by 2020, as well as increase the share of renewable energy to 15% and increase forest coverage by 40 million hectares. These are important commitments, and demonstrate China’s intention to proactively address climate change.
The United States and China are also making strong efforts to find mutually beneficial ways they can cooperate to develop the technologies as well as the technical skills, knowledge and capacity to combat climate change and promote low-carbon growth. In July, the two countries signed a ‘Memorandum of Understanding to Enhance Cooperation on Climate Change, Energy and the Environment’ and their governments are in the process of determining areas for future cooperation in fields such as building efficiency, carbon capture and storage, and electric vehicles. They have also announced plans to establish a joint clean energy research center to coordinate research in these fields. Further progress is expected when President Obama visits China in November.
The road ahead for the U.S.
In certain respects, developing countries can legitimately criticize the United States for being slow to address climate change. After all, the United States signed but did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and it did relatively little to address its growing greenhouse gas emissions during the George W. Bush Administration, when most other developed countries were preparing the policies and systems needed to cap and reduce their emissions. Now that there is a President in office who supports efforts to address climate change domestically and internationally, one might expect that the U.S. could act quickly to implement the climate and clean energy policies that President Obama favors. However, it is important to remember that under the United States’ constitutional structure, the legislative branch is quite independent of the executive branch. The President must gain the support of a majority of the House of Representatives and three-fifths of the Senate in order to pass legislation, and he must gain the support of two-thirds of the Senate in order to ratify an international treaty. Thus, even though President Bill Clinton signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1998, the U.S. was unable to ratify it, because there was not sufficient support in the Senate. The current U.S. climate negotiators are very aware of the United States’ earlier failure to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and as a result they are cautious not to commit to specific emissions reduction targets in the treaty negotiations until it is clearer what targets Congress will include in domestic legislation.
Nonetheless, it must be recognized that the U.S. has taken substantial steps to address climate change in the short period since President Obama took office. The climate bill passed by the House would reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 17% from 2005 levels by 2020 and by 83% by 2050. When coupled with the dedicated financial support in the bill for reducing tropical deforestation emissions, the emissions reductions are equivalent to a 28% cut below 2005 levels (17% cut below 1990 levels). Under the cap and trade system, sources responsible for approximately 85% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions would need to turn in an emissions “allowance” for each ton of CO2 they emit, or pay penalties much higher than the cost of compliance. Companies could meet some of their emission reduction requirements by purchasing offsets from domestic and international carbon markets, but these offsets would be subject to certain standards to ensure that they represent real emissions reductions. The international offset regime would evolve from the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) framework towards a more sectoral approach and only for countries that take action on their own. The House bill also provides both dedicated funds and carbon market incentives for credible programs to reduce deforestation emissions, and it provides support for clean technology initiatives in developing countries that have taken actions to mitigate their emissions. Because adapting to a warmer world will be a major challenge for countries across the globe and in particular for developing countries, the House bill sets aside a dedicated source of funding to support the most vulnerable developing countries in adapting to the impacts of global warming and helping to minimize future national security threats.
The process for passing a climate bill in the Senate is already underway. A vote on the bill by the Senate environment committee is likely in November. Several other Senate committees are also working on parts of the bill that fall in their jurisdiction. These are critical steps towards debating and voting on the bill by the full Senate. There are already encouraging signs that the bill is beginning to gain the support of “swing” Senators – many from industrial and agricultural states – whose votes are necessary to reach the required three-fifths majority. Many groups in U.S. society have been organizing to voice their support for climate legislation, including environmental NGOs such as NRDC, labor unions, companies that accept the science and the need for transitioning to a clean energy economy, and ordinary Americans who want to protect the earth and promote U.S. energy security.
At the same time that it pursues new energy and climate legislation, the Obama administration has been actively using the existing Clean Air Act to officially label CO2 and other greenhouse gases a danger to public health and the environment, and to establish aggressive greenhouse gas emission standards for new vehicles. The administration has also signaled that it will use the Clean Air Act to curb CO2 emissions from new power plants and other large new industrial sources, starting early next year.
Although much progress has been made in the U.S. over the past 10 months, the Congress is unlikely to pass final energy and climate legislation before Copenhagen. While its committees are making steady progress on that legislation, as of today the full Senate is absorbed in overhauling health care legislation. Sufficient time for a full Senate debate on climate legislation is unlikely to be available until early next year. But we are optimistic that the legislation will in fact pass early next year.
The prospects for reaching an international climate agreement
When China, the United States, and all the other countries of the world meet in Copenhagen in December, they must continue to constructively work together to build a strong international climate agreement. At its core, there are six crucial elements necessary for achieving this:
- Strong leadership from developed countries with firm and aggressive emissions reductions targets in the near-term (by 2020) and even more significant reductions in the medium-term (through 2050).
- Willingness by developing countries to take actions that reduce the growth of their emissions in the near-term and lay the foundation for deeper cuts in the medium-term.
- Strengthened efforts to combat global deforestation.
- Properly designed, performance-based incentives from developed countries to encourage even greater developing country emissions reductions.
- Support for adaptation to the impacts of climate change for the most vulnerable, least developed countries.
- Strong provisions to ensure that all countries transparently “open up their books” and stand behind both their emissions reduction efforts and their commitments to help other countries.
In the last year, we have seen substantial progress on all these fronts. We see this as a clear positive sign for the upcoming international climate negotiations:
- Developed country targets. Most developed countries have put forward more aggressive emissions reduction targets for the years through 2020. The European Union, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand have all come forward with definitive commitments for deeper emission cuts. As discussed above, the United States is working towards significant emission reduction targets through domestic legislation. The targets in that legislation may appear more modest than those from other developed countries through 2020, but the U.S. legislation also includes mandatory steady and steep domestic reductions thereafter, culminating in an 83% reduction by 2050. While the U.S. may need until next year to complete adoption of this legislation, it too is putting forth serious reduction targets and tools to effectively ensure compliance.
- Developing country emissions reductions and deforestation reduction efforts. All the major emerging economies have provided strong indications of the types of actions that they will undertake to curb their global warming emissions. Like China, India has pledged to set in place policies to improve its energy efficiency and renewables. Indonesia and Brazil have proposed to curb their global emissions by strengthening deforestation reduction efforts. And South Korea, Mexico, and South Africa are putting the finishing touches on their efforts to curb their emissions.
- Efforts to support developing countries in taking further steps. Largely unnoticed, the U.S. government has taken some steps forward by submitting a finance proposal. It made some significant moves in between the developing country negotiation position and that of the other developed countries. Countries will need to agree on a framework that meets the needs of developing countries, and ensures that every dollar of investment from developed countries achieves the most reduction in global warming pollution. More will be needed on the technology front, as the current U.S. proposal is only a small step forward, but a positive one nonetheless. Specific funding pledges will be needed before we can declare success on this critical element of the Copenhagen agreement.
- Agreements on measureable, reportable and verifiable actions. Over the past couple of months there has been an emerging consensus that countries can benefit from having more transparent and timely information on their emissions progress. While there are differences amongst countries in how this measuring, reporting, and review should be undertaken, countries are at least talking about the same set of issues and the differences aren’t as large as they were a couple of years ago. The differences, although significant, can be overcome to find a workable solution that ensures that all countries know whether or not others are actually contributing to global efforts.
- Support for adaptation for the most vulnerable, least developed countries. World leaders have consistently recognized the need to support the most vulnerable countries in addressing urgent adaptation needs. Finding the resources are challenging for many countries, but as the saying goes: “where there is a will there is a way”. And a growing number of national security experts and military officials are stressing the potential global conflicts that could arise if we don’t help countries adapt to global warming. Developing the scale of resources necessary to meet this challenge will require continued efforts for many years to come, but we believe that “down payments” will be provided on this critical issue.
Although there are still differences that need to be bridged, countries are beginning to converge on the mechanisms and structure needed to strengthen global cooperation. And, although it looks increasingly likely that the U.S. will not have a fully passed climate law by Copenhagen, the Senate should be actively in the process of deliberating its climate bill at that time, with an expectation that the bill could be passed in early 2010. Given the actions and commitments by many of the countries around the world to proactively address their emissions, including China and the United States, the world is closer to reaching an international climate agreement than it has been at any point in the past.
The meeting in Copenhagen is a critical one to move the world closer to achieving our common goals of protecting our planet for our children and future generations. At a minimum, even if a complete and final agreement is not reached in Copenhagen, countries will need to agree on a strong framework for action and lay out a definite timeframe for firming up the commitments of all key countries some time early in 2010. By then, the United States will have had time to complete its work to pass domestic climate legislation, and China may have determined its own climate goals for its 12th Five-Year Plan. These actions and progress at Copenhagen will provide the momentum needed to bridge the remaining differences and make an urgently-needed global climate deal a political reality.
Too many countries are poised for action to let this opportunity pass. We must act on this important challenge! And now is the time to act!
David Doniger, Policy Director, Climate Center
Jake Schmidt, International Climate Policy Director
Alvin Lin, China Climate Program
David Cohen-Tanugi, China Climate Program
Barbara Finamore, China Program Director
Natural Resources Defense Council
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