Today's headlines are full of the news that President Bush is "unveiling a new climate strategy." If your immediate reaction is cynicism, well ... looks like you learned something over the last seven years. Let's look a little closer.
In a speech today, Bush said he wants to convene a series of meetings of the 15 major GHG emitting countries to hammer out "global emissions goals."
To give credit where it's due, there is considerable symbolic significance to the news that the U.S. is shifting from a stance of truculent foot-dragging to active engagement. Perhaps he's desperate for a PR boost, or perhaps he's just realized the pressure is too great to keep fighting directly, but for whatever reason, Bush's rhetorical shift sends a welcome if long overdue signal. Unfortunately, the shift is only rhetorical.
Take the series of meetings. You'll recall that the international community has already been holding a series of meetings on climate change, ever since 1995, under the unwieldy rubric of Conferences of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Just last November, COP-11 was held in Montreal. It was marked, as the previous COP meetings have been, by U.S. intransigence.
The G8 summits have struggled to address climate change as well. Indeed, Tony Blair tried to make climate change a top agenda item for 2005's G8 summit; he even flew to D.C. to beg for Bush's support. But that summit was marked by ... U.S. intransigence.
Then there was the 2005 Davos World Economic Forum, where Blair again begged Bush to move on climate change. Again ... intransigence. And that's not all. Virtually every international summit or meeting of the last few years has been marked by urgent concern over climate change and a refusal by the U.S. to engage in good-faith efforts to tackle it.
So what will be different about these meetings? Here's a couple of key facts to keep in mind:
- The meetings will be convened by the U.S. and held on U.S. territory; the U.S. will control the agenda.
- Merkel and Blair want the G8 countries to commit to immediate action; the talks Bush proposes will run through to the end of 2009. That's a lot of talk on a subject that's been talked to death.
- The U.S. has strongly and unambiguously rejected the emission targets agreed to by the other developed nations (~50% cuts from 1990 levels by 2050). That's why the meetings are about emissions goals rather than targets. The difference? Goals are voluntary. The U.S. under Bush will never agree to hard targets or mandates.
- There's great significance to the fact that Bush wants the "top 15 GHG emitters" at the meetings. That means he won't get any commitments that aren't agreed to by China and India, which are among the only other nations to refuse to agree to binding targets. Two things are accomplished by setting things up so that China and India have veto power over a final agreement: 1) you won't get any binding targets, and 2) you establish that China and India are obligated to pledge GHG reductions equal to the U.S. and other developed countries, despite the fact that the developed countries are responsible for the vast bulk of the GHG already in the atmosphere, and still far exceed China and India in per-capita emissions. The last thing Bush wants is for the world to agree that the developed countries owe a greater commitment based on economic and social justice concerns.
- Judging by Bush's speech, one of his principal goals is to "eliminate tariffs on clean energy technologies." In plain English, that means giving U.S. companies favorable trade deals to sell "clean coal" and nuclear technology to developing countries. This is something Bush's corporate backers have long wanted; climate change is a way to sell it. I'm guessing Bush will not be proposing to remove any U.S. tariffs, like, say, the one on sugar-cane ethanol from Brazil.
As you can see -- and as you would expect -- this announcement from Bush is not a genuine change of heart on climate change. The U.S. still will not agree to any emission reduction targets. It will not agree that the developed countries bear primary responsibility for climate change. It will not sign on to the growing consensus among developed nations about how to tackle the problem
This announcement is an attempt to run out the clock on the Bush administration without committing to anything but sweetheart deals for corporate backers.
Same as it ever was.
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Comments
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Delay And Deny Posted 5:06 am
31 May 2007
This represents why Bush is great -- he will not give in to the phoneys who are trying to tax the world with phoney science and hoaxes.
The Europeans, terrorists, Russians and Chinese would like nothing better than to cripple the American economy and impose their fascist ways on the free American middle class.
Bush is the true leader of Freedom.
John Bailo, The "Denier Guy"
You Read It Here First
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Ron Steenblik Posted 5:21 am
31 May 2007
And the goods on the list being negotiated are not primarily for "clean" coal, if at all. They include necessary things, like air-quality monitoring instruments, particulate filters, booms for cleaning up oil spills. It always amazed me that this initiative seems to have remained almost entirely off the radar screen of environmental groups.
Here's a handy backgrounder, by the way (written by yours truly a couple of years ago).
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wedjr Posted 5:24 am
31 May 2007
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Ron Steenblik Posted 5:25 am
31 May 2007
Among the goods included on the draft lists for accellerated trade liberalization at the WTO are things like solar cells, wind turbines, solar water heaters, LCD lights, ...
You'd be surprised how high import tariffs are on things like solar water heaters -- even (indeed, especially) in countries with sunny climates.
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Steve Bloom Posted 5:44 am
31 May 2007
A related example of this is locking the moon/Mars stuff into the budget while gutting the Earth observation missions. This is damage that will take years to reverse. While we're on this subject, I think it's an excellent litmus test for the Dems. Will they be able to produce a NASA budget that properly funds the satellites and reduces the interplanetary stuff to the small-scale research level where it belongs? Unfortunately, as it stands now I'm going to have to predict that they they'll give Bush most of what he wants this year and next.
They're also trying to lock in a permanent war on terror, but that's another subject.
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tico89 Posted 9:10 am
31 May 2007
I think this sums it up best:
Tony Juniper, the head of Friends of the Earth, said: "This is a deliberate and carefully crafted attempt to derail any prospect of a climate change agreement (at the G8 summit) in Germany next week. [Mr Bush] is trying to destroy the prospect of that getting anywhere by announcing his own parallel process with very vaguely expressed objectives ... Basically we should see this as a delaying tactic to keep the climate change issue off his back in terms of any real decisions until he leaves office (in early 2009)."
Oh well, I guess, to look on the bright side, it's better than nothing.
If I share initials with 'Global Warming', is that a sign?
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Delay And Deny Posted 6:02 pm
31 May 2007
looks like Bush aced the Climate Changers...he's calling...get everyone here on the table and lay their cards out.
John Bailo, The "Denier Guy"
You Read It Here First
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pcarbo Posted 7:27 am
01 Jun 2007
You establish that China and India are obligated to pledge GHG reductions equal to the U.S. and other developed countries, despite the fact that the developed countries are responsible for the vast bulk of the GHG already in the atmosphere, and still far exceed China and India in per-capita emissions.
I would like an analogy from sports or the schoolyard to illustrate to my friends why the waiting-on-China-and-India game is not cool. My imagination is failing me. Any suggestions?
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JMG Posted 8:27 am
01 Jun 2007
WHAT'S NEW
Robert L. Park Friday, 1 Jun 07 Washington, DC
1. CLIMATE CHANGE: BUSH PROPOSES A NEW APPROACH - SET GOALS.
President Bush rejected the Kyoto treaty six years ago, saying it would "harm our economy." "Climate change" did not show up in Bush's vocabulary until his 2007 State-of-the-Union address. Yesterday, however, pressured to take action, he trotted out his "new international climate change framework," declaring "the United States takes this issue seriously." Other leaders at next week's G-8 summit, who are leaning toward a bold German plan to reduce greenhouse emissions 50% by 2050, are unlikely to be impressed. The plan outlined by the White House is classic Bush: it contained no concrete targets or dates, no enforcement mechanism, no penalties for noncompliance, and it wouldn't take effect until four years after Bush leaves office.
2. WHAT CLIMATE PROBLEM? NASA HEAD IS ON A DIFFERENT PLANET.
Just two hours before the President's remarks, Michael Griffin, the man Bush picked to head the agency charged with collecting climate change data, was interviewed on National Public Radio. He defended cuts in programs to monitor climate change: It frees resources for a manned moon base, and a new crew transportation vehicle to take astronauts to the Moon, Mars and the space station. He saw no need to take action against global warming. "Who has the privilege of deciding that this is the best climate for all other human beings," he asked? Just two months ago the IPCC report detailed the enormous cost of global warming on human life. Where has he been?
...
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be.
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Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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kbrash Posted 6:07 am
18 Jul 2007
Let's not underestimate the number of international meetings that have actually occurred on climate change. The most recent COP was #12, and it was held in Nairobi last November. Of course, that doesn't even account for the technical meetings, which occur at a rate of at least 4 a year. Not sure if all these meetings are helping, but it does seem arrogant to propose a whole new series of them will.
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