SINGAPORE -- The United States called Wednesday for a compromise at next month's global climate talks in Copenhagen and vowed to support a fund to help developing countries cope with emissions cuts.

"We cannot let the pursuit of perfection get in the way of progress," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a news conference in Singapore ahead of a weekend Pacific Rim summit to be attended by President Obama.

Photo courtesy US Mission Canada via Flickr Clinton said she had "fruitful discussions" on climate issues earlier Wednesday with counterparts from the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, which includes China, Russia, and Japan.

The Dec. 7-18 Copenhagen talks are aimed at achieving a global deal to slash greenhouse gas emissions and ease the impact of climate change before the 2012 expiry of the Kyoto Protocol, which excludes the United States.

Obama has brought the United States back into the climate discussions after his predecessor George W. Bush refused to sign the Kyoto pact.

"If we all exert maximum effort and embrace the right blend of pragmatism and principle, I believe we can secure a strong outcome at Copenhagen," Clinton told the news conference.

Beyond Copenhagen, "we are committed to reaching the goal of a global, legally binding climate agreement, and will continue working vigorously with the international community towards that end."

Earlier, in prepared remarks to a closed-door gathering of APEC foreign ministers, Clinton said the group's members account for 60 percent of global emissions and their efforts to cut them can have a "transformative impact".

She called for a trade-off between raising global living standards and strong action on climate change, and acknowledged the United States' "historical responsibility" for climate change, according to the official text.

Clinton reiterated U.S. support for a fund aimed at helping developing countries reduce emissions, but gave no details.

"We are prepared to support a Global Climate Fund that will support adaptation and mitigation efforts and a matching entity to help developing countries match needs with available resources," she said.

European Union leaders agreed last month that developing nations will need 100 billion euros ($150 billion) by 2020 to tackle climate change but failed to nail down the group's share.

Finance ministers from the G20, which includes the United States and E.U., were also unable to make headway on how to finance the climate fund when they met in Scotland last week.

There has been a long-running dispute between industrialized and developing countries over their role in the fight to slash global emissions.

Countries like China and India blame western nations for producing most of the emissions in their drive to industrialization and feel that drastic emission caps would hamper their own development.

Obama, Chinese President Hu Jintao, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and 18 other APEC leaders are expected to call for sharp cuts in global emissions at the end of their summit on Sunday.

"We believe that global emissions will need to peak over the next few years and be reduced to 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, recognizing that the time frame for peaking will be longer in developing countries," a draft declaration said.

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Hungering for climate justice

Is that the sun we see?The mood was markedly improved on the final day of the Barcelona climate talks, as delegates, observers, and non-governmental organizations all brushed off the pessimism that dominated much of this week and announced that there is still hope for a global deal at the Copenhagen COP15 summit.

News that the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee had advanced the Kerry-Boxer climate bill forward -- coupled with revelations that some progress was made in Spain on several key issues during the closed-door meetings between nations -- offered a ray of hope for a binding agreement to emerge in December.

Representatives from the United Nations, European Union, G-77, and even the laggard United States all confirmed that a fair, ambitious, and legally binding global agreement is still absolutely possible to achieve next month.

However, all agreed that the United States must come to Copenhagen with specific answers about how it will join the global fight against climate change. The major obstacle remains America’s unwillingness to put specific numbers on the table on an emissions reduction target and a dollar figure for its contribution to global financing to help poor nations adapt to climate-change impacts and build low-carbon economies.

U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer confirmed Friday that he believes “the United States can commit” to a specific emissions reduction target in Copenhagen.

“There was a number in President Obama’s election pledge, there is a number in the legislation that passed through the House of Representatives, there is a number in the draft legislation that the U.S. Senate will be considering early next year,” de Boer said.

Even without a finalized bill from Congress, Obama could deliver “a number which would not be alien” to what the Senate and House have in mind, de Boer noted.  That would pave the way for all parties to put numbers on the table and potentially reach a global deal in Copenhagen.

However, Alf Wills, lead negotiator for South Africa and spokesman for the G-77 group of developing nations, warned Friday that major industrialized countries must not greenwash such a deal if negotiators fail to produce a strong, binding agreement based on the science.

“We look forward to Copenhagen with optimism, but we will not accept a weak, greenwash deal,” Wills said.

“Without sound and deep emissions reductions, it doesn’t matter how much money is made available. Our lives, our economies, our lands and forests will be devastated," said Sudanese negotiator Lumumba Stanislaus-Kaw Di-Aping, who heads the G-77-plus-China group.

“It would be a failure unforgivable and unforgettable,” he said.

Speaking of failures, at the U.S. delegation press conference this afternoon, I asked U.S. deputy climate change envoy Jonathan Pershing what effect, if any, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Denial) might have on the process in Copenhagen, and whether GOP intransigence is hurting Obama’s ability to come up with a firm number on U.S. emissions reductions.

Pershing responded that the U.S. delegation traveling to Denmark will include “a wide variety of members of Congress as well as their staff,” from both parties, as is the tradition in international negotiations.  

“They are engaged with us in discussions about what they think will be effective, but U.S. policymaking on the international arena and negotiations is in the purview of the executive branch, and will remain that way,” Pershing told me.

It is promising to hear Pershing confirm that the Obama administration isn’t going to let GOP shenanigans control the U.S. position on international climate policy. But there is no doubt in the minds of the delegates wrapping up the Barcelona talks today that the continued momentum of the Kerry-Boxer Senate bill over the coming weeks could mean the difference between failure and success in Copenhagen. 

While finding agreement between 192 countries is admittedly not an easy task, there is no more important issue for world leaders to address this century. Climate change does not recognize national borders, and will threaten the national security and economies of all nations if left unchecked.

President Obama and other world leaders must now use every remaining minute this month to work toward a successful outcome in Copenhagen. Adios, Barcelona, thanks for the hospitality.

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This post
was co-written by Mary Anne Hitt, deputy director of the Sierra Club Beyond
Coal Campaign.

We’re celebrating great news out of Minnesota
and South Dakota this week:

After almost five years of planning and permitting efforts, the participating
utilities in the proposed Big Stone II Project announced ... Monday that they will
end their quest to build the project’s large coal-fired power plant and
associated transmission facilities.

We echo our own Cesia Kearns, a
Sierra Club staffer from Minnesota, in what the halting of Big Stone II means for the region.

The failure of this enormous proposed coal plant expansion unravels the myth
that the Midwest is starving for more electricity, and that coal is the
only way to adequately meet that perceived need. This victory demonstrates that
even when we may lose the battles -- consistent pressure, engaged citizens, and
strong partnerships can win the war. It's a strong example of how even though the regulators may be on the
side of a developer, the public is not.

We salute our tough band of local residents in South
Dakota and Minnesota
(the plant was proposed for northeastern South Dakota,
near the border with Minnesota),
who spent the last five years fighting this dirty coal plant. The Sierra Club also partnered with grassroots, state, and
regional organizations during this long and difficult campaign. They
knew how bad the air pollution and global warming contributions this plant
would spew forth would be, they wanted clean energy for their region, and even
when the going got tough, they never gave up.

Stopping the Big Stone II project
prevented about 4.7 million tons of CO2, or the equivalent of the pollution
from roughly 670,000 cars (substantially more than all the cars in South Dakota) from entering the atmosphere every year.

The residents so entrenched in this fight against Big Stone
II helped lead a long fight against the Minnesota
Public Utilities Commission for its issuance of an air pollution permit for the
plant and, equally important, an enforcement action targeting the existing coal-fired
unit at the Big Stone facility for past violations of the Clean Air Act.   We also challenged the state of South Dakota's Clean Air Act plan for failure to comply with federal
law.

Kearns added that one noteworthy example of the grassroots push
for clean energy was the mention of Sierra Club's "footprint
petition" in the administrative law judge's written recommendation to the
Minn. Public Utilities Commission to deny the certificate of need for Big Stone
II’s transmission lines.

“The footprint petition was a long
swath of fabric with the signatures and outlines of the footprints of over
2,000 Minnesotans who wanted to see global warming solutions in Minnesota,” explained Kearns. “It was presented to the administrative law judge during
a public hearing in Ortonville, Minn. -- the town closest to the location of the proposed plant.”

This plant’s demise is also a sign
of impending climate legislation. Otter Tail Power had pulled out of this plant
back in September, citing, among other reasons,
“a high level of uncertainty associated with
proposed federal climate legislation and existing federal environmental
regulation.”

No other utilities stepped in to take
over the Big Stone II expansion themselves -- because the companies all know
that this legislation is coming.

Coal power is not the future of U.S. energy.The public is
speaking up for more clean energy. And from coast to coast, that voice is
getting louder every day.

Related Links:

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Big Coal and child victims

U.S. pushes for compromise in Copenhagen climate talks

As climate talks wrapped up in Barcelona, the picture wasn't nearly this pretty.Photo: MorBCNIt's been 30 years since scientists gained a clear
understanding of the dangerous consequences of continuously adding more carbon
dioxide to the atmosphere. This week during five days of negotiations in
Barcelona, the world learned again that the formula for solving global warming
is a diplomatic chemistry problem that still defies a solution. 

The problem is self-evident. The regulatory and financial
ingredients of a successful climate treaty formula are as complex and formidable as any ever developed in human history.  Plus the climate talks are buffeted by raw ideological differences, national
rivalries, and even competing human emotions. Urgency and frustration marked
the Barcelona talks.

At the center of this swirl of detail and conflicting sentiment is the United
States, whose strategy for collaborating on a global treaty centers on a decision not to publicly announce commitments on two critical factors that the
rest of the world sees as essential to reaching a final agreement. The first is
how much carbon the U.S. is ready to order its industries to take out of the
atmosphere. And the second is how much it will invest in developing nations to
lower emissions and accelerate clean energy development.

The Obama administration has its reasons for not divulging either
detail. What much of the world still doesn't really recognize is the
administration is engaged in a ferocious ideological war with Republicans over the
need for climate action and the value of making the transition from fossil fuels
to clean energy.

The White House also has the ghost of Kyoto sitting on its shoulder.
Mindful of the Clinton administration's inability to ratify the climate treaty
that the U.S. signed in Kyoto in
1997, it doesn't want to repeat that embarrassing chapter in American
environmental and foreign policy. As president, Barack Obama has repeated
pledges he made during last year's campaign to take action on global warming.  But he's also made it clear that the
administration prefers to wait for Congress to conclude its work on a new
climate and energy bill before it makes specific commitments on the global
treaty.

The House approved a climate and energy bill in June that proposed cutting
carbon emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, and more in the years
after. It also proposed investing about $5 billion annually to help developing
nations adjust to climate change.

But right in the middle of the Barcelona negotiations, the political
risks of the White House strategy became clearer. Progress on a Senate bill
similar to the House proposal has been beset by a focused attack from Obama's
opponents. On the second day of the Barcelona negotiations, Republican members of
the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee did not show up for committee
action on the bill in a move to kill it. 
The committee pressed forward and voted on Thursday to approve the
measure, but its influence as a signal of American intentions for the
Copenhagen meeting was muted. That's because Sen. Harry Reid, the Nevada
Democrat and Senate majority leader, had already agreed on Wednesday to
Republican demands and approved another in a series of federal studies on the
costs of the bill, a process that will take at least five weeks to complete.

In Barcelona,
leaders of the climate negotiations both worried and anticipated just this sort
of scenario in Washington and appealed directly to the Obama administration to
take strong action separate from the congressional process. "Copenhagen
has to include clarity and targets that industrialized countries,
including the U.S., are willing to take in 2020 or 2030 horizon," said Yvo de
Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change, who is leading the negotiations.

He added: "I do not think the international community will
accept an instrument that lacks clarity from what the U.S. will do on its
emissions."

In diplomatic terms, that is pretty strong stuff. And most other
negotiators felt de Boer's statement was justified.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the
premier scientific body studying the issue, atmospheric concentrations of
carbon dioxide have increased nearly 40 percent in the last century, from 278
parts million to more than 380. Average global temperatures have risen 1.5
degrees Fahrenheit. Scientists say this is the largest and fastest warming
trend that they have been able to discern in the history of the Earth. And evidence
of the consequences is mounting. 
Sea levels are rising. The Himalayan glaciers, which supply snowmelt to
the headwaters of Asian rivers used by 750 million people, are melting. Severe
droughts are gripping important food-growing regions, including the American Southwest and Australia's Murray-Darling Basin. Extreme weather events -- more
powerful hurricanes and deadlier heat waves -- are occurring.  

A great deal of the carbon that floats around in the atmosphere was
produced by the U.S. So in the eyes of much of the world, America has a
responsibility to lead the way in preventing disaster. The United States, after
all, is still the world's largest economy and until very recently the largest
carbon polluter.

For eight years under President George W. Bush, the United States
dithered. Meanwhile, other nations, most importantly the European Union, took a
leadership position. In Barcelona, the E.U. made it clear that it would cut
carbon pollution 30 percent by 2020 if other nations make substantial commitments, and 85 percent by 2050.

The E.U. also said it would cost $150 billion annually by 2020 to help
developing nations make the transition to clean energy. E.U. leaders estimated
that roughly half would come from public sources, and signaled it was ready to
contribute $5 billion a year immediately and maybe as much as $35 billion
annually over time.

China, India,
Brazil, Indonesia, and several more countries also are stepping to the front of
the climate action crusade.  According
to Ailun Yang, a policy specialist with Greenpeace, China has promised
to cut the growth of its carbon emissions by what authorities termed a "notable margin" by
2020, and which Yang said would amount to a 15 to 30 percent reduction from what emissions would have been had the country done nothing. Brazil
has signaled its readiness to reduce timber cutting in the Amazon by 80 percent
by 2020. Indonesia has announced a 26 percent carbon reduction by 2020. 

The implication, said Yang, is that the United States can no longer hide
behind the argument -- as it's done in the past -- that developing nations are
not bearing a share of the burden of solving climate change.  "What we need to see is these
efforts echoed by developed countries," said Yang, whose rhetorical finger was
pointed directly at Washington.

Even in the face
of the mounting global pressure, the United States is still departing from Barcelona
and headed to the Copenhagen meeting next month without divulging the two
targets the world is waiting to see. But its strategy shifted.

Jonathan
Pershing, the deputy special envoy for climate change and the chief American
negotiator, sought in public and during private meetings with national and
regional delegations to assure the world that "the U.S. is committed to
an ambitious global climate change agreement in Copenhagen. Meeting the climate
and clean energy challenge is a top priority in the U.S. and with President Obama."

How will the United States
achieve that objective? In the short term, by asking the world for more time and
for a deeper trust. Instead of completing
the treaty in December, as delegates hoped, the White House is asking the world
to turn the results of the Copenhagen meeting into what President Obama this
week called a "framework for progress." Angela Merkel, the German chancellor
who met with Obama in Washington on Wednesday, used almost precisely the same
phrase in describing what looks to be the new goal of the Copenhagen meeting.

In effect, the U.S. is leveraging the storehouse of global good will
for the new American president. In exchange for providing more time, President
Obama is essentially telling the participating countries that he can deliver
new climate and energy legislation in Washington early next year, and following
that follow through on the strong U.S. commitments to the new climate treaty.

How much longer the world will wait for U.S. action is unclear, as is
the stability of the global negotiations. The Barcelona conference closed with delegates
and climate advocates vigorously debating the risks and benefits of the U.S.
strategy. Meanwhile in Washington, one
bipartisan group of senators said they would push to accelerate work on the
climate bill, while another senator said the measure is so controversial it could be
put off indefinitely.

By week's end,
the most significant result of the Barcelona meeting emerged out of this storm
of uncertainty. Delegates and the
nations they represent decided to continue their work and meet in Copenhagen with the conference's leaders predicting that session will be a "turning point" that will result in a commitment by nations to a legally binding treaty, with more work to follow. 

De Boer told reporters on Friday that progress was made in Barcelona on provisions of the climate treaty that focused on helping poor nations adapt to the warming planet, reducing deforestation in developing countries, and providing aid to developing nations.

But de Boer acknowledged that the talks were stymied by the U.S. position of not announcing targets for reducing carbon pollution or for financing that would allow developing countries to thrive in a new and warmer era. "Without these two pieces of the puzzle in place, we will not have a deal in Copenhagen," said de Boer. "So leadership at the highest level is required to unlock the pieces."

The new global bet is that Washington will indeed pass legislation
next year, probably by spring, to limit carbon emissions. Then 192
participating nations will finish an effective treaty that utterly changes how the world is powered, introduces a new way
for the richer and poorer nations to share financial resources, and requires
levels of cooperation and trust that world leaders have never before achieved.

What we really learned this past week in Barcelona is that progress on such
momentous changes is taking more time.

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SYDNEY -- Climate activists from around the world will launch a hunger strike here on Friday, describing their protest as a "moral reaction to an immoral situation" in the face of environmental catastrophe.

Strike leader Paul Connor and seven other people in Australia, the United States, and Europe intend to refuse all food until the end of a meeting of world governments on climate change in Copenhagen, which runs from Dec. 7 to 18.

"It's a global emergency," Connor told AFP.

"We believe that making a moral, principled stand for what's right, what's just, can have a huge impact."

The hunger strikers want world leaders at the Copenhagen meeting to commit to stabilzing carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere at 350 parts per million (ppm).

In its benchmark 2007 report, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the key for preventing dangerous global warming was to keep CO2 concentrations below 450 ppm.

More than 70 other activists will join the core group in beginning a fast on Friday, although they intend to go on the hunger strike for shorter amounts of time.

The fast will begin in Australia at 11:00 pm (1200 GMT), kicking off similar action in the United States, Britain, India, France, Germany, Canada, South Africa, Belgium, Honduras, Bhutan, New Zealand, and the Philippines.

Connor, a 29-year-old psychology and philosophy student, said he would hold his hunger strike protest outside Parliament House in Canberra unless it was not physically possible.

"We may get to the point where we just can't move around," said Connor, who founded the Climate Justice Fast group that is organizing the strike.

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So how did Cash for Clunkers work out from an environmental standpoint? You don’t want to know.

The $3 billion federal program was kinda sorta supposed to send inefficient, high-polluting, belchy vehicles to an early grave. Instead it put a lot of new large, inefficient vehicles on the road, according to an AP investigation of new government records.

The most common deals swapped old Ford or Chevrolet pickup trucks for new pickups that got “only marginally better gas mileage,” the analysis found. Old Ford F-150 for new Ford F-150 was the most common exchange. Buyers were 17 times more likely to purchase an F-150 (rated at 16 miles per gallon) than a hybrid Toyota Prius.

At least 15 owners of large pickups cashed them in for new Hummer H3 SUVs that get only 16 mpg. Excuse me, but why did the government even send claims forms to Hummer dealerships? Government officials are "investigating" out how these deals squeaked through, the AP reports.

About 1 in 7 of all deals went for vehicles that got 20 mpg or worse. If you think about it, though, 20 mpg really isn’t such a bad rate ... for 1979.

There were plenty of signals before the one-month summer program began that it was a poor method for cutting pollution (note our roundup of early warnings). There’s also a lively debate on whether it made sense as economic stimulus.

"If we're looking for the environmental story here, we're going to be disappointed," Jeremy Anwyl, of analyst firm Edmunds.com, told the AP. "It might have started out from the perspective of improving the environment, but it got detoured as a way to stimulate the economy."

That pretty much nails it.

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U.S. pushes for compromise in Copenhagen climate talks

Mark Warner (D-Va.)

Can EPA regulations on CO2 be blocked?

WASHINGTON -- Senate Democrats on Thursday pushed through a sweeping climate change bill, maneuvering an end-run around opposition Republicans who continued their boycott of deliberations.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved the Kerry-Boxer bill by a vote of 11 to 1, with the seven Republicans on the committee absent from the discussion and vote.

The panel is among five other Senate committees which also will weigh in with their draft bills on slowing the pace of climate change before a bill receives a vote in the full chamber, possibly next year.

"We are pleased that despite the Republican boycott we have been able to move this bill forward," said committee chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) after the vote.

Republicans, who boycotted the deliberations for three consecutive days, said they would oppose the bill until they had a "comprehensive analysis" of the economic impact of the legislation from the Environmental Protection Agency.

But Boxer said further analysis by the agency was not necessary, and maintained that the EPA's environmental impact assessment of a similar bill approved in June by the House of Representatives was sufficient. "We found that, after questioning the EPA extensively, that the Republicans' demand for another EPA analysis now would be duplicative and a waste of taxpayer dollars," she said.

Committee rules require the presence of at least two members of the minority party, but Boxer sidestepped the boycott using parliamentary procedures that allowed her to pass the bill by a simple majority of members present, a tactic Republicans decried as a "nuclear option."

At a press conference earlier this week, she signaled the tactical maneuver ahead.

"What they're doing is highly unusual. And what we're doing in response is highly unusual," she said, adding that her actions were completely "by the Senate rules."

Meanwhile, the lone Republican at Thursday's vote, ranking committee member James Inhofe (Okla.), in a two-minute declaration said his party's position had not changed.  "We still are asking for the same thing," he said.

Republicans also criticized the Democrats' bill as doing too little to promote nuclear energy and said it's likely to lead to a spike in energy prices.

One Democrat, centrist senator Max Baucus (Mont.), who serves as chair of the Senate Finance Committee, broke with his party as the lone Democrat to vote against the bill, saying that its goals for reducing greenhouse emission levels were too ambitious.

The Senate legislation faces a long and contentious process ahead, and must be reconciled with a House bill that calls for cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, and by 83 percent by 2050.  The Senate's bill calls for a 20 percent cut by 2020.

Both bills would create a cap-and-trade regime, aimed at setting the total level of domestic emissions allowable and then allocating quotas to companies.  Firms that emit less than their quota would be allowed to sell their surplus allocation to others that exceed theirs. Those in excess could also face fines.

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Mark Warner (D-Va.)

The chief negotiator for the European Commission announced this afternoon in Barcelona that the failure of the U.S. Congress to pass legislation before December has doomed the chances for success in Copenhagen.

A climate protest at the Barcelona talks: World leaders with \'big heads\' moving cash from an aid money box to a climate money box. The stunt highlights rich country plans to use overseas aid money to pay for their climate finance commitments.Oxfam InternationalEurope now predicts that a legally binding treaty is impossible to expect in Copenhagen, and that it could take up to a full year beyond the global summit this December in order to reach a binding deal. 

Artur Runge-Metzger, the chief negotiator for the European Commission, told reporters today that, “It was highly desirable to have the [U.S.] numbers on the table in Copenhagen. There’s no doubt.”

Runge-Metzger confirmed that any chance of rescuing a deal in Copenhagen “depends then very much on President Obama himself, on how confident he feels [about] how far the process has moved forward, whether he can also put numbers on the table or not.”

“Everybody sees political realities particularly in Washington and we know that the process there is slowing down politically,” he said.  “So we need to be flexible. We cannot say that Copenhagen is the end.”

When asked whether Europe expected more rapid change from the Obama administration after eight years of Bush, Runge-Metzger said, “I have never expected the U.S. [position] changing totally. The interests in the different states are still the same as they were 5 years ago, 4 years ago, 3 years ago.”

“The reduction targets is really what, politically, is the most difficult issue, and certainly not something that is going to be decided by senior officials in a normal negotiation round. For that you will need to have ministerial blessing or heads of state coming together. We would hope that we can finalize that in Copenhagen,” Runge-Metzger said.

Runge-Metzger confirmed that, regarless of what transpires in Copenhagen, the E.U. plans to move forward with the implementation of policies to reduce European greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

That target is far lower than the 40 percent or more reduction demanded by Africa and the G-77 developing nations.

“Their [African and G-77] demands on developed countries to make deep emissions cuts, I don’t think that this gulf will be closed in the next week,” Runge-Metzger said.

Sudanese delegate Lumumba Stanislaus-Kaw Di-Aping, who heads the G-77-plus-China block, confirmed Thursday that Africa and the G-77 remain steadfast in their position that a so-called “politically binding agreement” is an unacceptable result in Copenhagen.

“We are totally against that,” he told me in the hallway of the Barcelona convention shortly after the G-77 cancelled its daily press conference in what Lumumba described as an “unfortunate” move based on a “joint decision” by the G-77 not to speak with the press at present. 

If a legally binding agreement cannot emerge from Copenhagen, then “we resolve to continue the negotiations in the future,” Lumumba said.

But Africa and the G-77 developing countries refuse to entertain anything less than a legally binding treaty. The African and G-77 delegations want a treaty that commits developed nations to reduce emissions by 40 percent or more below 1990 levels by the year 2020, a level which Africa feels is necessary to avoid death and destruction in vulnerable areas.

With the news that all bets are off on reaching a legally binding treaty in Copenhagen, delegates and observers in Spain are left wondering what could have been if the U.S. had acted sooner domestically. The U.S. Congress has failed the world, and developing nations will pay a steep price unless President Obama can personally rescue the Copenhagen talks.

That will depend on whether he even shows up in Denmark in December. Sorry Africa, don't hold your breath.

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The African delegation insisted today in Barcelona that its decision to walk out on negotiations Tuesday was necessary in order to jolt the intransigent European Union and other developed nations to move forward with serious discussions, rather than obstruct progress by bringing only lofty rhetoric and no numbers to the negotiating table. The plan seems to have worked, albeit temporarily, as negotiations resumed today about how to extend the Kyoto Protocol and forge binding agreements with the West to slash emissions and provide cash to developing nations to deal with climate shocks and facilitate clean economic development.

However, delegates from developing nations and climate campaign groups continue to report that progress has been too slow in Barcelona, setting the stage for inevitable failure in Copenhagen. Activist groups and developing world negotiators continue to press the West to pick up the pace immediately or risk failing to reach a legally binding agreement in Copenhagen next month.

Europe renewed its non-specific posturing today, at first suggesting that developed countries could still bring promises, if not numbers, to Copenhagen, but ultimately confirming that the Europe Union--and the U.S.--have no intention of entering a legally binding agreement in Copenhagen unless rapidly developing nations like China, India, and Brazil are also required to cut emissions and contribute funding to help poor nations survive as the climate deteriorates.

Copenhagen is the pinnacle in a series of negotiations stretching back two years over how to create a legally binding agreement that brings the United States into the fold on the international response to climate change, and simultaneously craft the next round of targets under the Kyoto Protocol. Since the U.S. failed to join the 1997 global treaty, negotiations have proceeded under these two tracks to ensure that work can continue on emissions reductions among Kyoto signatories, while the world grapples with how to hold the U.S. accountable internationally both on greenhouse-gas reductions and financial commitments to assist developing nations.

Sudanese delegate Lumumba Stanislaus-Kaw Di-Aping, who heads the G-77-plus-China bloc, challenged Europe and the industrialized world to get serious again Wednesday in order to move the fragile talks forward.
 
Lumumba, whose ability to articulate the urgency and necessity of the developing world’s pleas for action on climate change is unrivaled by any other delegate present at the talks, made clear once again today that the West must bring science-based targets and an indelible ink pen to the Copenhagen negotiation table, or else Africa, low-lying island nations, and indigenous peoples--the populations most vulnerable to climate change--will rapidly face death and economic ruin as the atmosphere cooks and sea levels rise. 

In the G-77 press conference this afternoon, I asked Lumumba whether he was concerned by the potential domino effect of additional developed countries adopting Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen’s position, reported by Reuters on Monday, that a “politically binding agreement” is more likely to emerge in Copenhagen rather than a legally binding agreement. The “politically binding” sentiment seems poised to snowball among other major industrialized nations, in spirit if not yet in the same exact words.

Lumumba, in his typically graceful fashion, calmly but sternly replied to my question stating, “I do not know of anything called a politically binding agreement. If there is anything that you know about politics and political manifestos is that they are worth very little. Tell me of any politician who delivered on his political manifesto. Is it Gordon Brown [UK]? Is it Kevin Rudd [Australia]?”

False promises of politically binding commitment without legally binding teeth will not be worth a damn to Africa and the rest of the vulnerable developing countries. As soon as one world leader from the West who signs onto such a wishy-washy agreement loses power, and their successor refuses to comply with such a non-binding agreement--an entirely possible scenario since there is no legal basis to follow through on such a commitment--the whole process would fail. Climate change would continue to punish the developing world, which would face many more years of delay while the negotiators reconvened to start over.

So only a legally binding agreement is acceptable in Copenhagen, or Africa and other vulnerable populations are doomed to death and destruction, Lumumba told me.

“What can we achieve in Barcelona? This is what we are asking developed countries. You have to live up to the ambition that saves the world. In Africa’s words, it is 40 [percent emissions reductions by 2020] minimum. Anything south of 40 means that Africa’s population, Africa’s land mass is offered destruction as the only alternative to choose from. And I think you can logically understand why the African states are very angry about that,” he said.

Yes we can, Mr. Lumumba. Yes we can.

Watch the G-77 press conference here. (I ask my question at the 8:15-9 minute mark and Lumumba responds beginning at the 16 minute mark)

Curious to hear the European response to the G-77’s clear call for a legally binding agreement, later today I asked the E.U. delegation to explain specifically what time frame would be acceptable to set legally binding targets if Copenhagen fails to produce solid results and instead ends with such a politically binding (i.e. hollow) agreement, or worse still, no agreement.

It was the last question the E.U. delegation took from the press today, and provides all the clarity that Africa and the developing countries can expect from the industrialized world for now. 

Artur Runge-Metzger, the chief negotiator for the European Commission, sitting next to the nodding Swedish delegate (Sweden currently holds the E.U. presidency), responded simply, “It should be as quickly as possible after Copenhagen.” (Full stop, microphones cut, end of press conference.*)

In contrast to the developing world’s clear, specific position, the E.U. seems to act as if these negotiations just started, as if talks haven’t been going on for years since Kyoto. Europe seems to project the image that it is suddenly being asked to answer this fundamental question.

In reality, Europe and the rest of the developed world have had more than ample time over the past decade to develop a clear position. But when pressed on specifics now, just weeks before the world expects a concrete treaty, they are still flailing around like fish out of water.

Much work remains to be done, and 99 percent of the burden rests on the E.U. and U.S. to show the rest of the world they understand the severe implications of any further delay in responding to the climate crisis. The anger from Africa and the rest of the developing world will continue to grow, as will the carbon emissions responsible for climate change.

Europe and the U.S. must stand up and be counted.

*The E.U. press conference is not online yet, but will be here tomorrow.

Related Links:

U.S. pushes for compromise in Copenhagen climate talks

Merkel threatens no-show at Copenhagen climate talks

Obama will go to Copenhagen—if he can seal a deal

WASHINGTON - The United States will not agree to targets
cutting greenhouse-gas emissions unless developing countries, particularly
China, make similar moves, U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern warned Wednesday.

"No country
holds the fate of the Earth in its hands more than China," Stern told the House Foreign Affairs Committee, weeks
before a major climate change summit in Copenhagen.

Stern said new
climate rules could include exemptions for developing countries to ensure that
growth is not hampered, but emerging giants like China, India, and Brazil
should pull their weight.

"What we do
not agree with, though, is that we should commit to implement what we promise
to do, while major developing countries make no commitment at all," he
said.

His comments
come as divisions between developed and developing countries threaten to prevent a Copenhagen climate deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

"We have 32
days left before the beginning of the Copenhagen conference and there is still
a lot of work to do," Stern said.  "It's fair to say that the progress has been too slow, especially
in the formal U.N. negotiating track. The developed-developing country divide
that has run down the center of climate change discussions for the past 17
years is still, I'm afraid, alive and well."

But Stern said
the situation was not all gloomy. "Paradoxically, while the negotiations
are in a difficult state, it's also true that we are at a moment in history
when more countries, including China, Brazil, and South Africa, are taking
stronger actions or are poised to take stronger actions than ever before to
combat climate change."

He addressed
members of Congress as they debate a bill aimed at reducing greenhouse-gas
emissions in the United States, which many see as a prerequisite to a deal at
Copenhagen.

Climate talks in
Barcelona resumed on Wednesday after an angry spat,
but negotiators admitted chances for sealing a hoped-for U.N. treaty on global
warming by year's end were vanishing. 

On Tuesday, African countries boycotted the Barcelona climate talks. The bloc of 50 nations accused rich counterparts
of backsliding on promises to curb human-made carbon emissions blamed for
global warming, demanding they slash their pollution by at least 40 percent by
2020 over 1990 levels.

The squabble
blocked talks among countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the
cornerstone pact of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The twin-track
process was launched in Bali in 2007 with the goal of concluding a post-2012
treaty among the UNFCCC's 192 parties at a Dec. 7-18 showdown in Copenhagen.

Related Links:

U.S. pushes for compromise in Copenhagen climate talks

Merkel threatens no-show at Copenhagen climate talks

Obama will go to Copenhagen—if he can seal a deal