Working in a coalition of roughly 500 organizations from nearly 80 countries can be tough. With so many different points of view and unique perspectives and expertise, coming to agreement on something as complex as solving climate change can be difficult to say the least. But then again, isn't that what we're asking over 180 countries to do next month in Copenhagen?

Well, I'm happy to say that at least as far as the Climate Action Network - International (CAN) is concerned, we've done our job and it's in the form of CAN's "Fair, Ambitious & Binding: Essentials for a Successful Climate Deal." In this document just released today ahead of the upcoming climate talks in Copenhagen, we, as the world's largest network of organizations fighting for solutions to the climate crisis, share our collective views on the key elements of a successful climate agreement. Now it's up to the leaders around the world to do their part in Copenhagen.

This vision has not come easily, but in the effort it has taken comes its strength. We have brought together within CAN some of the most dedicated and expert analysts and advocates in world to come together around the key essentials for a successful outcome from the United Nations climate negotiations. While some specifics may still be debated by even our own members in CAN, this document serves as the collective voice of what is needed from our leaders in Copenhagen and beyond. And it's a powerful vision coming from hundreds of experts around the globe.

The thing that's amazing is that-while we've been as ambitious as we believe is necessary to address this challenge and as true to the science as we possibly can be -- we know that what we've laid out is achievable.

Some highlights of what we're calling for include:

When leaders come to Copenhagen next month, CAN's "FAB Essentials" will be our yardstick for measuring our leaders' success in their steps along the path towards climate stabilization and a sustainable world. We know that what we've put forward is ambitious, but what's more important is that the elements found within CAN's FAB Essentials are both essential and achievable.

For more information on the Climate Action Network and "Fair, Ambitious & Binding: Essentials for a Successful Climate Deal," please visit our website. An official press release can also be found here. And finally, as the conference in December moves along, be sure to stay tuned at our blog for updates on how the nations of the world are doing in meeting the FAB Essentials.

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Whether you’ve been hitting snooze each time a global climate conference rolls around or you’re looking for a refresher before the Copenhagen climate talks this December, Grist has an interactive timeline to bring you up to speed. And don’t forget to keep tabs on all our juicy coverage of the Copenhagen climate talks.

The road to Copenhagen on Dipity.

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On the eve of the 1998 United Nations climate change conference in Buenos Aires, U.S. Senator Robert Byrd sent a letter to President Clinton urging him not to sign the Kyoto Protocol.

Doing so, he said, would not "do more than plug the holes in one end of a leaky boat, while leaving the biggest emitters of the developing world free to drill more holes in the other end of the boat. The net result is the same -- we all sink."

Today we are in a different boat. Next month, ministers from 192 nations will gather in Copenhagen to lay the groundwork for an international climate treaty that will succeed the Kyoto Protocol. There will be a lot of commentary on what Copenhagen means and what it is: I want to tell you what it is not.

Copenhagen is not Kyoto. The most common and widespread criticism of the Kyoto Protocol was that it did not require major developing countries like China and India to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, and the burden for reducing emissions fell largely on richer nations, like the United States and the European Union. It was one of the main reasons why the U.S. did not ratify Kyoto.

Those concerns will be alleviated in Copenhagen, where a high-level policy agreement is expected to ensure that developing countries take on more responsibility for cutting emissions and paying for programs to do so. That is unlike Kyoto where richer nations paid for developing country emissions reductions through offsets in order to help them lower the cost of their Kyoto Protocol obligations.

This added responsibility is necessary because the world has changed since the Protocol was adopted in 1997. Historically, industrialized nations have been responsible for the bulk of emissions in the atmosphere, but today developing country emissions are growing fast. Given their projected growth, we could not meet the international goal of cutting global emissions by 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 even if we zeroed out richer nations' emissions by that date. The only way to avoid the worst effects of climate change is for developed and developing countries to share responsibility moving forward.

Many developing countries already are implementing major actions to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. For example, China, Brazil, and Mexico have put in place national laws that will collectively, if fully implemented, reduce their projected growth in emissions by more in 2010 than what current U.S. legislation is projected to achieve by 2015. They are willing to take on new actions that are measurable, reportable, and verifiable in exchange for targeted financial and technological incentives from the developed world.

Take the case of China, which is doing more than many believe to reduce their growth in emissions and invest in clean energy technologies. China's 2007 national climate plan sets an aggressive goal to reduce its energy intensity by 20 percent by 2010. The country has shut down over 54 gigawatts of small coal-fired power plants and it plans to close down another 31 gigawatts by 2011, which is equal to nearly ten percent of all their power plants. It led the world in renewables investment in 2007 with over $10.8 billion, and it is expected to surpass Germany as the world leader in 2010. At 36.7 mpg, its vehicle efficiency standards are years ahead of the U.S.

China has recognized, perhaps more quickly than we have, the economic benefits of expanded energy efficiency and also the global economic opportunity that exists to lead in these new markets. Capping emissions and placing a price on carbon will provide businesses with regulatory certainty and will jumpstart innovation and investments in energy efficiency, carbon efficiency, and renewable energy across the global economy. As developing countries assume new emission reduction commitments, new markets for green technology will open up and the carbon playing field will begin to level, thereby alleviating concerns about jobs and emissions leaking from countries that have tough anti-pollution laws to countries that do not.  

A major roadblock to realizing this new shared responsibility between developed and developing countries is U.S. action. Congress should approve legislation that includes a strong emissions reduction target, international financing, and provisions to protect our competitive industries -- such as iron, cement, steel, and pulp and paper. That will give the U.S. negotiating team a stronger hand in designing the agreement in Copenhagen.

We no longer need to question whether others will act: they are in the boat and underway. It's time for the U.S. to take the helm, throw its last line over and shove off, or we will fall behind in the clean energy race.

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Waking up on a dreary Sunday morning this weekend in Copenhagen (where I've recently moved to prepare for the upcoming climate talks in December), I was met with a barrage of headlines, mostly from U.S. media, telling me that Copenhagen is doomed to total failure and I might as well head off to Mexico City where next year's summit will be held. The New York Times cried out: World Leaders Agree to Delay a Deal on Climate Change. The Washington Post bellowed: Copenhagen talks unlikely to yield climate accord, leaders told. Not the best way to start a Sunday morning.

Is Copenhagen really over before it begins? Had I moved to this dark, rainy (but beautiful!) city for no reason? Should we all just pack it up and hope that political declarations will solve it all?

The answer, thankfully, quickly became a resounding "no." As Grist's own David Roberts is often the first to point out, the mainstream media clearly got it wrong. There's still hope -- a lot of it, at that.

Let's start with those headlines. Who are these "world leaders" who agreed to delay? Well, the plural may be accurate, but just barely.

In the 48 hours since initial reports, as Ministers and other government representatives have trickled into Copenhagen for the "pre-COP" preparatory meeting, it's become clear that while the media reported that all 19 APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) leaders were in agreement on the so-called "one agreement, two steps" approach, that's not at all the case.

The real story occurred at a hastily arranged APEC breakfast. Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen made a last-minute visit and surprised the room with a speech that was only vetted by a few of the so-called "leaders." One can only imagine a room full of bleary-eyed Heads of State sitting around a big table sipping their coffee and politely nodding at Rasmussen's climate change speech without really understanding how their nods would be translated by the media.

Rasmussen began his speech by saying:

...I would like to share with you how I believe a Copenhagen Agreement could be constructed to serve the dual purpose of providing for continued negotiations on a legal agreement and for immediate action...

And later towards the end of the speech he says:

Some of you might have wished for a different format or for a different legal structure. Still, I believe you will agree with me on one fundamental point: What matters at the end of the day is the ability of the Copenhagen Agreement to capture and reinforce global commitment to real actions.

Doesn't sound like consensus to me; it sounds like a man trying to convince an audience to go along with him. It's not entirely clear who actually did agree with the Prime Minister, but what is clear is that there is nowhere near consensus on such a delay approach; in fact, dozens of countries oppose it and are still wishing--and fighting--for more.

Now, what about the actual plan itself -- the "one agreement, two steps" plan? Two steps to an agreement doesn't sounds so bad, right?

As NRDC's Jake Schmidt wrote, the strategy might not be so bad if you actually thought that the second step would ever be taken. Unfortunately, what Rasmussen has put forward is a cynical approach. It's becoming clear that all he cares about is getting a "positive" result in Copenhagen, and that the second step could just be for show.

If you look closely at Rasmussen's APEC breakfast speech, there's very little incentive to actually finish the job in 2010 (as in, to take the "second step"). Rasmussen explains his vision thusly:

The Copenhagen Agreement should capture progress already achieved in the negotiations and at the same time provide for immediate action already from next year.

The Copenhagen Agreement should be political by nature, yet precise on specific commitments and binding on countries committing to reach certain targets and to undertake certain actions or provide agreed finance.

The Copenhagen Agreement should be global, comprehensive and substantial, yet flexible enough to accommodate countries with very different national circumstances.

The Copenhagen Agreement should finally mandate continued legal negotiations and set a deadline for their conclusion.

Why would any developed country with high emissions want to go back to the table and flesh out a legally binding deal after the pressure of Copenhagen has passed and there is no real obligation to do so? Despite his lip service to "continued legal negotiations", there's no clarity nor firm deadline. Rasmussen's invention of "politically binding"--a term no one seems willing or able to define--is also repeated here.

Furthermore, there is only a passing mention of the Kyoto Protocol later in the speech. Despite what some would have you think, however, the Kyoto Protocol does not expire in 2012. In fact, in 2005, the parties to the Kyoto Protocol agreed to negotiate a second commitment period (2013-2017) and further committed in Bali in 2007 to reaching a conclusion on what that second commitment period would look like. In Rasmussen's vision, this goal seems to disappear in favor of a "politically binding" outcome.

Indeed, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper--one of the leading climate negotiation blockers now that George W. Bush is out of the picture--has been positively beaming in the press about this announcement. Not a sign of a positive development.

Luckily, there's still time to push for more. The Alliance of Small Island States, the African Group of nations, and other vulnerable and least developed countries will surely be pushing back on this plan during the prep meetings in Copenhagen this week. In fact, 11 Pacific Island States already have. Some European nations are also likely to stand up to this plan.

The planet and its people need a fair, ambitious, and binding outcome from this process. Countries should be working on such a document in Copenhagen and they can and should finish it there. After all, it's what they committed to in Bali just two years ago.

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Europe made a major commitment under the Kyoto Protocol that U.S. conservatives have been telling us for years it would never achieve.  In fact, the Europeans are poised to surpass their targets under the terms of the Protocol. It is no longer plausible for those who don’t want a U.S. cap-and-trade system to point to the European Trading System (ETS) as a failure.  Quite the reverse.

A report by the European Environment Agency released today shows that the European Union and all Member States but one [Austria] are on track to meet their Kyoto Protocol commitments to limit and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Whereas the Protocol requires that the EU-15 reduce average emissions during 2008–2012 to 8% below 1990 levels, the latest projections indicate that the EU-15 will go further, reaching a total reduction of more than 13 % below the base year.…

Looking further ahead, almost three quarters of the EU’s unilateral target to cut emissions to 20 % below 1990 levels by 2020 could be achieved domestically (i.e. without purchase of credits outside the EU).

The report highlights the importance of the EU ETS in helping Member States meet their targets.

That's a news release, out Thursday, from the European Environment Agency.  The full report is here.  The report notes:

Five EU‑15 Member States (France, Germany, Greece, Sweden and the United Kingdom) have already achieved average GHG emission levels below their Kyoto target….

The EU ETS is expected to result in important reductions of domestic EU emissions.

The EEA analysis concludes the EU-15 will not need to rely on offsets to meet their Kyoto target and “foresees a variety of factors contributing to the EU-15’s total reduction of more than 13%”:

No doubt some will try to ascribe this success to the global economic collapse, but as E&E News PM (subs. req’d) reported:

The emissions projections should be a sign to the rest of the world, said Andreas Carlgren, the environment minister of Sweden, which holds the bloc’s rotating presidency.

“E.U. emissions reductions far exceed our commitments,” Carlgren said in a statement. “This is taking place without the full impact of the economic crisis yet being evident in the figures. This shows that considered policies and concrete measures are effective in the fight against climate change.”

In fact, the Kyoto budget period covers 2008 to 2012, so it will extend over a period of significant economic growth, and much higher GDP than in the 1990 base period.  The United States, by comparison, has also been hit by the same global economic downturn, and our emissions remain significantly above 1990 levels.

The EEA also reports the reductions of the broader EU-27:

The EU‑27 is making good progress towards its 2020 emission reduction target of – 20% and the implementation of planned additional measures is expected to bring domestic emissions down to 14 % below 1990 levels.

The European Trading System, which “covers large carbon-emitting industries, which represent about 40 % of EU greenhouse gas emissions,” is far from perfect.  That’s why Climate Progress previously discussed a major August report detailing lessons for U.S. climate bill.

But the bottom is clear:  Conservatives and other opponents of the climate bill have been insisting for years the Europeans won’t meet their Kyoto targets and that the ETS was a failure, proof that the U.S. shouldn’t adopt a similar approach.  They were wrong on every count.  The EU-15 will exceed their Kyoto target, and the ETS is helping them do it. An even better designed trading system in this country, such as is found in both the House and Senate climate bills, can help the U.S. reduce its emissions in a timely and cost-effective manner.

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Copenhagen is not Kyoto

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.

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Worries about “gaming” or market manipulation sometimes crop up as an objection to cap-and-trade, often with reference to recent shenanigans in the financial markets. Some fear that a cap-and-trade system could be manipulated to artificially raise -- or lower -- permit prices to generate profits for a few at the expense of consumers. While distrust and concerns about scamming a carbon market are understandable, they’re not warranted.

To put some of these fears to rest, it’s informative to look at existing cap-and-trade programs. Neither of the two programs regulating greenhouse gases nor a third controlling acid rain pollutants has been corrupted by gaming or market manipulation.

The European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) was the world’s first cap-and-trade program restricting carbon dioxide releases when it started in 2005. The system has succeeded in creating a Europe-wide carbon market and trading program. There have been hiccups in the ETS, including an initial overallocation of allowances to polluters and some price volatility. Yet the problems are fixable and are already being addressed as the program evolves. The challenges are not attributable to a fundamental flaw in the policy or to lack of regulatory oversight. And the market has grown more robust as the number of traders has increased, making price manipulation difficult. Partly thanks to the ETS, the E.U. is on track to meet its emissions reduction obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), with a membership of 10 Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states, held its first auctions in September 2008. Additional auctions are scheduled. While still in its early days, RGGI appears to be off to a good start, with low permit prices and no evidence of gaming.

The U.S. Acid Rain Program has a track record dating to 1995. The program regulating power plants has exceeded expectations, beating the SO2 emissions cap years ahead of schedule and costing only one-fourth of what was expected. After more than a decade, analysts have concluded that the SO2 cap-and-trade program has also been free of gaming.

In short, cap-and-trade programs are already up and running with no evidence of sinister manipulation. That’s no surprise to specialists who study markets.

The very nature of carbon permit markets makes them hard to game, unlike California’s “spot” electricity market, and not terribly prone to speculative bubbles, unlike real estate and subprime mortgages. Mortgages and pollution permits are very different commodities; a mortgage is a promise to pay a debt -- a promise that a mortgage holder may not be able to keep -- while a carbon permit is an allowance to emit fixed quantities of pollution. Carbon markets are not like “spot” power markets either, in part because electricity must be supplied immediately to consumers, while firms need permits to cover their emissions at most only once a year, eliminating the urgency to acquire them at any particular time.

In a poorly designed cap-and-trade program, traders might try to hoard permits and manipulate prices to harm consumers. Yet commonsense rules of the road can address the gravest concerns. To minimize price volatility, authorities can ensure transparency about prices and the number of permits available, both at auction and on secondary markets where permits are traded. Authorities can also restrict the share of permits that any single entity can hold, to perhaps a few percent of the total permits in circulation for any year.

Other particulars of market design also help. The larger the permit-trading market and the more linked it is with other cap-and-trade systems, the more stable prices will be. Making permits perpetually bankable also stabilizes prices. For example, a hydro-dependent utility can use banking to accumulate a cushion of permits for use in an unexpected December cold snap during a “low-water” year, when the utility must generate (or import) more coal-fired power. Opening auctions to all bidders with adequate financial reserves, conducting auctions frequently and early, and limiting the number of permits any one actor may hold -- all these things will keep prices stable and prevent market manipulation.

There are also built-in disincentives for manipulation. The public doesn’t want it because it could raise power bills, and the market participants themselves, the polluting firms, don’t want to pay more to pollute. Both provide strong motivations for keeping the system honest. As with any policy, a cap-and-trade system’s success will ultimately depend on oversight and vigorous public institutions. But there is every reason to believe that a well-crafted and -regulated system for auctioning and trading carbon permits can function smoothly and cost-effectively.

This blog post comes directly from Sightline's Cap and Trade 101: A Federal Climate Policy Primer [PDF]. Please see the full primer for more details, including endnotes that elaborate on some of the points above.

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African negotiators at the U.N. climate talks in Barcelona refused to continue formal discussions about all other issues until wealthy countries live up to their legal and moral responsibility to commit to deep emissions reductions. Rich countries (also called “Annex 1 countries”) have ground negotiations to a halt by failing to agree to their new targets under the Kyoto Protocol, driving developing countries to put their feet down. This walkout is significant and opens up political space -- it means many of the countries in Africa just stopped one half of the U.N. climate negotiation process until rich countries say how much they will reduce their carbon.

We’re down to the wire: just four negotiating days left before the big agreement in Copenhagen is supposed to go down. We've now seen a taste of the breakdowns to come. While rich countries continue to undermine commitments for the Kyoto Protocol (one of two negotiating tracks for Copenhagen, it's supposed to be renewed for a second commitment period of Annex 1 targets), the spin has already taken hold: they’re blaming Africa for their own delay-mongering. Oy vey.

In response, movement and civil-society organizations held a demonstration at the U.N. building in support of African delegates' insistence that developed countries commit to new, strong, binding targets. Delegates and observers were invited to join a human shield against the killing of Kyoto targets (complete with an Annex 1 grim reaper) and urged to promote at least 40 percent emission reductions with no offsets by 2020.

Kamese Geoffrey of NAPE/Friends of the Earth Uganda warned, "Rich countries are attempting to dodge their legal and moral responsibilities to reduce emissions. Developing countries and communities have historically had practically no fault in the creation of climate change, yet they will be the first to face the devastating impacts of climate change."

Many of us have longstanding criticisms of the Kyoto Protocol, particularly its market mechanisms. But here’s why Kyoto is important: It contains a few core provisions and basic justice frameworks that the U.S. and other Annex 1 countries are trying to avoid.

1) Compliance. This means the international community evaluates whether or not you’ve come through on your commitments, set to a specific time period.

2) Overall targets (AKA top-down target setting). This means the international community decides what the targets for CO2 reduction are, and then divides up responsibilities accordingly. Equity and science decide. The U.S. wants the opposite -- each country consulting with industry to see what it thinks it can muster, and then we just see where we land.

3) “Common but differentiated responsibilities.” This is the most important framework to save. It means that the industrialized countries caused the problem of global warming, and the Global South is dealing with the worst of the impacts first (droughts, floods, famines, hurricanes, etc. are all hitting the equator now in ways that will only come to the rest of the world later). In order for the Global South to reduce emissions, they need finance and technology from industrialized countries or else we are robbing them of their right to develop -- there just isn’t space for everyone to follow the North’s dirty development path. “Ecological debt” is one way to think about it. This is the most basic framework of justice, which is what people mean when they say “the North must lead,” and why the idea that both Annex 1 and G77 countries “need to act together” is actually a deeply corrupt and unjust framework.

The idea that we can somehow replace a legally binding instrument with a voluntary pledge system is insanity. In 1997, when the Kyoto Protocol was first ratified, it had been watered down tremendously in the hopes of getting the U.S. to sign. The U.S. didn’t sign (though it remains party to the convention). Yet under the Bali Action Plan, agreed to in December 2007, the U.S. is required to take on comparable efforts to other Annex 1 countries under Kyoto -- which means that in theory, the rest of the world could continue the Kyoto Protocol, and the U.S. would have to come along whether it signs or not. Instead, we’ve seen a race to the bottom -- other Annex 1 countries hiding behind U.S. inaction and refusal to sign, claiming the world cannot make an agreement without the U.S. on board.

So the shit is hitting the fan. And Africa isn’t taking it. We should applaud their courage, and be skeptical anytime the media tries to shift the blame for the breakdown of negotiations onto G77 countries. Make no mistake, these talks have been polluted by self-interested corporations and governments, and all roads lead back to Annex 1 (and the U.S. in particular).

It’s a myth that Kyoto expires in 2012 -- only the first commitment period of Annex 1 greenhouse-gas emission reductions ends. We need to support the basic frameworks of a legally binding treaty, and need to ensure there is a second Kyoto commitment period. Period.

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Today marked one of the final days of the Bangkok U.N. Climate Negotiations. With the end of this intersessional in sight, the International Youth Delegation (IYD) has officially declared “No Confidence” in the road to Copenhagen.

With youth delegates from over 30 countries engaging in the Bangkok process, the IYD cited pathetically weak targets from the North, alarm that a second commitment period in the Kyoto Protocol will not be secured, and a lack of guarantees for protection of indigenous peoples’ rights and interests in its declaration. The current text of the draft climate deal is so weak and so full of “false solutions” (measures like offsetting that actually make the problem worse) it is unacceptable.

Youth delegates representing each continent addressed the U.N. today, detailing the urgency of the crisis as it affects their communities currently, telling stories of their hope and organizing alongside their denunciation of the state of play in the U.N. Negotiations.

This week the Annex 1 (rich countries), attempted to kill the Kyoto Protocol (KP). We are nearing upon the end of the current KP term, and a lack of renewing it means that the world would lose the few legally binding international climate agreements it has (as insufficient as they are). The US in particular has deliberately undermined the KP by trying to merge it with the Convention Processes (the other track). Other Annex 1 countires are hiding behind the US to avoid their responsibility. The excuse is that the United States will not sign, and therefore the whole thing should be scrapped and an entirely new deal can be struck on its own. It is lunacy to think that this will yield a stronger outcome, and the G77 (the rest of the world) countries are furious.

We have always known the U.S. won't sign the KP; the world cannot continue to wait for the U.S. to get on board. In Bali, the U.S. already committed to setting comparable targets to other Annex 1 countries, so the world could deal with the U.S. in the AWG-LCA (Ad-Hoc Working Group on Long Term Cooperative Action). This all amounts to a shell game: more dirty delaying tactics from self-interested countries who are content to strip away basic attempts at an international agreement (for example "compliance" -- meaning that the U.S. would have international oversight of its targets, or "top-down target setting" -- meaning the international community sets carbon targets together based on science, rather than each countries independently setting their targets based on what their fossil fuel extraction industries dictate).

Allowing the U.S. to drag the world out of existing legal obligations is disgraceful. These negotiations are going backwards. Make no mistake: our future is being held hostage to interests that have consistently thumbed their noses at the international community and their obligations to the rest of the world. This process has been polluted by self-interested corporations and nations looking to profit off of our crisis. They have been pushing false solutions that exacerbate rather than fix the problem. Not only are the targets set by rich countries weak, but they are deceptive. Rather than representing actual emissions reductions, they contain unacceptable proportions of offsets, which do not reduce emissions, and displace the burden back onto the developing countries of the world.

In the meantime, the roadmap developed in Bali has been betrayed, as Annex 1 countries are putting forward the perverse idea that somehow developing countries should (or can) act first. Further language on indigenous rights is being removed and diluted from the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) text. "Rights" are being defined as "right to participate," as opposed to "rights over land and communities", and existing U.N. language (such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples or UNDRIP, and the principles of Free Prior and Informed Consent or FPIC) is far from being adopted. This has led to major protests all week and this morning youth supported the Indigenous Caucus in a large "No Rights?? No REDD!!" demonstration on the front steps of the U.N.

The youth will not accept a dirty deal.

Rights-based language in the text (including UNDRIP and FPIC), no offsets, limiting global temperatures to 1.5 degrees C and 350 ppm of c02, unconditional legally binding targets for Annex 1 countries of at least 40% reductions by 2020, and a LOT of money for adaptation and technology transfer are just some of the baseline components that must be in the text to even begin to sensibly move forward. Regardless of what governments decide, youth across the world are continuing to organize social movements to build meaningful solutions in their own communities, working on local, national, and international levels. Our hope for the future is in the power of civil society to reshape what is perceived as politically possible.

See the video of the press conference here:

Bangkok: International Youth Delegation declares "No Confidence" in road to Copenhagen from CYD To Copenhagen on Vimeo.

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Climate Denial Crock of the Week: The big mist take

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2009: The year so many met so often to talk so much about the perilous state of the climate -- and as of September, accomplished so little.  Will this week be the charm?

During several different international meetings this year, nations have been getting into position for this December's international climate treaty talks in Copenhagen.

This week, they're all gathering again.  On Tuesday, the U.N. is holding a day-long Climate Summit (alongside its annual, two-week General Assembly) in New York City.  And on Thursday and Friday, the Group of 20 (G20) leading world economies is gathering in Pittsburgh, its third meeting of the year to deal with the global economic meltdown.

While climate is not formally on the G20's agenda, some are hoping that President Obama will come off his speech at the New York event ready to signal to other world leaders that the U.S. will lead on forging a strong replacement to the Kyoto Protocol treaty to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, which expires in 2013.  Its successor is supposed to be largely finalized at December's global-warming talks.

New York City is playing host to climate week.How likely is Obama to do that?  As the Magic 8-Ball might say, "Reply hazy; try again."

Candidate Obama made strong climate action a central plank of his election platform.  President Obama has taken some pragmatic steps to make good on those promises, such as naming a climate-savvy team to key environment- and energy-related posts.  Obama also backed the massive funding within the stimulus bill for home-weatherization programs, clean energy research and development, expansion of rail transit, and other on-the-ground moves toward a low-carbon energy economy.  And he spent a smidge of political capital to help get the House climate and energy bill passed in June.

On the international negotiating front, however, the Obama administration may be hamstrung by sluggish Senate progress on passing climate legislation.  Senate leaders keep pushing back the timetable for action on a bill, with Majority Leader Harry Reid suggesting last week that it could be bumped all the way to next year.  Republicans are almost universally opposed to a cap-and-trade system for cutting greenhouse-gas emissions, and many moderate Democrats aren't enthusiastic about cap-and-trade either.

If the Senate doesn’t pass a climate bill by early December, U.S. influence in Copenhagen may well be diminished, though if the EPA takes action to regulate greenhouse gases with its existing authority, that could give the Obama administration something to take the table.

Meanwhile, the administration is working toward a bilateral climate agreement, which could circumvent the Kyoto treaty framework.  Where the world's two greatest greenhouse-gas polluters lead, the rest of the world will probably have to follow, no matter how strong or weak the results may be.

Climate activists are not going to let this week's gatherings of nations pass without a demonstration -- or even several thousand demonstrations, all around the world -- to show global public demand for a strong international climate treaty.  So there's a heavy schedule of (hoped-for) flash mobs, protests, call-to-arms film screenings, and other events in both New York City and Pittsburgh.

Through its Voices Project, the international aid group Oxfam and allies are helping a number of non-mainstream-media reporters and bloggers (including this reporter-blogger) to attend the Climate Summit; get face time with big names in climate policy, politics, and activism; and cover the G20 from a perspective that puts global warming front and center, instead of off to the side of the recession or global trade policy.

So, let's set the scene:  Coming into this week's meetings, the U.S. and 16 other of the world's largest emitters have already made a commitment (at July's Major Economies Forum in Italy) to hold global temperature increases to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.8 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100.  They also reiterated a goal from last year of “achieving at least a 50 percent reduction in global emissions by 2050,” with industrialized nations slashing their greenhouse-gas pollution by 80 percent.  But as of yet, the 17 nations have made no formal plan for how to get to any of these milestones.

Will this week's events help break through the logjam?  Stay tuned as we find out.

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The U.S.-India climate ‘partnership’

In the Sept/Oct issue of Sierra Club Magazine, Club Chairman Carl Pope details four "fallacies about solving global warming" that must be scrapped in order to achieve "the transformational global deal we need to save our planet" in Copenhagen. Put in positive terms, and looking only at the specifics, Pope outlines the following platform.

1. Pricing carbon to subsidize renewables and energy efficiency.
2. International tax & dividend system to transfer fossil fuel-based corporate and national wealth acquired by exploitation of the global (carbon sink) commons.
3. Scrapping Kyoto: Copenhagen should start with a clean slate, unburdened by past political compromise.
4. A stronger bright line standard than 350 ppm.

Whew! The nation's flagship environmental organization has put forward a sharp, short and functional solution around which US environmentalists and climate activists may rally and, perhaps, pull ourselves out of the dismal swamp of endless climate policy bickering and get on with the business of forcing the world to face climate cataclysm.

But Pope does not follow the logic of his own reasoning, writing that "with luck and political will, President Barack Obama could have a signed act in his pocket" in time for Copenhagen.

The disconnect here is staggering.

Putting ACES into law, in any form likely to reach President Obama's desk, would be the zenith of all four fallacies. ACES will codify a bright line that will destroy life as we know it, forestall any reasonable prospect for carbon tax, tax & dividend or any other alternative to the dysfunctional "cap & trade" shuck, and most glaring, tie the hands of the US and international community of nations to the bankrupt dead weight of Kyoto. The burden on US environmentalists who have striven mightily to fit climate reality into present political boundaries is immense. Pope's surreal argument indicates that the cost to straddle the widening chasm is now reason itself.

The 4 four platform outlined by Pope, however, is worthy of support.

It would have been better if the Sierra Club had specifically called for the cap on fossil fuel extractions that, in the end, will be the prime mechanism by which carbon emissions are rapidly phased out; the building block on which all pricing, taxes, incentives and end-of-the-pipe emissions regulations are dependent. When the world's nations do take responsible action, they will turn to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer as our only successful international precedent for prompt collective action to avert global catastrophe. Though Pope does not specify, I'd like to assume that the "tax & dividend" approach Sierra Club has in mind draws on the model proposed by Peter Barnes, which unlike all other schemes aimed at shoehorning climate solutions into the severe limits of cramped present day politics, is keyed to fossil fuel production rather than carbon emissions, thereby staking out a critical "up stream" beachhead.

I agree with Pope's view that the 350 ppm bright line to pull back from major climate tipping points and avoid the point of no return, as originally proposed by Jim Hansen, is not strong enough (it should be noted that Hansen specified 300-350 ppm). Bill McKibben's 350.org, which is leading the global drive to put 350 ppm on the table at Copenhagen, has adjusted its definition from atmospheric carbon concentration to carbon equivalent to reflect the important role of methane and other non-carbon greenhouse gases, yet the cascade of new evidence does argue for 300 ppm ce or, as David Spratt, author of Code Red bluntly puts it, a return to the pre-industrial level of 275 ppm. This is a crucial question, but given the present trajectory and the time frame for global political action, I am persuaded by McKibben's argument that, "any climate target lower than where we are right now—be it 350 CO2e, 350 CO2, or anything else—represents a transformative shift in how the world operates."

The great thing about Pope's 4 point agenda, like all other foundational tenants (think 10 Commandments or 12 Steps) is that it cuts through indecision, chatter and obfuscation, making heretofore uncomfortable and confusing questions easy to call. Following the logic of Pope's platform, we must:

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Red Square in Moscow: It gets cold there, but that doesn't mean they like global warming.Russia may be one of the coldest nations on Earth, but it has no interest in seeing global warming continue unchecked, the Russian ambassador to the United States said in an interview.

Ambassador Sergei Kislyak said Russia is willing to work with other countries to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. He disagreed sharply with recent news reports suggesting Russian leaders may welcome climate change because it would make Arctic gas and oil deposits and northern regions more accessible.

“Climate change brings not only the warming of Siberia, it brings many problems that we’ll have to cope with,” Kislyak said. “They will outweigh the benefits, the perceived benefits. We have developed a lot of technologies to make even the most remote places in Siberia accessible. It’s not the biggest problem.”

Heading into climate talks in Copenhagen this December, Russia wants to ensure that all heavy emitters are involved in an international treaty, he said. Russia is the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases behind China and the United States.

“We want all the countries that contribute to climate change to be on board in cutting emissions,” Kislyak said. “That is kind of our guiding principle. Certainly the negotiations are going to be difficult. But I would say that, more or less, our positions are closer and closer with the United States.”

Kislyak, a veteran diplomat and a nuclear physicist by training, acknowledged that climate change wasn’t high among his areas of expertise. He framed the issue largely in economic terms.

“We want the issue of climate change to be addressed in a way that will promote the stability of the climate, rather than the way it is devolving now,” he said. “But I think everybody would claim that. The issue is, at what price and who is going to do what?”

We spoke after his talk on Russian-U.S. relations in Seattle last Friday, hosted by the Foundation for Russian American Economic Cooperation. Last September Kislyak began his ambassadorship in the aftermath of the violent conflict in South Ossetia, a time he described as the lowest point in U.S.-Russia relations since the Cold War. In his address, he said he drew a good deal of optimism from President Barack Obama’s meeting with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in Moscow last month. Yet he gave unapologetic defenses for Russia’s position in Georgia, its stance on Iran’s nuclear pursuits, and its opposition to a U.S. missile shield in Eastern Europe.

“We were told [the missile shield] is not against us, it’s against Iran, so Russia shouldn’t be worried. People are saying Russia was consulted when the decision was made. All of this is not completely true,” he said.

He also took a confrontational tone in discussing the Kyoto climate treaty. “We are, by the way, members of the Kyoto Protocol,” he said. “You are not. And we can afford this, easily.”

What he didn’t say is that the reason Russia can afford to meet Kyoto benchmarks is because they are based on emissions levels from 1990, two years before Russia’s economy nosedived in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse. Russia can continue growing its economy (and climate pollution with it) and stay comfortably within Kyoto standards for several years.

Kislyak had more to say about energy efficiency, which is a focal point of a recent report from the Center for American Progress that calls for a “reset” of U.S.-Russia relations via climate and energy cooperation.

“It is a priority for Russia because our economy is much less efficient than many others--several times less efficient,” he said. “It’s not because we are not technologically advanced, it’s because we have been living with the luxury of having so much fossil fuel that we simply didn’t care too much about it.

“Times have changed and we understand that fossil fuels need to be left for future generations. We need to be energy sufficient, but I would underline that it’s part of the Russian economic program no matter what. Whether there will be [an international climate] conference or not, we are going to modernize our economy for our own people.”

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The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has already failed Africa, some observers believe, so why bother post-2012 when the existing CDM framework established under the Kyoto Protocol expires?

But as the international community prepares to negotiate a new climate pact, we should care about extending the CDM, and care a great deal.

After all, the CDM was created with the dual goals of promoting sustainable development in developing countries and reducing costs of compliance in regards to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in rich countries. In the early years of the CDM, the market rewarded the lowest hanging fruit -- reductions in industrial facilities in countries where there were already well-established investment environments and where government institutions were relatively well developed. It's no surprise then that most of the early projects were in Brazil, Mexico, Chile, South Africa, Malaysia and China.

Today the CDM has broadened to reach over 50 countries worldwide, including African nations like Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Morocco, Egypt, and Tunisia. But we need to improve and extend the CDM to reach even more developing nations.

In 2007, while serving in my previous role as Global Head of Origination for EcoSecurities, I started focusing on business development in Africa. My first trip to scope out potential projects was to Tunisia, Ghana and Nigeria. Later we also evaluated opportunities in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania, and from our South African office we tried to work with projects in countries as diverse as Rwanda, Mozambique, Mauritius, Madagascar, Namibia and Angola.

Despite our efforts, our African portfolio remains much smaller than one would expect given the resources devoted to it. Africa, we found, is a rather complicated place to work. First of all, it is extremely diverse and geographically huge. But, more importantly, the continents institutions are still in their infancy. Most African nations have only been independent for 50 years or less. As such, many governments have not evolved strong policymaking processes or had time to build the roads and rail networks needed to support economic development.

Slowly but surely, however, Africa is picking up. Unfortunately, the current debate on a post-Kyoto climate regime seems to be overlooking carbon financing as a tool for sustainable development, especially for Africa. The current debate tends to focus on competitiveness -- i.e. obtaining level playing fields for industries. But this approach insinuates that only major emerging economies matter in the fight against climate change, so only those that already possess developed industry and the money to set baselines and manage major schemes can aspire to benefit from carbon financing internationally.

People in developed countries often associate Africa with high-profile "bad news" stories, such as the political violence and economic collapse in Zimbabwe, the years-long wars in Congo, or even the horrors of 1994 Rwanda and today's Darfur. True, these are shocking and distressful facts, but they should not tarnish the substantial strides that other countries like Ghana, Botswana, Namibia and Ethiopia have made.

In the words of Youssou N'dour, one of the most well-known African singers who recently released a movie called "I bring what I love" (highly recommended by the way), developed countries need to move away from their idea that Africa is just a story of poverty and start expecting nations there to take care of their own development ... and make sure they have the flexibility to do so.

Africa needs more investment (not aid) to build businesses and infrastructure. Recently, there's been much discussion of aid's failure to help Africa's countries achieve certain development milestones. Carbon financing, I believe, can play an important role in boosting economic development and reducing corruption by channeling direct foreign investment to African nations for the right purposes.

Looking toward Copenhagen, it is not enough for Africa that the CDM simply continues past 2012. We need to recognize that:

The bad news is that we are out of time in the current Kyoto architecture, and it does not look like there will be a future for scalable carbon financing in Africa unless the United States also looks at climate change regulation as a force to promote sustainable development.

Let's encourage the United States and other developed nations to be more ambitious in Copenhagen and put on the table not only the idea of getting China and other key developing countries to agree on emissions targets, but also the idea of reinforcing the role of CDM and pushing for much needed reforms of the mechanism addressing Africa's challenges.

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"The world is not going to turn its back on coal."
U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu

The Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy Security Act (ACES) won't cut emissions. It won't serve as a platform we can improve later anymore than the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) served as a foot in the door to improve our democracy when it promoted voter purges and Diebold electronic voting machines. But one last argument is left to supporters: we need to support ACES in order to improve America's negotiating position in Copenhagen.

This bill would improve the U.S. negotiating position, since our international  friends and allies tend to grade us on a special needs curve.  The problem is that our government would use this increased leverage to weaken rather than strengthen any climate deal.  The current U.S. position is to support more coal, and oppose  strong emissions reductions in the next ten years.  The U.S. helped weaken the last climate change treaty by pushing  to include carbon trading and offsets in Kyoto. Does it really make sense for environmentalists to support a bill that won't reduce emissions, that does not provide an infrastructure for future emissions reduction in order to let our government do the same thing a second time?

References

Gar Lipow; "Waxman-Markey bill would do more for climate without cap-and-trade provision - Should be called Jekyll-Hyde";; Grist Magazine; 21-May-2009; <http://tinyurl.com/AcesNoC-T>

Gar Lipow; "Offsets are still counterfeit carbon credits - Clapping louder"; Grist Magazine; 1-Jun-2009; <http://tinyurl.com/OffFalse>

Gar Lipow; "Pissing the earth away"; Grist Magazine; 9-Jun-2009; <http://tinyurl.com/GristPiss>

Gar Lipow; "American Climate Energy Security bill still makes things worse. ACES is not playing with a full deck."; Grist Magazine; 3-Jul-2009; <http://tinyurl.com/AcesNoDeck>

George Monbiot; "Why do we allow the US to act like a failed state on climate change? The Waxman-Markey climate bill is the best we will get from America until the corruption of public life is addressed."; The Guardian - Environment - George Monbiot's Blog; 26-Jun-2009; <http://tinyurl.com/GradeCurve>

West Coast Climate Equity;"Steven Chu Backpedals on Coal-fired Power"; West Coast Climate Equity Global Climate Change Information; 14-Jan-2009;  <http://tinyurl.com/ChuCoal>

Siobhan Hughes; "Energy Secretary Backs Clean-Coal Investment";  Wall Street Journal;  7-Apr-2009; <http://tinyurl.com/wsjChuCoal>

Jeff Biggers;"Coalfield residents respond to Obama’s announcement on mountaintop removal - Kinder, Gentler Blasting, Leveling of Mountains, Filling of Streams"; Grist Magazine; 11-Jun-2009;  <http://tinyurl.com/kindMTR>

Mark Stevenson;"US nixes 40 percent cuts at climate change talks"; The Associated Press; 23-Jun-2009; <http://tinyurl.com/NoGHGcuts>

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Copenhagen, U.S.A. December 7

Half a year before the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen, negotiators are far from agreeing on key components of a global climate deal. As envisioned in the 2007 Bali Climate Action Plan (or "Bali Roadmap"), the summit in December is supposed to deliver a follow-up agreement to the Kyoto Protocol under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which expires at the end of 2012.

Ever since Bali, however, progress in the negotiations has been slow. Only recently have the delegations entered full negotiation mode -- which is necessary right now, the most pivotal year since the 1992 UNFCCC. From June 1 to 12, more than 4,600 participants -- including government delegates from 183 countries as well as business, industry, environmental organizations and research institutions -- met in Bonn, Germany, to discuss key negotiating texts that will serve as the basis for an agreed Copenhagen outcome. The gathering in Germany was the second in a series of five major U.N. negotiating sessions this year leading up to the Copenhagen summit in December.

Bonn did not deliver any major breakthroughs. Once again, there was little progress on agreement on how the three key cornerstones of a future global mitigation deal (binding economy-wide reduction targets for developed countries, mitigation efforts in developing countries, and finance and technology transfer from the first to the latter) could be knit together. Disagreement exists both on the governance and legal structure of the deal as well as the concrete numbers for targets and finance. Matters are further complicated by the continued separation of the two U.N. negotiation tracks. Since the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in Montreal in 2005, country representatives negotiate future commitments in parallel processes: the UNFCCC track (which includes the United States) and the Kyoto Protocol track. The linkage between the two potential treaties is a bone of contention itself, with the European Union, the self-proclaimed climate leader, preferring one unified future negotiation track under an umbrella agreement.

In many regards, negotiations in Bonn ran on the spot: Developing countries refused to put concrete mitigation actions on the table, wanting to make them conditional on industrialized countries' binding reduction and financing commitments. Most discussions tended to alienate developed and developing countries on issues such as aggregate emission reductions for richer countries. In terms of developed countries' commitments, Japan upset many delegations with its proposal to reduce emissions by 15 percent until 2020 compared to 2005 levels (which equals an 8 percent reduction compared to 1990, hardly a determined step forward in light of Japan's Kyoto reduction target being already 6 percent). The E.U. insinuated that given the low ambition of other countries' reduction proposals, it will stick to its unilateral commitment of cutting emission 20 percent by 2020 but not increase it to 30 percent, which it had indicated it would do if other countries aimed high as well.

The key state among the rich countries is the United States. With more than 20 percent of current global emissions, the U.S. is essential for an effective climate deal. However, the U.S. at this point seems to be unwilling to put concrete reduction and financing commitments on the table before these are backed by domestic legislation. The Kyoto experience hangs like the sword of Damocles over the Obama administration. Many of its members were engaged in the Kyoto deal under President Clinton and confronted with his refusal to submit the treaty to the U.S. Senate where it never had a chance of ratification.

The change of the U.S. domestic situation between then and now, however, is a starting point for optimism. As a German proverb has it, "hope is the last to die." The Waxman-Markey climate bill - the American Clean Energy and Security Act - that recently passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee aims at reducing U.S. emissions by 17 percent until 2020 compared to 2005 levels under a federal cap-and-trade system. Taking into account additional reductions in other sectors besides those which fall under the emissions trading cap and adding provisions that reduce emissions from forestry in developing countries, U.S. reductions in 2020 could be as high as 17 percent compared to 1990. If by the time of Copenhagen, the House has passed legislation with reductions close to this amount and the Senate has at least moved in this direction as well, the U.S. administration could come to the negotiation table as a leader.

The Bonn talks resulted in its most important deliverable: a draft treaty text for Copenhagen. The UNFCCC stipulates that a draft text must be on the table at least half a year before the signing of its final version. The 200 pages include all the different submissions, which make it extremely complex and at points inconsistent and contradictory; however, it also entails all key components of an effective, fair and equitable deal. It also includes a number of progressive and interesting ideas: registries or schedules for unilateral, conditional, and carbon credits-supported actions by developing countries; sectoral approaches as an important improvement from the current Clean Development Mechanism; proposals for the future structure of financing; and options for reducing emissions from deforestation. While negotiations in Bonn were slow, in the second week there was a sense of urgency amongst some of the key actors in both the developed and the developing camp.

So what happens next? The next U.N. meetings are scheduled for August 10 to 14 in Bonn, September 28 to October 9 in Bangkok, and November 2 to 6 in Barcelona. Delegations now have to refine and streamline the draft text, engaging on its controversial specifics. But these meetings of climate negotiators alone will hardly bring the major breakthroughs for the key challenges of establishing concrete reduction goals in all major emitting countries as well as deciding on financial funds and their governance. It seems inevitable that at some point, top political personnel, including governmental leaders, have to call the shots. After all, mid- and long-term decisions with the potential to trigger investments in the hundreds of billions of dollars are not made by environmental experts. The G-8 meeting in July in Italy, a high-level event initiated by the U.N. Secretary General in New York on September 22, and the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh in late September all provide leaders with important opportunities to make a real global pact on climate possible.

Most importantly, Copenhagen in December has to be on the radar of the key heads of state. Rightly so, there are discussions underway to extend the Copenhagen summit to break the threat of a final impasse. If Copenhagen can deliver agreement on all key provisions of the architecture of a global climate deal, we would have 2010 and 2011 to negotiate its details including technical accords, but also the real numbers in the tit-for-tat between developed and developing countries.

Bilateral meetings in the run-up to Copenhagen might prove to be essential as well. In a parallel to the Bonn negotiations, a top U.S. delegation discussed the issue with the Chinese leadership in Beijing, just a week before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi headed a U.S. congressional mission to China. Both delegations came back impressed by China's commitment to climate protection, the development of alternative energy systems, and the more efficient use of energy. It seems like the finger-pointing on one another's wrong-doing finally has stopped. Remember: half a year before the decisive Kyoto conference in 1997, the U.S. Senate unequivocally approved the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, setting the negative tone for U.S. climate policy for years to come.

This time around, both the White House and a majority of the Congress seem to be determined to lead on climate change, both domestically and internationally. Whether they succeed, however, remains to be seen. But hope springs eternal.

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One of the little-known ingredients of the deal that allowed the American Clean Energy and Security Act, H.R. 2454, to pass the Energy and Commerce committee was a breakthrough on protections for the world's vanishing tropical forests. The bill's authors, Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA), used this agreement to achieve the bill's environmental aims while keeping it affordable enough to maintain the political support it needed to pass. As such, the bill's tropical forest provisions are essential not only to strong climate policy, but also to overall hopes for climate legislation as it works its way through Congress.

Destruction of these carbon-rich, biodiverse forests causes about 20 percent of global climate pollution -- more than the emissions from all the cars, trucks, planes and ships in the world combined. The bill's supporters recognized that you can't solve the climate crisis unless you solve the deforestation crisis.

Tropical forest conservation is one of the most affordable and fastest ways to achieve large pollution reductions. These forests are so biologically rich that every acre stores an average of about 200 tons of carbon dioxide, but because there are currently no systems to value tropical forest carbon, they're being destroyed for ranchland and soy plantations. Indeed, the consulting firm McKinsey & Co.'s recent greenhouse gas abatement cost curve analysis found that tropical forest conservation has the potential to reduce carbon pollution at just a fraction of the cost of other essential strategies, like installing clean energy or improving agricultural practices.

The challenge has been that, despite the importance of saving tropical forests and the relative ease of doing it, intractable debate about exactly how to end deforestation has persisted for years. As a result, tropical forests were entirely excluded from the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, resulting in 300 million acres of forests getting wiped off the map since then.

Since then, a consensus has emerged that this "colossal blunder" cannot be repeated -- but exactly how to protect the forests has continued to be disputed, with some groups favoring a pure government funding approach and others backing an approach that would give emitters pollution credits for investing in successful forest conservation.

To resolve this question, leading environmental groups and major U.S. corporations (including some of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters) like American Electric Power and Duke Energy convened a negotiating process through Avoided Deforestation Partners, while the Waxman-Markey legislation was being drafted.

These groups had a major realization: instead of choosing a government or private investment approach, we could do both. Indeed, it became clear that doing both was essential -- private investment was the only real hope for attracting the scale of financing needed to end deforestation, while government funding was necessary to build the scientific and policy infrastructure and developing country capacity necessary for a robust private investment system -- and to accomplish conservation goals to which private investment was less well suited.

In addition to endorsing this dual approach, the coalition also agreed to set very strict standards for any private conservation efforts. First and foremost, they agreed that emitters could only get credit for conservation activities once they had already occurred -- not just for having a plan. They also agreed that all forest conservation activities in major emitting countries like Indonesia and Brazil must be done in association with a national plan that ensures that the project is contributing to a national decline in deforestation, not just a local one.

In order to reduce deforestation immediately, however, the agreement doesn't require that all forest conservation wait for the establishment of national plans and baselines, a process expected to take some years, especially in the least developed countries that lack the resources to quickly evaluate deforestation levels and carbon stocks.

Instead, in the first years after the adoption of climate legislation, emitters will also be able to get credit for conservation activities that are part of state or province efforts to reduce deforestation in cases where those states or provinces themselves are major sources of carbon pollution. Companies can also receive credit for conservation projects in the least-developed, relatively low-emitting countries while they prepare their national plans. These provisions help ensure that the next few years don't result in a deforestation race to the bottom before conservation protections are established.

Finally, and crucially, no conservation project at any time will be able to receive credit unless it promotes biodiversity, and indigenous and forest-dependent people benefit from it.

With groups ranging from the Sierra Club to Starbucks and Pacific Gas and Electric Company endorsing these principles, the agreement had the political and policy support it needed. As I outlined in a recent brief paper for The Center for American Progress, the Waxman-Markey legislation includes almost all of these principles - though some technical differences between the agreement and the legislation remain.

That's great news for tropical forests. Based on figures from the EPA, the tropical forest provisions of the bill would reduce pollution by one billion tons annually by 2015 -- equivalent to eliminating all of Germany's pollution. And one third of those reductions -- those generated by auctioning off five percent of the bill's allowances and dedicating those funds to establishing a conservation infrastructure, among other purposes -- come in addition to the bill's pollution cap. That provides a big carbon saving bonus not accounted for in most estimates of the bill's impact.

These provisions also provide major cost savings. EPA has estimated that without international offsets (most of which will be forest-based), the bill would have been 96 percent more expensive. In the words of a recent New York Times editorial, "the economics make sense."

Despite the benefits, the bill has a long way to go before it becomes law -- and there are threats at every turn. The House leadership can ensure that the bill's forest provisions stay intact by not allowing hostile amendments to risk the entire agreement underlying the bill - and the realization of the bill's environmental goals.

The Waxman-Markey bill's forest provisions provide a model for action by other countries. If the bill passes and other industrialized countries adopt similar tropical forest conservation measures, deforestation could be ended or even reversed -- a huge global achievement that, until Waxman-Markey, seemed tragically out of reach.

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Europe made a major commitment under the Kyoto protocol that U.S. conservatives have been telling us for years they would never achieve. It now seems clear Europeans will meet their commitment under the terms of the protocol. It will become increasingly difficult for those who don’t want a U.S. cap-and-trade system to point to the European Trading System ETS) as an obvious failure.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) reported Friday:

EU greenhouse gas emissions fall for third consecutive year

European Union emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases (GHG) declined for the third consecutive year in 2007, according to the EU’s GHG inventory report compiled by the European Environment Agency. The EU-27’s overall domestic emissions were 9.3 % below 1990 levels, which equalled a drop of 1.2 % or 59 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent compared to 2006. The EU-15 now stands 5 % below its Kyoto Protocol base year levels.

You can see how each individual country is doing here (full report here).

And just two weeks ago, the European Commission reported that a subset of total EU GHG emissions, the carbon dioxide emissions traded in the European Trading System (ETS), dropped sharply in 2008:

Emissions of greenhouse gases from EU businesses participating in the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) fell 3.06 % in 2008 compared with a year earlier, according to the information provided by Member State registries. With the 6.5% reduction in emission allowances that the Commission has secured for the second trading period, the EU ETS really started to make a difference to emissions in 2008. Last year marked the beginning of the second trading period of the EU ETS, which runs from 2008 to 2012.

Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said: “The 3 per cent reduction was partly due to businesses taking measures to cut their emissions in response to the strong carbon price that prevailed until the economic downturn started. It confirms that the EU has a well functioning trading system, with a robust cap, a clear price signal and a liquid market, which is helping us to cut emissions cost-effectively. This should encourage other countries in their efforts to set up comparable domestic cap-and-trade systems, which we would like to see linked up with the EU ETS to create a stronger international carbon market.”

… Emissions were reduced despite GDP growth in the EU-27 of 0.8% last year. While the economic slowdown was felt strongly in the sectors covered by the EU ETS, the drop in emissions was also due to emission reduction measures undertaken by installations in reaction to the robust carbon price which prevailed for most of 2008 before the onset of the recession.

Yes, because of the global economic collapse, it is difficult to say categorically how much credit the much-maligned ETS deserves. Still, the point of this system is to meet the Kyoto target, and it now seems clear that the EU-15 will meet the target.

And the EU-15 will apparently do so with minimal use of the even more maligned (including by me) international offsets — Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) of Clean Development Mechanism projects (for longer discussion of CERs/CDM, see “Do the 2 billion offsets allowed in Waxman-Markey gut the emissions targets?“). The European Commission noted that

Last year it was possible for the first time for installations to surrender emission credits generated through the Kyoto Protocol’s flexible mechanisms in order to offset part of their emissions. CERs accounted for 3.9% of all surrenders. 41% of these originated in China, 31% in India, 15% in South Korea and 7% in Brazil, with a further 14 countries of origin accounting for the remaining 5%….

92% of the surrenders were allowances which had been given to installations for free [!] while the remaining 4.1% of surrenders were of allowances either purchased in auctions or free allowances allocated for 2009.

To repeat the bottom line: Europe made a major commitment under the Kyoto protocol that U.S. conservatives have been telling us for years they would never achieve. It now seems clear they will meet their commitment under the terms of the protocol. It will become increasingly difficult for those who don’t want a U.S. cap-and-trade system to point to the European Trading System ETS) as an obvious failure.

Now it is certainly true that the EU target was not incredibly strong, especially given their relatively lower population growth compared to the United States. I fully expect our old friend Roger Pielke, Jr. to weigh in on this point, as he did last year (see “Are Europe’s greenhouse gas cuts real?” and “Population growth and climate: The EU-15 vs. the U.S.“). Of course, we don’t take him too seriously since “Finally, Roger Pielke admits he supports policies that will take us to 5-7°C warming or more” and since he is a fellow at that bastion of bad analysis, TBI (see “Memo to media: Don’t be suckered by bad analyses from The Breakthrough Institute“).

Indeed, the EU-15 started with higher energy taxes, more efficient vehicles, higher electricity prices, and a number of stronger energy efficiency regulations than this country. So they don’t have as much energy and carbon “fat” to shed as we do (see “The United States of Waste“) In any case, it is rather cheeky for any American to criticize Europe on the grounds of not cutting their greenhouse gas emissions enough.

As I’ve said before, I understand why some people in this country seem to glory in any problems Europe has in meeting its target: It somehow implies we should be let off the hook for not ratifying Kyoto and for not embracing any serious domestic action. But I actually consider it rather amazing that the EU has accomplished so much given the sorry state of international climate politics.

After all, inaction by China alone is used by conservatives and businesses in this country as a major justification for opposing all domestic action. Imagine how tough it must be for European leaders when they have to keep pushing climate action in the face of inaction by China and the United States — their two major economic competitors.

It now seems clear the EU-15 will meet its Kyoto target without using a lot of offsets. What they have done and are doing is an impressive achievement that should serve as an inspiration to the world. I will blog shortly on Germany’s remarkable set of actions and future commitments.

Kudos to Europe. Jeers to those who are still trying to diminish what they’ve accomplished.

[Memo to European Environment Agency: If you want anybody to pay attention to what you folks are accomplishing, stop with the Friday press releases.]

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The Climate Post is a weekly roundup of climate news, produced by the The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University.

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Lately, every week is the most consequential in the history of climate change. This week was no exception. A House of Representatives committee slogged through its potentially game-changing climate bill. The White House struck a deal with auto manufacturers and California to raise fuel efficiency - and consequently reduce carbon emissions. Uneven signals from China promise hope for some kind of agreement but foreshadow a tough road to achieve it. These are all simultaneous episodes in a larger story of transformation.

The House at the Center of the World: The House of Representatives now sits at the epicenter. Rep. Henry Waxman's Energy and Commerce Committee last Friday unveiled a full draft of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, cogently and quickly summarized by the Washington Post and Reuters. Democrats came to initial agreement on some of the thorniest issues, including how to allocate carbon credits to heavy polluters and other market participants, according to Greenwire. Among the major recipients of help, power companies will receive 35 percent of the allowances, natural gas distributors 9 percent, and energy-intensive, trade-sensitive industries 15 percent.

The committee is voting the bill Waxman co-sponsored with Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) to the full House at this very writing. Through these minute-by-minute details, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture.

Jargon Watch: Now and then, a word or phrase escapes the rarified journals and policy discussions where it was born, and greets an unsuspecting public. Such is the case with "cap and trade," memorably deployed to mean "vague thing I'm supposed to understand but don't" by the New York Times‘ Maureen Dowd in a March column. ClimateWire has had fun with variations of it.

Whatever you call it, it's the centerpiece of the Waxman-Markey bill.

In the last week or two, commentators and columnists have taken to op-ed pages with arguments against cap-and-trade, for it, and, well, mostly against it. (Policy op-eds frequently challenge the dominant trend.) Remember that a national climate policy, be it cap-'n-trade, or a carbon tax, or Cap'n-America, is not an end in itself, but a way to help us help ourselves. Climate policy is designed to fix "the carbon problem" in our markets: Polluting is free but eventually could have seriously undesirable consequences.

What "cap-and-trade" means, and where it could carry us, hasn't yet penetrated the chatter. E&E News reported this week that "[O]verall support for cap and trade trails far behind backing for increased investment in renewable energy, improved fuel efficiency for vehicles, implementation of a renewable electricity standard and even increased offshore drilling." A cap and trade system is supposed to nudge the market toward increasing demand for new energy sources. Climate policy is a lever that increases investment in renewables, fuel efficiency, and may or may not affect the economics of oil drilling at home. The relationship between a national climate policy and these desirable goals isn't "either-or" but "if-then."

White House firing on all cylinders (now with greater efficiency): While the Energy and Commerce Committee worked over the Waxman-Markey bill, the administration announced the first major climate rule in U.S. history. Much to the administration's delight, no one leaked news about new auto fuel efficiency standards before President Barack Obama's announcement on Tuesday. That means official sources were willing to play along, as reporters captured rich chronologies (called "tick-tock" in the biz) of the secret negotiations, particularly the Los Angeles Times (LAT) and ClimateWire. The LAT pins down insider details, such as Ford's 3 p.m. Sunday call to the White House saying the deal was off, and the subsequent impromptu cell-phone negotiations, with participants phoning from the bathroom at a Washington National's game and a birthday party in New York. The new Corporate Auto Fuel Economy (CAFE) rules will establish a nationwide standard by 2016 that should reduce carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. cars and light-trucks by 30 percent.

Scaling the Great Wall that divides us: Secret negotiations were a motif this week. U.S. and Chinese negotiators began meeting last July trying to bridge their differences on emissions reductions, symbolically at the Great Wall. The Guardian broke news of the meetings on Monday, reporting that senior Bush administration advisers and several current Obama advisers met with Chinese officials. The back-channel talks led in March to an unsigned memorandum of understanding, which participants hope will embolden the world's two largest national emitters to find a common ground in addressing the causes of climate change. The news comes at a time when the international climate community is gearing up for negotiations in December in Copenhagen.

Obama on Monday picked Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman as his ambassador to China. A savvy selection, Huntsman is an up-and-comer in the Republican party, has served as Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, and speaks fluent Mandarin. The Nicholas Institute, which operates The Climate Post, has conducted modeling studies of Utah's policy options on climate change, under Huntsman's administration. Obama has indicated he expects climate change to hold a prominent spot in Huntsman's portfolio.

Talks between developed and developing nations will continue to shape international climate politics (witness the Indo-Asian News Service's interest in an amendment to a bill moving through a House committee). The secret talks reported by the Guardian are only one item of interest in a complicated U.S.-Chinese relationship. Chinese officials confirmed for the Alliance France Presse earlier today their negotiating position for the end-of-the-year Copenhagen talks: China will ask that industrialized nations commit to emissions targets 40 percent below the amount they emitted in 1990 by 2020. The European Union has resigned itself to 20 percent reductions, and the House climate bill would reduce pollution 20 percent below 2005 levels.

Any unified global action must consider and guide international trade. The Washington Post showed just how complicated these relationships can be, in a front-page story Monday about the rise of China as a car-maker. Chinese companies have grown quickly, which means that their firms lack the technical expertise that can only emerge with time. "What they still lack is... being able to design new vehicles from scratch and get them to a manufacturing line," Kelly Sims Gallagher of Harvard's Kennedy School told the Post. A probable result: Chinese firms will try and buy ailing U.S. car companies - and their valuable human capital. Don't miss Business Week's in-depth package on greening China.

Reporting? We don't need no stinkin' reporting!: Fortune magazine recently held its second Brainstorm Green conference, a star-studded event that brought together luminaries from the politics and business worlds. But editors undermined their expertise in climate issues - in business, politics, policy, and science - by publishing an article lacking the rigor and seriousness characteristic to the publication.

"What if global warming fears are overblown?" - the headline - is an important question to ask. Climate fears might be overblown. They are more likely "underblown." But the risk of climate change - the consequences of catastrophic change times its probability - is serious enough to prompt global and quick action, a point the article fails to make. Instead, a financial writer, Jon Birger, asks "softball" questions of a University of Alabama, Huntsville, scientist, whose skepticism about the potential for severe global warming is out of step with the work of scientists who have re-examined his work in peer-reviewed journals (here, for example). It's not as obviously wrong as reporting in 2009 that, say, Sadaam Hussein currently has weapons of mass destruction (after he was both revealed not to and publicly hanged). But it's a problem that Birger and Fortune's piece is not obviously wrong, particularly to Fortune editors who should know better if Brainstorm Green means anything. Climate science is a vast body of physical, evidence, assembled by thousands of people, worldwide, over several decades. Putting eight questions to a scientist whose ideas were challenged professionally at least four years ago fails to communicate the preponderance of evidence that is driving the world to reduce the (rising) climate risk.

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A hot-blooded Spanish creature like me can get into an argument relatively easily, and I'm not afraid to argue strongly about what I know and/or believe. Can you picture Penelope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona when she argues with Javier Bardem? Yep, that's me!

In the last four months here in the United States, I have attended quite a few conferences, gatherings, meetings, cocktails, you name it. At all of them I have found myself discussing carbon offsets, specifically the contribution of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) -- the project-based market mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol that channels foreign investment to clean projects in the developing world in return for carbon credits -- to confronting climate change.

The lack of understanding of the CDM in the United States is rather shocking. I have heard eye-rolling comments like, "It is a joke that closing a coal power plant can generate CDM credits" (well, indeed it would be, if it were true).

The good thing is that my debating skills are getting better, so irrational critics of the CDM beware!

The United States is finally committed to tackling climate change, and even though there is some discussion about the shape of climate legislation (carbon tax vs. cap-and-trade), it seems the most likely outcome is that the U.S. will end up with a cap-and-trade program. There is major debate about whether offsets should be allowed into the scheme, but it's really the only rational outcome since offsets are an effective price-control mechanism.

So, why does the CDM matter to the United States? Because if the U.S. does not want to create false expectations in industry with regards to its real capacity to use offsets, there is no time to reinvent the wheel. Building an offset-accreditation system takes time. A long time. American industry will suffer if the supply of offsets is not sufficient to help with price control, especially in the short-term while companies roll out their internal strategies and infrastructure changes.

The truth is that the CDM has already generated a high-quality pipeline of international projects that can provide a good source of offsets to U.S. companies covered by regulation. In my six years with a project-offset development company, I have been a fiery (remember, I'm Spanish) critic of the CDM. But these criticisms are aimed at improving an emerging system, not dismantling it.

Too many critics in the United States simply want to throw the baby out with the bath water. The real opportunity is to learn from the experience and use the fantastic negotiating power of the U.S. government and economy to improve the system. I'm still wondering if criticisms here have to do with the perception that the CDM was not "made in America." In fact, the CDM was actually born in the USA.

What are the positives and the negatives of the CDM? The negatives are that successful early projects are extraordinarily concentrated -- fewer than 30 projects have generated approximately 70 percent of total credits to date. The system also is overly complicated, making it difficult for small projects to gain access, and the comparatively short period since Kyoto means the CDM has had too little time to incentivize en masse new technologies or really bring high-end technology to key developing markets.

On the positive side, a highly complex system is already up and running (this is very important), and more than 1,350 projects have already been approved by the UN to generate credits (with over 3,000 more in the pipeline). The gross current projection is 1.3 billion tons of carbon reductions through 2012, which is worth tens of billions of dollars of investment and trade flows to the developed world.

"Learning by doing" has created significant expertise and an entrepreneurial culture around emissions trading -- a whole new industry and lots of jobs (my company alone has gone from 25 to 300 employees in the six years since I joined). The CDM has accelerated existing technology uptake in new markets, and one can clearly argue that the CDM has provided solid proof that markets can indeed achieve social objectives. Finally, some of the failures that my colleagues and I have railed about can be attributed to "over-success" and regulatory stress rather than fundamental flaws in the CDM.

On a project-scouting trip to Vietnam, my colleagues and I visited with officials to discuss a landfill in a city located near the Vietnamese capital. When you fly to countries like Vietnam and encounter officials from a small and poor area excited about being able to resolve the problems posed by their city's landfill because the sale of carbon credits will provide an extra boost in revenues that will make the installation of biogas collection and flaring systems economically viable ... well, it is a difficult-to-describe feeling, but pride is certainly in there. It is even more impressive to see this knowledge cross cultures and languages.

The Vietnam example shows that the CDM is working and is worth keeping; promoting these kinds of projects and entrepreneurs throughout the world is the only way we will truly address climate change. Keeping and improving the CDM should matter to the United States, not only because it makes sense for American companies to have a good pipeline of offsets available, but also because if the U.S. is serious about its international reengagement and developing a global clean energy infrastructure, this is a mechanism worth using.

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