Day 5: Report from Reed Smith Delegates in Copenhagen at the United Nations Climate Change Conference
This post was written by Jennifer Smokelin.
Overtaking the position from American golf star Tiger Woods, “Copenhagen” (as in COP-15) is now the number one search query on the world’s leading internet search engine Google, according to Treehugger.com. And the numbers continue to add up: 113 heads of state are scheduled to arrive next week, the most at any Conference of the Parties (COP). There have been over 35,000 registrants for an event center that can only hold 15,000. By comparison, Kyoto, where the Protocol was agreed to, had 11,000 registrants. Now, in a move never seen before at a COP, the UNFCCC has resorted to implementing a secondary badge system to restrict access, mostly for non-governmental organizations, next week. That certainly underscores the unprecedented convergence of public opinion and politics on this issue.
But will the COP be successful? That depends, of course, on how you define success. Todd Stern, the top US climate negotiator said “absolutely I think there is a deal to be done here”. But what are the terms? Let’s consider an easier question: are the negotiators making progress? At the early morning plenary COP/MOP (Meeting of the Parties), chairs of the key working groups KP and LCA put forth drafts that seemed at least to Executive Secretariat of the UNFCCC Yvo de Boer to set forth the beginnings of a framework for meaningful action. Some experts state that the negotiations are precisely where they need to be before heads of state step in: all issues open but the choices sharpened. But Mr. de Boer admitted that now, going in to the weekend (not waiting until midweek), was the time to focus on the “big picture” items, e.g., whether the world should seek to keep global temperatures from rising beyond a ceiling of either 2.7 or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels and what countries should commit to with regard to short term and long term financial aid. On the latter issue, the European Union stepped up and pledged $3 billion in climate aid to poor countries. Let’s see the United States match that.
In the United States’ continued effort to woo the world, today’s special guest at the US Pavilion was Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke. Secretary Locke called for a “unified international action” that calls on “each of us” to do our part. Not surprisingly, his speech focused on green job and how green commerce can spur the economy. Retreating from Secretary of Interior’s statement regarding coal use in the future, Secretary Locke was clear that the days of fossil fuels, and fossil fuel subsidies, are “gone”.
Secretary Locke specifically said we need to rely on the entrepreneurs and inventors an all countries to come up with ideas and ways to get us out of the climate crisis and create a “new model for economic growth”. The transition to a clean energy economy, Secretary Locke said, will not be easy, but we can look to the Danish example that accomplished a two-fold increase in GDP while keeping energy consumption the same since 1970. The change to a clean energy economy will take regulatory reform in zoning, permitting for renewables, as well as a gas tax and removal of any oil subsidies to promote renewable fuel. To the naysayers that call cap and trade an “Armageddon”, Secretary Locke pointed to the success of the United States acid rain sulfur dioxide allowance trading program. He failed, however, to address the “scale” issues inherent in such a comparison: the acid rain program included a little over 100 sources; the proposed cap and trade system includes over 10,000 sources which is an increase by TWO orders of magnitude. Think of it this way: just because you can serve a nutritious dinner to 4 people and make sure everyone eats their vegetables, that does not mean it is just as easy or the food is as good when you prepare a meal for 4000.
