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Just one week after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, President Barack Obama addresses the world in Copenhagen, Denmark on the priorities and strategies of the United States of America in stabilizing climate change.
"Climate deal reached in Copenhagen," official says.
World leaders reach agreement that provides for a means to monitor and verify emission cuts by developing countries but has less ambitious climate targets than the U.S. and European governments had initially sought, according to an Obama administration official. read moreOur Mission
Kim Campbell
Climate change presents a challenge of such cosmic proportions that we can barely force ourselves to contemplate the costs of failing to act. The challenge facing COP15- the Copenhagen meeting on Climate Change – was to demonstrate that the capacity for true leadership still exists.
Future generations will likely deplore the absence of American leadership on the climate issue during the presidency of George W. Bush. Although President Bush appeared to recognize the seriousness of global warming toward the end of his second term, his prior acquiescence to domestic political forces determined to deny the issue had the unfortunate effect of politicizing the debate and defining scientific differences in ideological terms. As the world’s largest economy and largest per capita carbon emitter, America is an essential player in any attempt to create a global strategy for confronting climate change, yet the very forces of American democratic politics seemed to provide the biggest hurdle to achieving this.
In the absence of American leadership for the first decade of this century, others have tried to fill the leadership vacuum on climate change. One such body is the Club of Madrid, an organization of more than 70 former Presidents and Prime Ministers formed in 2002 for the purpose of promoting democracy and democratic development,. Many of its members are deeply involved in the issue of Climate Change whether through personal foundations ( eg Bill Clinton and the Clinton Global Initiative, Mikhail Gorbachev and Green Cross International) or through bodies such as the UN, where three of the four Special Envoys on Climate Change (Gro Harlem Bruntland, Ricardo Lagos and Festus Mogae) are members of the Club of Madrid.
Recognizing the threat that climate change poses to the survival of democracy and building on the experience of those members who were in office during the Kyoto negotiations, the Club of Madrid joined forces with the UN Foundation to create a high level task force on climate change : Global Leadership for Climate Action (GLCA). Through continued dissemination and advocacy of its Framework for a Post-2012 Agreement on Climate Change (drafted in 2007 and updated in 2008 and 2009), GLCA has sought to mobilize political will and invigorate international negotiations towards an agreement on climate change beyond 2012. GLCA shared its framework for a substantively credible and politically viable approach to the post-Kyoto climate agenda by participating in climate consultations with international financial institutions, specialized international climate change organizations, academia, civil society, industry, local authorities and others. This work, combined with that of many other organizations, helped to ensure that the international negotiations could continue with the support of the best thinking and political strategizing available to maximize the potential for success at COP15 in the absence of a full engagement of the US government.
Did COP 15 meet the test of leadership? My answer would be a cautious Yes. In many ways the fractiousness of the discussions was a reflection of the realism of the deliberations. Participants knew that the time for rhetoric had passed, that genuinely addressing climate change was going to be costly and that time is running out. In his much-anticipated address, President Barack Obama reaffirmed America’s willingness to lead and acknowledged that Europe was already ahead of the US in mitigation. He further emphasized that a treaty was the desired ultimate outcome of the COP15 process, but that at this stage, the political will of the signatories would be more important than the document itself. As Kyoto shows, treaties are no guarantee that their provisions will be fulfilled by the signatories in the absence of domestic political will. Focussing on verification issues – and the seeming movement of the Chinese to accept some form of “transparency” in judging how targets are being met- is truly a foundation for a treaty with some teeth. The five-country agreement between the US, China, India, Brazil and South Africa is only a start, but it will play a crucial role in the domestic politics of the United States in making Congressional support for a Climate Change agreement possible. The story of its creation – with President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton “crashing” a meeting of the Chinese, Brazilian and Indian leaders-will some day be part of the lore of global warming. Whether it will be part of a “good story” or a story of the beginning of a great failure remains to be seen. All of the leaders who participated in the conference have domestic political constraints, whether they are the constraints of democratic accountability or the “marching orders” of a party leadership concerned with domestic political stability. The real test of leadership will now be in the domestic fora to gain support for a far-reaching and binding accord.The Europeans are reportedly unhappy at leaving COP15 as the only countries with binding emission targets, but I believe they will soon be joined by other countries whose targets will first take the form of domestic law and ultimately be included in an international treaty. The Europeans are right to set these standards and, I believe, will be the early beneficiaries of the certainty they create within their economies.
Markets need certainty. In September, during the International Investor Forum on Climate Change in New York, investors who collectively manage $13 trillion in assets (roughly four times the US 2009 budget) called for a “strong and binding international treaty that will reduce pollution and catalyze massive global investments in low-carbon technologies.” Further, only legally binding commitments can begin to restore trust between developing and developed countries. The former see that the investment commitments from the Kyoto Protocol have not been honoured. If those funds have not yet been deployed, how can additional “political” commitments hope to close the gap in trust between the developed and developing world? There are countries who represent a “trifecta” of disadvantage when it comes to climate change: they are the worst affected; they are the poorest and they are the weakest -even failed- states. They are also in some cases the incubators of serious threats to the global order through terrorism and unmanageable population flows.
As for the efforts by the Club of Madrid and other organizations to play a leadership role on the climate issue, they should continue. The return of the United States to leadership is welcome but there is still much to do in creating a broad understanding of and support for a global treaty on Climate Change. A recent USA Today poll showed a majority of Americans in support of taking action on Climate Change but their highest priority is meeting the needs of the economy. It will be a challenge for leaders to demonstrate that addressing climate change is a key part of a strategy for economic prosperity. They will need all the help they can get in delivering this important message. Although non-democracies like China are key to addressing climate change, if the world’s great democracies cannot lead the way in addressing the climate crisis, such a failure of leadership risks persuading many of the world’s peoples that democratic capitalism, notwithstanding its freedoms, is unequal to the task of creating a just and safe world.