Revolution and Stumbling Blocks on the way to Copenhagen

We have just a little over five months until the world gathers in Copenhagen to consider the next global climate deal. Precisely how those negotiations will go is difficult to predict, but I do know this: around the world there is unprecedented pressure on governments for something to be done.

Suddenly, everyone is talking about the low-carbon, resource-efficient economy that is going to create green jobs, help mitigate climate change and ease the impacts of a population that is growing, in numbers and in wealth, in developing countries.

The Clean, Lean, Mean industrial revolution gets a little closer every day. The United States, the European Union and China all want to be leaders in “cleantech” products and services and are allocating more funding to develop and promote technologies that will achieve this.

But there are still some serious stumbling blocks to be overcome during and after the Copenhagen talks.

Not least among these will be the vexing issue of historic carbon emissions. Much has been said here about the US and China, and how each will play a pivotal role.

I believe China will come to Copenhagen knowing that it needs to take a forward-looking, solutions-oriented approach if it wants to maintain its export markets, but it will not want to take responsibility for historical emissions created by others, most significantly the US. It will look to the US and the position it takes.

The US, on the other hand, has its own issues, too. The Obama administration is driven by a domestic agenda: it wants to cut the nation's fuel imports and is also concerned about its agriculture and food supplies. As well, it fears that climate change could be a destabilizing factor around the world and that as the leading military force it would have to deal with this. The US will come to Copenhagen, I believe, ready to talk but perhaps too soon for it to do a deal.

These concerns alone could be enough to bog down the Copenhagen talks, but there are others: financial flows, technology transfer and trade are just three.

Financial flows to developing countries will be particularly important. At the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, at which the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was agreed, developing countries were promised 0.7 per cent of signatory nations' GDPs in return for protecting the environment. They never got that money, and now would like the promise honored as well as additional financial support to reduce greenhouse gas emissions going forward. And, given that some level of climate change seems inevitable because of historic emissions, developing countries would like funds to help them adapt.

Overall, this adds up to a considerable sum of money that recession-hit developed countries may be unwilling or unable to provide.

Developing countries also want the transfer of technologies to help them transform their economies and build energy-efficient infrastructure. There is a proposal that this transfer should be paid for from a fund amounting to 1 percent of GDP in industrialized countries. These funds should pay for the technology, as well as buy intellectual property rights.

And then there is the issue of trade. I am coming to the conclusion that globalization, open trade and free markets are all hanging in the balance as the pressures to kickstart economies and reshape them as low-carbon entities take hold.

The global business community that wants free trade, open markets, freedom of investments and a level playing field needs to strengthen its voice about the risks ahead. There is absolutely no doubt that climate change must be arrested, and business stands ready to play its part in finding and implementing the solutions. But if we want to encourage sustainable growth, to provide jobs, livelihoods and advancement around the world, then care must be taken not to damage the global marketplace we have worked so hard to establish.

Comments

[Mike]

Given your topic, your readers might be interested in a new site for high impact / high paying green jobs.

We recently launched Zoosa (www.zoosa.org) as a single destination for all social enterprise resources. Thanks to our partners, we already have several thousand news items, jobs & skills based volunteering opportunities in the clean-tech, education, government, health care, and nonprofit sectors!

I'd love to hear your feedback if you get a chance to visit our site!

Mike

[Sol Shapiro]

I got your name from the fact that you are presenting material to the meeting of the Committee on America's Climate Choices. I think a key element of the Copenhagen meeting needs to be to look at short term geoengineering solution's to put climate change on hold to give the world the century or more it will need to move from fossil fuels. The Committee which you are addressing at its summit meeting on March 30/31 concluded that only geoengineering can have a measurable effect in the next 2 to 3 decades. See archived webcast of that meeting at http://americasclimatechoices.org/summit_webcast.shtml
Then go to Session 9 and time slot 53:00 to hear the summary on geoengineering.
Note also that the Committee held a workshop on geoengineering in mid-June.
And that if we implement geoengineering it MUST be under international control - thus to be included in Copenhagen output.