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How to prevent climate change summit from failure

Scott Barrett
It is most unlikely that the United States will make this mistake again. The most plausible way forward would be for the US to adopt domestic legislation for reducing emissions, and then to agree to fulfill these commitments subsequently in a treaty.
IN December 2009, the parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change will meet in Copenhagen. Their aim will be to conclude an agreement that will succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which terminates in 2012. Given the abysmal failure of Kyoto one may be permitted to ask, Will Copenhagen succeed any better? The answer depends on expectations of what can be achieved in this short amount of time; the answer depends on how ‘‘success" is defined.
The worst outcome would be for the United States to "commit” to meet quantitative targets and timetables of emission reduction without being sure that these obligations will be approved by Congress.
It is most unlikely that the United States will make this mistake again. The most plausible way forward would be for the US to adopt domestic legislation for reducing emissions, and then to agree to fulfill these commitments subsequently in a treaty.
The chances that Congress will approve climate change legislation before Copenhagen are poor. The US timetable is simply out of synch with the negotiation
timetable. Can an international agreement be reached without US support? Probably not.
It is more realistic to aim to negotiate a skeleton agreement in time for Copenhagen, to save face, with the details being finished later - a Copenhagen bis agreement (bis is Latin for "a second time”). Though many people emphasise the need to act quickly, it is much more important that the US develop an institution that will work, a foundation for making incremental improvements over time.
Indeed, there is a feedback between domestic negotiations in Washington, and the negotiations in Copenhagen and beyond. What the US agrees to do domestically will depend on what the rest of the world can be expected to do.
Congress will be especially concerned about China. China is an even bigger emitter today than the US. If US action is to have much effect, China must act, too. But so too must many other countries, including industrialised economies like the European Union and Japan and other large, fast-growing developing economies like India and Brazil. This is why the Obama administration is organizing a meeting of the major economies to be held later this
month in Washington.
The participation of these countries is also important for another reason. If the US were to act unilaterally, “competitive advantage" in trade-sensitive sectors may shift to these other countries. This would harm US industry. It would also undermine the environmental effectiveness of the domestic action.
How should a new treaty be designed? The focus has been on the negotiation of a new set of economy-wide targets and timetables. The European Union unilaterally set the goal of reducing emissions 20 percent from the 1990 level by 2020, but pledged to reduce emissions by 30 percent provided the United States and other industrialised countries agreed to the same target President Obama has favoured a 15 percent reduction in emissions from the 2005 level by 2020, and 80 percent by 2050. How do these numbers compare? The Obama target would only return emissions to the 1990 level by 2020. This is less than Kyoto required, and a lot less than Europe is proposing.
Targets and timetables are also difficult to enforce. We know this because Kyoto established economy-wide targets and timetables and has been ineffective. This is the mistake we must not repeat.
Carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, cannot be controlled in this same way. Tire approach favoured so far is to negotiate national caps on carbon dioxide emissions. The problem here is that no country will want to reduce its emissions substantially using a national cap. for this will leave its trade-sensitive sectors, like aluminum, steel, and cement, exposed to "unfair ” competition.
An alternative approach is to address these sectors at the global, rather than at the national, level. New technical standards should be negotiated, creating a new “level playing field." These can then be implemented in the same way as the Montreal restrictions.
Ultimately, effective policy for addressing climate change must bring about a transformation in technolog)’. R&D should not “pick winners" but reveal possibilities. Some technologies, however, are begging to be investigated. An example is "carbon capture and storage" - a technology that removes carbon dioxide from large, coal-fired plants. So far. there is not a single large-scale demonstration plant operating anywhere in the world. A great many are needed so that we can learn how this technology works, and how we can make it work efficiently and safely.
My recommendation for the US would be to negotiate a skeleton agreement in time for Copenhagen, and follow up with supporting agreements focusing on individual gases, sectors, and R&D efforts. Success in Copenhagen should not be defined by setting goals that lack domestic support and that cannot be enforced but by laying a foundation for making incremental improvements over time.
Scott Barrett is a professor at the Johns HccJuns Un.versity School of Advanced International Studies He was a lead author of an earlier assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Hsbook Why Cooperate? - was published by Oxford University Press m September 2007
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