The three stooges, again

While eating my Cheerios this morning, one eye open and mostly focused, and trying to mentally boot without incurring another self-inflicted “spoon incident”, I spotted an article in the newspaper about the stunning U-turn China and India have made on climate issues.

The closest article I could find to the one I might have imagined is from The Guardian, China and India expected to seize initiative at New York climate talks:

China and India appeared poised for bold new action on climate change ahead of a major UN summit tomorrow, in moves that will significantly increase pressure on President Barack Obama to deliver cuts in US emissions.

The UN climate chief, Yvo de Boer, said today that he expects China’s president, Hu Jintao, to announce a series of new measures tomorrow that would put the country well ahead of America in dealing with climate change. Meanwhile, India’s environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, told the Guardian his government planned to make “aggressive” cuts in India’s emissions.

The Chinese and Indian measures – if fully realised – could represent a breakthrough in bringing them into a global climate change deal at a UN summit in Copenhagen in December. Almost all observers say the Copenhagen talks are dangerously stalled.

…

China, India and other developing countries between them will account for more than two-thirds of the world’s emissions by 2020, but they argue they cannot sacrifice economic growth and poverty relief to reducing carbon emissions, especially if the industrialised world does not take decisive action on its own emissions.

But China and India now appear to be demonstrating a new willingness to act – even in the absence of a firm commitment from America, where Obama is struggling to deliver on a promise of an economy-wide plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

…

These include a mandatory fuel efficiency target which would come into effect in 2011; a more energy efficient building code which would come into effect in 2012; and an increase in electricity produced from renewable sources to 20% by 2020. The government was also stepping up efforts to stop deforestation, raising its target for tree cover to 15% by 2020. He said these measures and others were designed to reduce India’s energy intensity by a further 5 to 10%.

…

However, Ramesh said India would not compromise on its ambitions of achieving 8% economic growth a year. The plans could also fall hostage to India’s political scene, where there are sensitivities at being seen to be giving in to pressure from the developed world.

…

Ramesh also had reduced expectations for Copenhagen. He held out little hope of a broad agreement to cut emissions that will keep global warming within 2C, a view echoed in an influential report in China last week. Instead, in his view, there was only broad agreement on the need for a fund to protect poor countries from the worst ravages of climate change, a plan to help developing countries adopt new clean energy technology, and another programme – with funding from the industrialised world – to reduce deforestation in the developing world. ” It’s an easier option if you don’t have to change your lifestyle, you don’t have to cut emissions directly. All you have to do is put some money into a forest in India or Papua New Guinea or somewhere,” Ramesh said.

Let me be as precise as I can about this, since some of the language above and its implications deserve very close scrutiny.

• While I would love to see the US lead the world to a greener, safer future, seeing that leadership come from China or India or anywhere else you can name would be light years ahead of not getting the climate agreement we so desperately need. So, if the US continues to drag its feet and lets China and India rush in and garner all the glory, that’s fine with me. And I would hope it’s fine with every other US citizen with more than three gray cells to rub together. (Of course, if those “reluctant” to embrace climate change mitigation and adaptation measures are motivated by leadership from China and India to push the US to do more, I won’t complain. We’re in so much trouble on the climate front that I’ll gladly accept people doing the right things for stupid reasons.)
• Don’t get too caught up in India’s numbers, as quoted above. Notice how everything is presented as relative values or soft targets–20% RPS (renewable portfolio standard), fuel efficiency “target” going into effect in 2011, etc. If India’s economy grows very quickly, as it is expected to over the next few decades, then they could implement these measures fully and still increase their total CO2 emissions considerably. And as we see above, they’re still saying explicitly: Growth comes first.

The situation we have right now with the three stooges of climate change–China, India, and the US–is that one climate bomb is in the process of going off (China, which leads the world in CO2 emissions), one has a terrifying potential to go off (India, which will have the world’s largest population in not too many more years), and one has already gone off and could do so again (the US, which has emitted a mind blowing amount of CO2 to date, and has to cut emissions a lot to keep from compounding the damage).

Trying to “net out” all these details into a simple prediction, namely what will happen in Copenhagen?, is a fool’s errand. It’s very clear that the US isn’t moving nearly as quickly as is needed on emissions reductions, and it’s equally clear that China and India are engaging in a very well executed PR move, part of which is make promises that will let them preserve their most precious goal (a high rate of economic growth and everything it makes possible) while appearing to be doing more than they really are. How all this comes out in Copenhagen in
December is probably a 50/50 mix of chaos theory and international politics, with the latter heavily influenced by the domestic politics of each participant.

My advice: Keep pushing elected representatives for more action on mitigation efforts, but don’t form any firm expectations about what will happen in Copenhagen.[1] It could be a tremendous success, it could be an absolute bust, or it could be a partial measure that everyone tries to sell as more or less than it is, depending on their political leanings.[2] (If forced to bet tomorrow morning’s Cheerios, I would go with the last possibility.)

See also:

• Document alert: Solving the climate dilemma
• China: 2C is “just a vision”
• The three stooges of climate change

[1] And by “Copenhagen”, I mean the December meeting itself and any follow-on meetings that arise out of it. If we don’t get an agreement until, say, the Toronto meeting in June of 2010 (which I just made up), I would still consider that part of “Copenhagen”.

[2] Imagine we have an agreement. Now imagine how FOX (even sans their most insane gibbering idiots) and Daily Kos will talk about it.