Correction- it’s the EU that’s the climate deadweight

by David Steven | Oct 12, 2009 | Climate and resource scarcity, Europe and Central Asia, North America

Interesting to compare my post from earlier (“anger at America’s free pass“) with Kevin Grandia’s take. Writing from the Bangkok talks, he points an accusing finger at the EU for its failure to make any meaningful commitment to binding targets:

The only developed country to make a real commitment to a hard cap is Norway, who announced yesterday that will commit to a forty-percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2020. It’s worth pointing out that Norway is not part of the European Union.

I have to admit to being slightly bemused by Kevin’s argument. At Bali, all members of the Kyoto club agreed that, ‘as a group’, they must cut emissions by 25–40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. The US, of course, was not in the room for the negotiation.

The EU is already committed to reducing its own emissions by 20% in 2020 against 1990 levels, the Kyoto benchmark year. Since well before Bali, it has explicitly stated that it would take on a 30% target if other countries make comparable efforts.

In contrast, the US is attempting to legislate at home on an agreement that would see its emissions return to 1990 levels by 2020, but does not yet seem to be in a position to take on any binding international target.

So that’s a possible 0% from the US vs a hard(ish) 20% from the EU, and a possible 30%. Seems quite a big difference to me. Or perhaps, Kevin, I am missing something?

Climate – anger at America’s free pass

by David Steven | Oct 12, 2009 | Climate and resource scarcity, Europe and Central Asia, North America

I was talking to a friend about the Copenhagen climate summit the other day.

She was aghast – and angry – that, even in a best case deal, the United States will take on an emissions target that is no more onerous than that given to the European Union (and may be considerably less so).

US emissions have shot up during the Kyoto years, with the average American now accounting for twice the emissions of his/her European counterpart. But EU negotiators are so desperate to have the US rejoin the party that they’ll swallow more or less any commitment that their US counterparts are prepared to put on the table.

My friend’s visceral reaction is evidence, I think, that outside the ‘climate bubble’, citizens in European countries have not even begun to ask themselves what a fair deal on climate looks like.

This creates a real chance of a backlash when they finally work out that the United States expects to be allowed to continue to emit more than Europe for the next thirty or forty years – and possibly for much longer.

That’s why John Kerry got all hot under the collar when I asked him at Bali whether all countries should be heading for similar levels of emissions per head, dismissing those who insisted on playing what he called ‘the per capita game’.

It’s also why American politicians obsess over the fact the China now emits more than the US, but fail to remind their audiences that there are more than four Chinese for every American.

Past form would suggest that European governments will be meek, mild and biddable in Copenhagen, doing everything they can to make Barack Obama’s life as easy as possible. But it would be a mistake for them to be too supine.

After all, no-one respects weakness, especially Americans. And European citizens will have no hesitation in knifing their governments, when they work out that they didn’t even try to get its transatlantic cousins to finally begin to pull their weight.