Obama’s climate promises boosts chances for Copenhagen deal

US President Barack Obama will attend the international climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December and is promising sizable reductions in US carbon emissions, the White House announced on 25 November, giving new hope for a global agreement on reducing heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
The Obama administration proposed cutting its domestic emissions 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 - the first mid-term target offered by the United States, but one that falls well below what is being sought by the European Union and developing countries.
The White House said Obama will be in Copenhagen on December 9, the day before he receives the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. The visit was a sign of Obama’s commitment to achieve a “meaningful agreement” at the Copenhagen summit, which runs from December 7-18.
Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen has urged world leaders to attend the summit in the hopes of hammering out a new global treaty that would curb greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. So far some 60 heads of state and government have said they planned to attend, according to the Danish government. The White House would not say whether Obama might return to Copenhagen towards the end of the summit, when most other world leaders will be going. Other US administration officials will be present throughout the conference.
Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said in Germany that Obama’s attendance at the summit would be “decisive,” noting that the rest of the world was looking to see what the United States would do.
“Success in Copenhagen is vital. There isn’t any Plan B,” he said, predicting the summit would be “an historic turning point in the fight against global warming.”
The Obama administration is under pressure to agree to tough new emissions cuts, but has been reluctant to commit because of stalled climate talks in the US Congress. The Senate will not pass climate legislation until next year.
The White House said the 17% emissions reduction target would be contingent on Congress approving similar legislation. Obama had already pledged to cut emissions more than 80% by 2050, but was holding out on the nearer-term target.
The EU has said it will cut emissions as much as 30% below 1990 levels by 2020, if other governments agree to similar curbs. Obama’s 2020 target would bring emissions just 4% below 1990 levels, because pollution has grown more sharply in the United States over the past decades.
The White House said its proposal “demonstrates a significant contribution to a problem that the US has neglected for too long.”
The Senate’s power is such that it has helped delay until next year the final agreement on a global treaty to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the world’s first climate agreement, which expires in 2012. The goal is now to settle on key political issues at Copenhagen but to ink the ultimate legal deal some time in 2010.
Climate groups welcomed the White House announcement, but said Obama’s real test will involve convincing Congress to pass climate legislation that allows the US to follow through on its commitments.
“It’s important that his words during this important moment convey that the United States intends to make climate change a legislative priority, not simply a rhetorical one,” said Keya Chatterjee of the World Wildlife Fund.
The United States wants emerging powers like China and India to agree on their own cuts in climate-damaging pollution. But developing countries first want stronger commitments from industrial powers, who they argue bear historical responsibility for climate change.
Another major sticking point ahead of the Copenhagen summit is how much money wealthy nations will give developing countries to help them combat climate change. The US has yet to propose a figure. Some environmentalists worried that a single trip by the president to Copenhagen might not be enough.
Meanwhile, a study released in Berlin on 23 November said that a lack of determined action on climate change means that by 2050 global warming of more than the targeted 2 degrees celsius will have taken place. In its “Tipping Points” report, WWF and global insurance firm Allianz said the consequences of emissions already made would, by 2050, likely include a global sea-level rise of 0.5 meters, disrupted monsoon rain patterns, Amazon die-back, and severe drought in the south-western United States.
The report’s authors said that large, sudden changes would likely affect the world’s climate, rather than a gradual, manageable process. The report envisaged that the value of property and assets in port cities worldwide endangered by a 0.5m rise in sea level would amount to $28 trillion by mid-century.
WWF also concluded that an average temperature rise of 3 degrees celsius was likely by the end of the 21st century, unless “extremely radical and determined efforts towards deep cuts in emissions are put in place.”
Climate expert at WWF Regine Guenther said “the most important next step is a legally binding agreement in Copenhagen.”
“Tipping Points” estimated that costs incurred from drought as a consequence of disrupted monsoon rains could reach $42 billion per decade by 2050.
Over 70% of the working population in India are dependent on agriculture, according to the report, and such a development would severely endanger their existence.
If the average global temperature rises by more than 2 degrees, costs incurred because of shrinking rainforests could reach more than USD 9 trillion.
The report also predicted a return of “dust bowl” conditions in the south-western US, last seen in the 1930s, with costs from forest fires reaching $2.5 billion per year.