Copenhagen: Done. Next Stop: The U.S. Senate

by Jim Ball 12-21-2009

Here’s the bullet on what was achieved here in Copenhagen at the international climate change talks that concluded on Saturday. The “Copenhagen Accord,” as the agreement reached is now called, is a vital step forward in the 21^st Century’s greatest challenge – overcoming global warming. It clears away the obstacles that have heretofore prevented us from passing comprehensive climate change legislation in the US.

Some may want to play Monday morning quarterback and endlessly debate what could have happened here, that it’s not enough. But given what we needed to continue making progress, it is enough.

We needed, and the Copenhagen Accord achieved, the following:

A political accord by both developed and developing countries that for the first time quantifies what it means to “avoid dangerous interference with the climate system” (the goal of international negotiations since the Rio climate treaty in 1992 signed by the first President Bush and ratified by the Senate). This quantification comes in the form of a commitment to keep warming from rising any more than 2°C from pre-industrial levels.
A commitment by the major emitters such as the US and China to reduce their pollution (with the Chinese commitment its first ever).
Independent verification of the pledged pollution reductions.
Substantial progress on commitments made by developed countries to help the most vulnerable developing countries and communities adapt to the consequences.
Progress on a forest protection framework that provides a good start to what can be completed in 2010.

Given how much we in the religious community have worked to increase funding for the poor, the commitment in Copenhagen by developed countries of so-called “fast-track” funding that will ramp up to $10 billion a year starting in 2012, and continue to ramp up to $100 billion a year by 2020 was particularly heartening. This funding is to help the poor (1) adapt to climate impacts, (2) achieve climate-friendly, sustainable economic progress, and (3) preserve their forests. It’s unclear how much of this funding is public and how much private, and how much goes into each of these three categories. But we will be working hard to ensure the right balance.

Those who had higher expectations for Copenhagen than the good things that were achieved are disappointed. But if you ask, “Does the Copenhagen Accord put us on the road to overcoming global warming in a way that will avoid crossing dangerous thresholds (i.e. keeping things below a 2°C rise)?” The answer is yes. Not that on its own the pollution reduction commitments of the Copenhagen Accord will get us there. They will not. But they put us on the road to getting there. That’s what we need. We have to get started in a major way.

For those who wanted more funding for the poor, I say the commitment for $100 billion annually is a good place to start as we fill in the details and make this a reality.

For those who wanted more of whatever it is, I say let’s move on so we can move forward and eventually achieve what is needed.

And we need to move forward because the race isn’t over. Indeed, frankly, the race hasn’t even begun. Now, however, we’re at the starting line. The race for us will start when we pass comprehensive climate change legislation. That will be the crack of the gun to start the race.

But without the Copenhagen Accord we wouldn’t be at the starting line. Ever since 1997 the US has been constrained by something called the Byrd-Hagel resolution passed by the Senate. It said that the US couldn’t commit to reduce emissions unless China also made a commitment. Now this has been achieved.

On Friday afternoon, when the outcome was in serious doubt, when I and the other official NGO observers were locked out of the Bella Center where the negotiations were taking place, I spent several hours deep in prayer. I sent out urgent emails to colleagues in the US to pray right at that moment. I saw before us the possibility that if we didn’t get something that could allow us to pass legislation in 2010 we would be in serious trouble. I knew that prospects for passing something in 2011 would be questionable, even doubtful. I knew that time is running out for us to start the race. We simply can’t afford to wait – we must pass climate legislation in 2010. And to do that we should pass a Senate bill by April 22, 2010, the 40^th anniversary of Earth Day.

As Senator Kerry remarked (according to The New York Times), this is a “catalyzing moment” that “sets the stage for a final deal and for Senate passage this spring of major legislation at home.” We can and must get it done.

Finally, we must pause to acknowledge a simple fact. President Obama turned defeat into victory. Simply put, without his leadership there would have been no Copenhagen Accord and we would not be in a position to pass legislation in 2010.

So it’s on to the Senate. Let’s do what we can to help our Senators pass a strong bill by April 22^nd.

Jim Ball is the Senior Director, Climate Campaign, of the Evangelical Environmental Network.

Categories: Environment

Tags: climate change, climate change talks, climate treaty, copenhagen, debate, developed countries, earth, emitters, Global Warming, independent verification, international climate change, international negotiations, pollution, President Obama, warming

whiteaglesoaring

Cap and Trade IS corporate greed in sheep's clothing. Taxing carbon dioxide should be obvious enough to anyone who understands even the most elementary biology principles: CO2 is the stuff of life that plants need to undergo the photosynthetic process that produces both the oxygen we breathe and the food we eat. Pumped into greenhouses plants produce abundantly. In the fields and orchards and vinyards, CO2 works the same in the plants. Then why is this maniacal harangue against photosynthesis harnessed by Al Gore to his Convenient, Self-serving Lies? Cap and trade is the NEW means to the old ends of serving Mammon.

CO2 is a biological necessity that the Global Religion has unscientifically turned into a villain. Then because YOU and I breathe out this "evil" concoction, we must eventually be taxed for "polluting the planet". And eventually the Club of Rome's dictum that there are too many "useless eaters" grazing on this planet, there must be a "culling of the herd."

The Global Warming Hoax is not the starting point in the development of the satanic dystopia. It is just another landmark along the way. The pigs of Animal Farm have gotten the sheep bleating the epithets of AGW alarmists. If you haven't noticed the signposts along the way, you won't recognize where this is headed and where it is intended to end. The mysterious stones erected in Georgia make it quite clear: a reduction in human population to no more than 500,000,000. It's not likely to be a democratic process.

lionswhelp

Resent reports show that the present Climate Science has turned out to be a productive pursuit for Nobel Prizes, an Oscar, billions in research funding, massive tax grabs and wealth for explorers. Continuation of these activities are only partly validate claims which have been discosed by the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UAE) and are of small consequence. In other words they are a partial truth used to distort the facts and scam billions through a nationwide tax scam. Scammers should go directly to jail.

suemoynihan

We are celebrating Earth Day on April 17th here and look forward to receiving materials from you in the future about how we can get the Senate on track. Why, for goodness sake, would someone oppose legislation that would potentially ensure a healthy planet in the future? If anyone really needs a further motivation, go see Avatar. Right now we have a choice. We may not in the near future.

Anothernonymous

Good stuff, WT; I'm impressed and humbled. You are clearly significantly older than I am, and were thus able to be part of the action while I was still in elementary school. I respect you deeply for that.

The movement that I did have a chance to be a part of from the get-go was modern environmentalism. Of course I understand your point that significant government action results only from popular organizing at the community level. Those of us who can remember the first Earth Day in 1970 feel that, in many ways, it has taken this long for our concerns to be taken seriously enough for significant government action to be taken. Copenhagen, despite its lackluster results, is one of the great mountaintop moments in a crusade we've been waging tirelessly for decades. The sense that we're finally being listened to is cathartic. It's been an awfully long time coming.

With the exception of the 2nd amendment business, though (I'm a pacfiist, and would never own or use a weapon), I fully sympathize with everything you say. I guess we *will* have to agree to disagree.

WaveTossed

"Perhaps I should explain that I grew up in the South during the Civil Rights movement, and that to a large extent this experience gave me my moral DNA."

I grew up in Chicago, once described by Dr. Martin Luther King as "the Selma of the North." However, I am a veteran of the Southern Civil Rights Movement. You might want to visit the Web site, http://www.crmvet.org/ and you might want to get involved.

I was recruited by SNCC during a demonstration in Chicago in 1965. I spent a year in Mississippi, most of it in Philadelphia (where the 3 Civil Rights Workers were murdered). I was jailed and beaten during my time in Mississippi; many other people were too -- some were murdered.

While in Mississippi, many of us were suspicious of the Federal government; they didn't come to our aid; the FBI kept files on us. Many of us learned that the struggle was up to us. We were glad when the Voting Rights Act was finally passed, but we also knew how reluctant the politicians were in passing it. I was involved in the middle of two different gun battles when the KKK came into the Black community to shoot, kill, and terrorize. Instead, the Black communities gathered their own firearms up and shot back and chased the KKK out. Which is why I am a supporter of 2nd Amendment rights. Again, the Feds did very little to end this terror; it was local community activists who led this fight.

In the summer of 1966, I returned to Chicago. I participated with Dr. Martin Luther King to fight segregation in the North. We participated in a series of protest marches where neither local nor Federal government stepped in to prevent physical attacks on us by White racists. Same story during our protests against the Vietnam war; the government kept files on us rather than help us out and we regarded the government as part of the problem, not part of the solution. I suppose things were different back in the 1960s -- though actually not very much so. Later on, I became radicalized through the Woman's and Gay movements.

We'll have to agree to disagree about global warming. I see the violation of human rights to be a far more important immediate priority than specifically addressing global warming. I'm not saying that the issue of climate change isn't important at all. But no one is getting murdered over global warming, whereas every day, people are being murdered, jailed, assaulted, beaten, oppressed by violations of human rights.

Every year in Philadelphia, Mississippi, we have a memorial service and Civil Rights action to memorialize those martyrs who were murdered during the civil rights struggle in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and beyond. I always attend this gathering every year.

Anothernonymous

I agree a hundred percent.

Perhaps I should explain that I grew up in the South during the Civil Rights movement, and that to a large extent this experience gave me my moral DNA. Among my earliest memories are being dragged to the back of the bus by my mother to sit with the black people in solidarity and driving all over the place to find integrated establishments to patronize.

In the process, I learned that when push comes to shove (as it frequently did in those days), it is only the direct intervention of the federal government and the courts that can force people to do the right thing. I saw this with my own eyes, and that is why I could never be a libertarian. In my moral universe, the government was manifested early and intensely as the protector of the oppressed and a strong moral force for good, and I regard it that way to this day, despite its many failures and ineptitudes.

This is why I believe that only by concerted government action at the highest level can the right things be done about climate change. It is not my intention to violate anyone's human rights, and I am as deeply offended as you are by the spectacle of 3rd world people protesting their lack of involvement in the Copenhagen talks.

Unlike you, though, I see the issue of climate change as so overwhelming that in my view addressing it somehow, immediately, is the necessary prelude to any significant progress in advancing human rights worldwide. This may sound like pretentious, privileged moralizing to you, and I respect that. Please trust me, though, that it comes from the heart. We're on the same side, even if we see very different routes to getting there.

WaveTossed

"To me, this is just another reminder that to be equally receptive to both sides of a controversial issue is not necessarily equivalent to taking the moral high road."

You are correct here. In some quarters, this would be known as "moral relativism."

Where I draw the line on compromising on controversial issues is when the issue(s) involve human rights. Anytime someone is deprived of their human rights simply because of being who they are -- I will NOT compromise on. Violating human rights goes against the Two Great Commandments that Jesus gave. One cannot treat one's neighbor as oneself if one is violating another's human rights.

There are many excuses for not treating all people as human beings; most involved dehumanizing the people involved. This involves making excuses such as "they're not truly human; they were born to be slaves; they were born to serve a certain role; they could change if they wished to; they are damned to Hell and deserve death." Each human being is God's Child and deserves to be treated as one would want to be treated. There is no compromising on this issue.

Anothernonymous

I share your perplexity. If you're interested, though, the first 50 pages of the 3rd volume of Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson, which I mentioned in another post on this thread, make interesting reading. They explain clearly that the Senate was established in order to frustrate the will of the majority, and show how it did so constructively until shortly before the Civil War. Unfortunately, most of the time since then it has been an inflexible barrier to most genuine political progress.

RobTam

I too despair of the partisanship. I am Canadian, so I don't directly engage in the American political process, but I watch from the sidelines. In our country, we have a little more diversity of political alternatives, and people, I think, tend to be less partisan overall. The political divisions in the US are often incomprehensible to us outsiders. The health care debate has been stunning. Canadians recognize that health care is a basic human right that needs to be made available to everyone regardless of income (though we debate whether the private sector should be involved in the system at all).

Anothernonymous

Do you think any Democrats at all would support it? I'm getting quite concerned about the fact that our country may be becoming ungovernable, largely due to the heightened partisanship that has been all too evident in the health care imbroglio.

RobTam

Actually, I think this would be an easier sell with the Republicans than with the Democrats. For those who challenge AGW, McKitrick is well known as part of the heroic team that dismantled the Mann hockey stick (along with Steve McIntyre). And McKitrick's proposal takes advantage of the market mechanism in a way that cap and trade never can. These are important selling points for Repubs.

I think that it would be more difficult to get this past the Democrats, in part for the opposite reasons given above. I think that any proposal that comes from the side of the "deniers" is not likely to gain traction regardless of its merits, and so McKitrick is likely to be dismissed out of hand.

Another reason I fear that it would fail to gain traction is that it shines a light upon a very problematic point for the AGW hypothesis. This has been a issue of rather heated debate, notably regarding papers by Douglass et. al, 2007 and Santer et al. 2008. It's not that anyone disagrees that there should be a mid-tropospheric hot spot. It's just that they disagree on why it hasn't shown up yet in the measurements. (This is another point of contention where the Climategate letters provide some interesting insight). I'm not sure how willing the scientific AGW establishment may be to opening this particular issue to public scrutiny.

However, I agree that it is a very workable proposal that very effectively deals with the uncertainties that we currently experience. If someone from the Democratic side were willing to take this proposal and develop it, then it may have a chance of going somewhere. Perhaps this is something that Sojo may be willing to take up as well.

Anothernonymous

Interesting idea. My first reaction is that if we could get it passed, I would be all for it. Of course, that still leaves the central question raised by the original post: How can we get this, or any constructive action on climate change, past the Republican roadblock in the Senate? Among at least 40 members of that august body, there seems to be a complete unwillingness to do *anything* on this issue, meaning (as we have seen recently) that it only takes one of the remaining senators to water a constructive proposal down to a caricature of its original self.

Do you have any thoughts on this one? How do we get something like this passed when powerful political forces are determined to deny that any action is necessary or appropriate?

Anothernonymous

For whatever it's worth, I didn't mean to get into a Christmas day harangue on this thread. Coincidentally, though, I've been relaxing today by reading the third volume of Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson, which focuses on LBJ's years in the Senate. Caro documents, in painful detail, the many ways in which Johnson played both sides of the issue on civil rights, emerging in favor of progressive legislation only when it was politically advantageous to do so.

What really struck me, though, is Caro's description of President Eisenhower's position on Brown vs. The Board of Education. Essentially, Eisenhower refused to do anything to enforce the decision, and in fact often expressed opposition to it. On the one hand, Eisenhower attacked "the people ... so filled with prejudice that they even resort to violence." But he also insisted that it was "the same way on the other side of the thing, the people who want to have the whole matter settled today."

To me, this is just another reminder that to be equally receptive to both sides of a controversial issue is not necessarily equivalent to taking the moral high road. History has shown Eisenhower to have been in the wrong, and the many years he spent trying to be receptive to both sides amounted to time lost in the progress of civil rights.

Whether or not this is relevant here is for others to judge.

RobTam

First of all, an alternative approach, as proposed by Ross McKitrick. You may be aware of a contentious part of the scientific debate about AGW. That is, all the computer models point out that there should be a mid-tropospheric warming signature over the tropics if CO2 is the principle cause of warming. To date, this "hot spot" has not materialized within the satellite record (UAH or RSS), which seriously challenges the AGW hypothesis.

McKitrick suggests that a carbon tax be implemented that is prorated on the basis of the warming measured in this region of the atmosphere. Thus, as greenhouse warming is observed in the characteristic location predicted by all the models, the price of carbon escalates, thus reducing carbon emissions, and providing funds to enable transition to cleaner energy. It also provides a powerful motivation to get the science right, since carbon emitters will then be making investments on the basis of where they believe carbon taxation levels will be in ten, twenty, fifty years hence. They will be more than willing to ante up the funds to properly research the phenomenon without bias, because their future viability depends upon it.

You can read about his proposal here:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1203/p09s02-coop....

Anothernonymous

Merry Christmas to you too. If you want to "meet" me in a less public setting, please email me at 2XY3N15@gmail.com. I don't think we've gotten off to a very good start with each other, and I really do want to try harder.

Anothernonymous

"Well, when you tell me that you "supported you here on another issue of highly personal significance" makes me think that you want me to abandon my views and get in line to follow yours instead. And if I don't, you'll be very "angry.""

No, that's not what I said. I am getting angry at your suggestions that I am arrogant and that I regard those who disagree with me as "shills."

"To my understand, climate change and homosexuality are not directly related. So why did you bring homsexuality up?"

Because both are controversial issues about which people insist that there is room for disagreement. And also to remind you that my mind is not closed.

WaveTossed

Sorry, I had to reply here. The software didn't let me reply where I should. You wrote:

"Well said, and I feel the passion of your words."

Thanks. I'm glad that you understood.

"[WT]'There is a difference -- in my opinion, though perhaps you would disagree -- between what a person IS: i.e. homosexual, African-American, Dalit, female, etc. and what policy should be followed by people in regards to climate change.'

"[Anothernonymous] Absolutely there is a difference. I have argued exactly that point in many situations where I was the only person willing to stand up and say it. I'm not asking for your pat on the back for doing so, but I do admit that your charges that I am arrogant and inflexible stick in my craw a bit, because this is decidedly not the way I see myself - and I think anybody who knows me personally would agree.

"Can we drop the climate change argument for a few minutes and consider shaking hands on this?"

We can agree to disagree for now.

Merry Christmas! :)

Anothernonymous

I have been reading Alexander Cockburn for a quarter of a century, and I confess that I frequently get quite a bit of satisfaction from his righteous indignation. I have to admit, though, that I am just as often embarrassed by his stridency in expressing contempt for those who don't see things entirely his way. Our political discourse doesn't need this.

WaveTossed

"So do I, and your persistence in assuming that I don't makes your indignation at my 'arrogance' hard to take seriously

"but I am certainly getting angry at your assumptions about me."

Well, when you tell me that you "supported you here on another issue of highly personal significance" makes me think that you want me to abandon my views and get in line to follow yours instead. And if I don't, you'll be very "angry."

Not going to happen.

If my interpretation of what you said about issues "of highly personal significance" is erroneous, please explain what you meant and why you brought it up at all. To my understanding, climate change and homosexuality are not directly related. So why did you bring homsexuality up?

Anothernonymous

Well said, and I feel the passion of your words.

"There is a difference -- in my opinion, though perhaps you would disagree -- between what a person IS: i.e. homosexual, African-American, Dalit, female, etc. and what policy should be followed by people in regards to climate change."

Absolutely there is a difference. I have argued exactly that point in many situations where I was the only person willing to stand up and say it. I'm not asking for your pat on the back for doing so, but I do admit that your charges that I am arrogant and inflexible stick in my craw a bit, because this is decidedly not the way I see myself - and I think anybody who knows me personally would agree.

Can we drop the climate change argument for a few minutes and consider shaking hands on this?