The avalanche of media coverage of the Department of Energy’s roughly half million dollar loan guarantee to Solyndra, a solar technology company that ultimately went bankrupt, has distorted what urgently needs to be a healthy debate on policy options to dramatically increase private sector investments in clean-energy technologies.  The real question is not aboutwhether governments should provide these incentives, but rather how they can do so most effectively.

There is clear scientific evidence that rising fossil energy use will lead to irreversible climate change that poses serious risks to public health, safety and the global economy.  To reduce these risks, we need governments to quickly adopt smart policies that will create the stable and predictable environment that the private sector needs to invest in clean-energy technologies so that we can reduce our dependency on fossil fuels over the long term.

Government support for energy companies is not new.  According to the International Energy Agency’s 2011 World Energy Outlook, governments around the world provided subsidies to fossil fuel industries that totaled more than $400 billion in 2010. These subsidies create an uneven playing field for renewable and other clean-energy technologies.

Given the long-term economic lifetime of energy-related capital stocks globally, there is little room to delay the transition from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources.  Even if countries commit to emissions limits that would prevent global temperatures from rising above 2 degrees Celsius or 3.6 Fahrenheit—the threshold for avoiding costly and dangerous climate impacts agreed by scientists worldwide—the IEA estimates that 80% of cumulative global CO2 emitted worldwide between 2009 and 2035 would already be “locked-in” by power stations, buildings and factories that either exist now or are under construction.

The IEA also calculates that without coordinated international action to dramatically shift away from fossil fuels toward low or zero carbon energy sources between now and 2017, the only way nations can avoid temperatures from exceeding 2 degrees Celsius would be to either ensure that all new infrastructure built between 2017 and 2035 is zero carbon or to phase out existing infrastructure before the end of its economic lifetime—a solution that is neither cost effective or politically viable.

The public has a right to understand the process behind DOE’s decision to provide a $535 million loan gaurantee to Solyndra.  Fortunately, as Secretary Chu notes in his testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, DOE has provided more than 186,000 pages of documents to cooperate with the Committees’ investigation. President Obama has also asked for a review of the Department’s loan portfolio.

Secretary Chu noted in his testimony to the subcommittee that “Solyndra was poised to compete in the marketplace”.  If Solyndra was indeed commercially viable and in a position to attract private capital on its own, then Congress and the public are right to question whether a DOE loan guarantee to this company was the best use of tax payers’ money.

Nonetheless, the unrelenting focus on Solyndra is distracting policy makers and the public from the much bigger and more pressing problem of finding and implementing the right mix of policies to remove market distortions that place clean-energy technologies at a disadvantage–including fossil fuel subsidies and trade barriers—and to rapidly mobilize investments in low or zero carbon energy sources.

Cathleen Kelly is the Director of the Climate and Energy program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington DC.

Image by Solyndra.

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WASHINGTON, DC — Europe had been waiting patiently for the United States to enact domestic legislation to cut its carbon emissions.  After months of negotiations between the U.S. Congress and utilities, oil companies, and other stakeholders on the details of comprehensive climate and energy legislation, the Senate in late July abandoned hopes of passing such a bill before it entered its August recess. A lack of Republican support meant that even a scaled-down cap-and-trade proposal — covering only utilities — was unlikely to pass. Partisan rancor in the lead-up to mid-term elections and concerns over carbon pricing mean that legislation will be off the table for this year, at the very least. While a small chance remains that Congress will consider a carbon tax next year as part of a deficit reduction strategy, the window for a comprehensive bill could possibly be shut until 2013.

Having watched these efforts unravel, observers in Europe and the rest of the world have begun to wonder whether the United States will make good on its commitment to cut its emissions over the next decade. European leaders worry that without a comprehensive climate and energy program in place, the United States will not meet its emission targets.  Fortunately, it still can, at least in the near term.

At the international climate negotiations in Bonn this week, the United States took pains to give other countries confidence that it was not backing away from President Obama’s promise to reduce its emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. A new World Resources Institute study finds that if the federal government fully flexes its regulatory authority and states take aggressive climate action through 2016, the United States could come close to meeting the U.S. emission reduction goal in the near term. The United States also appears to be on track to deliver its share of the $30 billion in climate financing that developed countries promised by 2013 to help impoverished nations cope with the worst consequences of climate change.

But there are bigger worries to keep European and other climate delegates up at night. Although the United States can use tools other than legislation to reduce its emissions over the next several years, the chances are slim that it will deliver the promised emissions cuts over the long term without a cap on carbon emissions.  Even more problematic is the absence of a clear plan to meet its commitment to help raise $100 billion per year in climate aid by 2020. When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made this commitment in Copenhagen, she was counting on U.S. cap-and-trade revenue and new private investment mobilized through a global carbon market.  To date, the Obama administration has met its climate financing commitments through budgetary requests to Congress—the President requested $1.4 billion in climate aid for 2011, a 38 percent increase over 2010 levels.  As pressure to trim the U.S. budget deficit grows, this approach will not be sustainable over the long-term. The United Nations High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing is exploring ways to meet the $100 billion goal.  Options include ear-marking fossil fuel royalties for climate action and taxing international shipping and aviation to generate new revenue for climate aid.

In advance of the next UN climate summit in Cancun this December, Europe and the rest of the world should resist the temptation to focus primarily on encouraging the United States to meet its emission reduction goals. Instead, they should push it to deliver the promised climate financing.  Unless all developed countries, including the United States, do their part to meet the stated goal, the developing world will remain ill-equipped to cope with drought, flooding, and other climate catastrophes.  Furthermore, Europe and the United States will have no leverage to secure climate commitments from China and other major emitters in the developing world.

Cathleen Kelly directs the German Marshall Fund’s Climate and Energy Program in Washington, D.C.

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COPENHAGEN — After two weeks of intense and chaotic negotiations, more than two dozen countries, including those most responsible for current and future warming, promised to reduce their emissions and finance green growth and efforts to cope with climate change in developing countries. President Obama ended the deadlock that had plagued the talks by brokering an agreement with leaders from Brazil, China, India and South Africa on steps these and other large emitters will take to tackle climate change.

While the Copenhagen Accord falls far short of what many €“ especially environmentalists and countries most vulnerable to climate change impacts €“ had hoped for, it is a politically significant stride forward in the international climate debate. The unconventional process that ultimately delivered the accord, which might not have happened at all had President Obama not stepped in, raises big questions about the role of the UN in future climate talks. Although the accord is not legally binding, it creates a foundation for future work to secure more firm commitments from the world’s biggest polluters.
What’s in the deal?

The accord has three main features.

1. Limited warming: The accord embraces the need to limit warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius, the level scientists agree is the maximum threshold to avoid catastrophic climate change. Under the agreement, rich nations will commit to targets to cut emissions by 2020. Emerging economies will commit to actions that slow their emissions growth. All major emitters will specify these commitments before the end of January. Countries will also move immediately to create incentives to reduce emissions from deforestation and other land use.

2. Finance: Rich countries agreed to deliver $30 billion between 2010 and 2012 to help developing countries deal with the consequences of a warmer world. Developed countries also promised to ramp up support to meet climate needs in poor countries over the longer term by helping to raise $100 billion a year by 2020.

3. Transparency: The accord includes international checks €“ i.e. monitoring €“ to ensure that major emitters are living up to their obligations. This was a major point of contention between the United States and China up until the final hours of the talks. Emerging economies agreed to monitor their own actions to slow emissions growth but to allow “international consultation and analysis”, lending credibility to the commitments in the accord. A high-level panel will assess the financial contributions by rich nations to help poor countries adapt to climate change and grow sustainably.

Why is the deal meaningful?

Although imperfect, the Copenhagen Accord marks an historic shift in the international climate debate. The accord breaks from the old Kyoto model that bound rich nations to emission reduction commitments, with no such commitments for China, India and other major emitters in the developing world. In Copenhagen, leaders of all big polluting nations, including China and India, committed to implement specific targets and actions to curb emissions and to be held accountable to these commitments. This shift opens the door for the U.S. Congress to pass climate and energy legislation as it will help to alleviate U.S. lawmakers’ concerns that such legislation would drive U.S. companies overseas in search of weaker emissions standards. The accord will also deliver immediate climate change assistance to developing countries and sets up a framework to strengthen commitments going forward.

What’s missing from the deal?

No deadline to create a legally binding agreement, raising some doubt that it will ever happen. Although the goal originally set by countries at the UN climate talks in Bali in 2007 was to finalize a climate treaty by December 2009, most countries and experts knew ahead of the Copenhagen talks that completing such a pact by this deadline was not in the cards. Nonetheless, many expected countries to set a new deadline for penning the treaty in Copenhagen. Early drafts of the accord included language that would have committed countries to finish the treaty “as soon as possible” and no later than the next high-level climate meeting in Mexico City at the end of 2010.

But the final accord includes no such deadline. This omission raises questions not only about when a legally binding agreement will be finished, but more importantly, if such an agreement will come together at all. Without a clear deadline, there is little pressure to move toward a legally binding outcome in 2010 or in subsequent years.

Despite urgent cries from environmentalists and low lying nations who fear they will literally be washed away by the wake of rising temperatures, there are several reasons why the initial thrust toward an internationally legally binding outcome fell away during the final hours of the talks. First, China maintained its strong resistance to taking on legally binding commitments until the bitter end of the negotiations. Since the final year of the Bush administration, the United States has been open signing up for legally binding targets if China, India and other major emitters did the same. Without such a commitment from emerging economies, the language describing emission reduction targets and actions as legally binding was dropped.
Secondly, experts inside Washington’s policy circles agree that garnering the 67 votes in the U.S. Senate needed to win that body’s blessing of a climate treaty would require a herculean effort with no guarantee that the votes would materialize. There’s no doubt that U.S. negotiators did this Senate math, which in the end may have compelled them to drop the deadline rather than force the issue with China.

Also absent from the agreement are shared mid and long-term emission reductions goals. Many environmentalists and countries most vulnerable to ravages of climate change expected the deal to include a collective agreement among nations to reduce emissions by 50 percent by 2050 and a shared commitment from developed countries to reduce emissions by 80 percent over the same timeframe.

The UN is unlikely to be the main forum for climate talks going forward. When 120 heads of state from around the world arrived in Copenhagen during the final days of the two week negotiations, they were greeted with utter chaos rather than the near-final accord they had hoped for.

Structured to achieve equity and inclusiveness, the UN-led process to reach agreement among nearly 200 countries broke down at several levels:

€¢ Even before the talks began, the UN failed to adequately prepare for the crush of roughly 45,000 delegates, environmentalists, and other members of civil society that arrived in Copenhagen expecting to influence the negotiations. With space for only 15,000 in the conference center, environmental groups were turned away en mass, leaving thousands outraged and literally out in the cold.

€¢ The UN process also proved ill-equipped to knife through days of deadlock that threatened to collapse the talks. In the end, President Obama had to march into a private meeting among leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa and find the path to consensus.

€¢ With the final accord sculpted primarily by the world’s largest emitters, it’s unclear whether the UN will continue to be the primary arbiter of such complex negotiations, or whether world leaders will lean more heavily on the G20, the Major Economies Forum or even bilateral discussions, to further progress on tackling climate change.

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COPENHAGEN — As hope dims for a major global climate deal in Copenhagen, participants still could make enough progress to lay a real foundation for a future treaty. But even that will take significant cooperation, particularly between the transatlantic partners.   With only two days left in the negotiations and tensions running high as the talks deadlock around several crunch issues, it’s hard not to speculate on whether Europe will stick with the United States in demanding the transparency needed to evaluate whether major emitters (including China and India) deliver real emissions reductions. The alternative, however — going the way of the past and accommodating push-back from developing countries — would ignite a firestorm of criticism in Congress.  

Most countries hope to reach a deal in Copenhagen that provides clarity on several key issues: how much will rich countries cut their emissions over the mid- and long-term? How much will emerging economies slow their emission growth? How much financing will rich countries put on the table to help developing countries slow their emissions and cope with the consequences of climate change? How much transparency will be required to guarantee that major emitters deliver on their emission-reduction commitments? How does one guarantee that the financing from developed countries is invested in credible climate projects that deliver real outcomes?

Prompted by a Senate that has made clear its strong distaste for climate treaties that only require emissions cuts from developed countries, the Obama administration is holding firm on demanding a Copenhagen climate deal that will instill confidence back home that all major emitters, including China and India, will make good on their emission reduction commitments and that the climate financing it is prepared to offer to developing countries is well spent.   If the Copenhagen deal doesn’t provide this confidence to U.S. lawmakers and companies, Congress is unlikely pass legislation that would cap U.S. emissions and provide a source of long-term financing for climate action in developing countries.     Many lawmakers are reluctant to vote for climate legislation without strong assurance that China and other major emitters will deliver emissions cuts similar to those contemplated in the United States, particularly since energy-intensive American industries already hampered by economic recession argue that higher energy costs will simply force them to move their factories and jobs to countries without similar emissions limits.

With the clock ticking in Copenhagen, it’s clear that firming up a deal that will deliver both emissions cuts and transparency will not be easy.   China is weary of providing open access to information about its economy to the international community and is pushing back hard on calls for transparency.   Until Thursday morning, the United States didn’t have much more to offer to break the deadlock.     The U.S. pledge to cut emissions in the range of 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 — an amount on par with the emissions limits currently debated in the U.S. Congress — has disappointed many countries who hope for the United States to cut more.   Nonetheless, without Congressional approval of U.S. climate legislation, there is no political support back home for the U.S. administration to offer deeper emissions cuts.   Until Thursday morning, the United States was also unable to offer long-term financing to support climate actions in poor countries — the offer China and other developing countries have been waiting for to make big concessions in the negotiations.   But the makings of a potential climate deal emerged Thursday when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that America would help raise $100 billion a year for developing countries by 2020 if emerging economies like China and India agree to binding emissions cuts that would be open for international review and verification.   Without certainty that the U.S. Congress will pass climate legislation, the U.S. administration is unsure that the revenue it expects from selling emissions allowances to companies under a cap-and-trade program will ever materialize. Without this guarantee, the United States has been reluctant to pledge a specific dollar amount to help poor countries cope with climate impacts over the long-term.

In the talks last week, rich countries converged around a proposal to provide $10 billion a year from 2010 €“12 to help developing countries take near-term steps to cut emissions and contend with climate change.   The EU promised $3.6 billion per year through 2012.   The U.S. signaled it could offer roughly $1.2 billion in 2010 and more substantial amounts in 2011 and 2012.   But this $10 billion is only a drop in the bucket relative to the bank bailouts and funds pumped into the global economy to respond to the financial crisis.   It also falls far short of the $100 billion per year that Project Catalyst estimates developing countries will need to finance climate projects.   Nonetheless, rich countries expect that these near-term funds will allow the Copenhagen agreement to provide immediate assistance while buying developed countries more time to come up with more substantial financing over the long-term.    

In the scant two days left in the climate talks, the U.S. and Europe will need to work together to shape a deal in Copenhagen that can form the basis of a legally binding treaty, now expected to come together at the climate talks in Mexico City in December 2010.   While Europe has stood strong with the United States in calling for transparency in the lead-up to Copenhagen, the transatlantic partnership broke down at the 1995 climate negotiations in Berlin.   During the final hours of the talks, Europe heeded the demands of developing countries to lock in a mandate for a treaty that required legally binding emission cuts from rich countries and none for major emitters in the developing world.   With many EU members strongly committed to alleviating poverty in the developing world, Europe felt compelled to firmly embrace the principle that developed countries should lead the fight against climate change.

In the United States, the Berlin mandate sounded the death knell for the Kyoto Protocol even before the treaty was finalized.   The U.S. Senate unanimously passed the Byrd-Hagel resolution, rejecting any climate treaty without equal commitments from all major emitters, including India and China.   In Bali in 2007, the United States was isolated in its opposition to a proposal from developing countries to only take actions to slow emissions growth if developing countries paid for them.   To be fair, the U.S. has not always been the best partner to Europe in the climate talks.   During the Bush era, Europe faced eight years of U.S. obstruction in the climate negotiations and inaction on emissions cuts at home.

Despite past transatlantic climate rifts, with only 48 hours before the Copenhagen conference closes, there are strong reasons to believe that the United States and Europe will stay unified. The lack of trust that plagued the U.S. €“EU relationship during the Bush administration evaporated when President Obama took office in January — GMF’s Transatlantic Trends 2009 survey reveals that Europe’s support of the U.S. has quadrupled since the change in U.S. administration.     A study by the International Energy Agency shows that roughly 56 percent of global emissions growth between now and 2030 will come from India and China.   Like the United States, Europe is keenly aware that a climate deal without firm and transparent commitments from China and India will not adequately solve the climate problem and protect the people and welfare of our planet. The transatlantic partnership is critical to getting us there.

Cathleen Kelly directs the German Marshall Fund’s Climate Program

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COPENHAGEN — The Africa group walked out of the negotiations today to protest perceived efforts by developed countries to kill the Kyoto Protocol. The talks resumed several hours later.   While much of this is the typical drama that plays out at these meetings, Africa and other developing countries are legitimately reluctant to give up the Kyoto Protocol before they have greater assurance that a new legally binding treaty that includes strong commitments from major emitters, including the U.S, China and India will materialize.

China and India also don’t want to give up the Kyoto Protocol, but for different reasons.   It’s legal structure works to their advantage–it requires legally binding emissions cuts from developed countries and only soft commitments from developing countries.   The U.S. will never join the Protocol for this very reason.

Small island nations who are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change want to leave Copenhagen with a new treaty that would keep global temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius (the lower end of the range of what scientist say is needed to avoid the worst consequences of climate change) and include legally binding emission cuts from both developed and developing countries.

With these divisions, countries face a huge dilemma on how to define the legal structure of the Copenhagen agreement.

Will the Copenhagen agreement be politically binding?
Since some expect only a political agreement in Copenhagen with a promise to turn that agreement into a legally binding treaty by the climate talks in Mexico in 2010 (or sooner), vulnerable countries, including those in Africa and small island states, are worried that big emitters such as the U.S. and China won’t deliver on their Copenhagen promise.   They fear they will find themselves literally underwater and stripped of their right to survive.

The U.S. is not ready to sign up to a legally binding deal in Copenhagen because Congress has not yet passed climate and energy legislation.   The U.S. Administration is concerned that agreeing to something legally binding in Copenhagen would set off a political fire storm on Capitol Hill and doom prospects for passing U.S. climate legislation.   Given strong U.S. opposition, a legally binding agreement in Copenhagen seems implausible.

How will the Copenhagen deal weave together two tracks of negotiations?
There have been two tracks of climate talks for the past two years. The first is the Kyoto Protocol track. The U.S. does not participate in this track because it is not a Party to the Kyoto Protocol.   The second track is separate from Kyoto and was launched two years ago in Bali to allow developed and developing countries, including the U.S., to discuss long-term cooperative action to address climate change.   The second non-Kyoto track expires this week in Copenhagen.

Most developed countries favor a single-track outcome in Copenhagen that would merge together the key elements of the two existing tracks.   Japan, Europe and others don’t want to sign up to   new legally binding emission cuts under the Kyoto Protocol, only to have commitments by the U.S. and major developing country take on softer commitments under the political agreement reached in Copenhagen.   Yet, developing countries don’t want to end the Kyoto track until a new legally binding treaty in place.

Ministers and Heads of State will need to resolve these and other tough questions this week to secure a strong climate deal in Copenahgen.

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COPENHAGEN — Midway through the climate talks, we’re at a good place to take stock of where things stand. Negotiators from around the globe have made progress on a few fronts. Hundreds of pages of negotiating text have been boiled down to focus on the essentials. Countries are making progress on designing strong incentives to reduce emissions from deforestation in developing countries. A package of near-term financing from developed countries to help developing countries slow their emissions and cope with climate change impacts is also coming together.

Yet, many contentious issues will be kicked up to Environment Ministers, who arrived today, and the 110 heads of State expected later next week. Some of the prickliest aspects of the talks include:
1. The level of mid-term action from developed countries to cut emissions. In particularly, many Parties are unsatisfied with the U.S. proposal to cut emissions in the range of 17% below 1990 levels by 2020. Nonetheless, U.S. negotiators have emphasized that without Congressional approval of climate legislation, there is no room to strengthen their pledge.
2. The legal nature of emerging economies’ actions to slow their emissions growth. The current negotiating text would require legally binding actions for developed countries but not for large emitters in the developing world. The U.S. walked away from the Kyoto Protocol because it lacked legally binding commitments from developing countries. Todd Stern, the chief negotiator for the U.S. has described the revised text as a nonstarter for this reason. China, India and other large developing countries are deeply opposed to legally binding commitments. Small island states and countries extremely vulnerable to climate change impacts want legally binding actions for all countries–just one of several fissures within the G77 and China negotiating block in the climate talks.
3. Monitoring, reporting and verifying emissions cuts. The U.S. is calling for strong protocols to verify the emission reductions of all major economies, including those in the developing world. The U.S. has made it clear that the current negotiating text is far too weak in this regard. China on the other hand, weary of providing open access to information about its economy to the international community, is pushing back hard.

Protestors marched from the city center to amass outside the climate talks today demanding that countries deliver a strong agreement in Copenhagen. The live footage streamed into the conference center, including bone-chilling images of riot police clashing with protesters.

Crowds in the conference halls and meeting rooms are nearing the 15,0000 capacity limit. Space will become even tighter next week and some conference attendees will undoubtedly be turned away.

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COPENHAGEN —   The EU added momentum to the Copenhagen climate talks today when EU leaders pledged to deliver 3.6 billion U.S. dollars (2.4 billion euro) a year through 2012 to help developing countries reduce their emissions growth and deal with the impacts of climate change.    The EU also reiterated that it would  bump up it’s  commitment to cut emissions   from 20% below1990 levels by 2020 to 30%   if other major emitters  put strong emissions targets on the table.     The EU pledge puts pressure on the U.S. and other large economies to strengthen their  proposals to  cut emissions. Leaders from the 27 EU member states reached agreement on the financing in Brussels at the final stage of a two day summit.

The pledge of $3.6 billion per year through 2012 would go toward a 10 billion  dollar annual fund to provide short-term financing to  developing countries to cut emissions and cope with the consequences of climate change.   President Obama  requested 1.2 billion dollars for climate-related efforts from the U.S. Congress in the 2010 U.S. budget.       The 10 billion dollar fund is only a drop in the bucket relative to the bank bailouts and funds pumped into the global economy to respond to the financial crisis.   It also falls far short of the $100 billion per year that Project Catalyst estimates developing countries will need to finance climate projects.   Nonetheless, the short-term fund will allow the Copenhagen agreement to provide immediate assistance while buying developed countries more time to come up with strategies and cash to provide financing over the long-term.     With still uncertain prospects  for passage of  climate and energy legislation by Congress,  the Obama Administration  has been reluctant to offer more than a near-term financing pledge.   The President hopes to use the revenue generated from the sale of emissions allowances to companies to provide climate financing to developing countries over the long-term.

This new development reinforces my belief that countries will emerge from the Copenhagen negotiations with a  global climate deal in hand.   In my  view, the Copenhagen agreement  will need to set clear timelines for a) turning the deal into a legally binding treaty, and b)  long-term commitments from developed countries to  finance green growth and projects to cope with climate impacts in developing countries.

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COPENHAGEN — Writers are often cautioned not to use the word “unique” but it appears that this is the best description of me as a new arrival in Copenhagen. Trying to save on carbon and cash, I tolerated the circular bus ride through wet traffic from the central railway station to the Bella Center, where the climate change negotiations are taking place. I’ve attended many UN climate conferences in the past, and recall regretting on several occasions the long registration lines at peak arrival times. On this cold, dark and rainy evening in Copenhagen, I was confident that this scenario was not in my future. In the end, I was right. I hardly made it two steps into the conference center when I was told that the registration desk closed at 6 pm. “You’re the only person in the world who didn’t know this,” I was told by the ornery badge checker.

As I shivered outside, dreaming of long indoor cues I texted warmer colleagues in the Bella Center. “This is like nothing before – CRAZY!” wrote veteran climate delegate and policy guru Ellina Levina of the Center for Clean Air Policy. Other colleagues reported of progress in a number of areas of the negotiation, especially on the institutional architecture needed to deliver clean energy and adaptation technologies to developing countries. Near-term financing to implement these technologies will be decided next week. Also on the inside, Yvo De Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, shared his views on the Kyoto Protocol (most likely in a dry and heated room). He said that the Kyoto Protocol is the only legally binding instrument we have for now and until a new treaty emerges, there’s no reason to abandon it. Secondly, the Kyoto Protocol created the infrastructure of the global carbon market. Without it, the global carbon market won’t function. When a new treaty does materialize, this market infrastructure needs to be incorporated to sustain a strong carbon market. Project Catalyst estimates such a market could drive roughly $2 trillion in annual investment in clean technologies by 2020 if emissions caps are set to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius. At the same time, De Boer acknowledges the need for a process that engages the United States and broader participation of developing countries. The United States has made it clear that it will not join the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that was firmly rejected by Congress even before it was finalized. Contemplating participation in the Kyoto Protocol would be political suicide for President Obama.
While it took some digging, I did find the registration desk hours on the UNFCCC website, on the fourth page of an “information for participants” booklet, but I’m sure you already knew that.

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COPENHAGEN — Finally it’s here: Copenhagen 2009. The climate community has been anticipating this moment since December 2007, when countries agreed to create a new legal binding climate agreement by December 2009 in Copenhagen. Yet, many environmentalists and developing countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change are deeply disappointed by recent reality checks on what’s politically feasible at the December climate conference.

At the last round of climate talks in Barcelona in November the UN’s top climate official, Yvo de Boer, acknowledged that countries wouldn’t have time to solidify a legally binding treaty by the December deadline. Instead, he suggested that countries reach a strong politically binding agreement that includes all the trappings of a new climate treaty. At the November Asia -Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, world leaders including President Obama, endorsed this new goal. If the goal is met, the Copenhagen agreement would include:

€¢ commitments by developed countries to limit their emissions and provide near-term financing to help developing countries implement environmentally sustainable growth strategies and cope with the impacts of climate change;
€¢ commitments from major emitters in the developing world to limit their emissions growth;
€¢ decisions on other key issues, like cooperation to promote clean energy technologies, reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries, among others.
Countries would then add the fine print to create a new climate treaty by Dec. 2010, when countries will meet for climate talks in Mexico, or shortly thereafter.

Some environmentalists are irate about what one Greenpeace policy adviser described as the €˜no, we can’t’ attitude in the lead-up to Copenhagen–and rightly so given that the strong consensus among scientists (yes, even in the wake of climate-gate) reveals that countries must take dramatic and immediate steps to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change.

Some are blaming President Obama for the lower bar in Copenhagen. This in my view is unfair. First, asking President Obama to undo eight years of U.S. inaction on climate change in a mere 11 months (his time in office before Copenhagen) is unreasonable, particularly since he must shore up any international climate commitments he makes with climate and energy legislation currently contemplated by a reluctant U.S. Congress. Secondly, the U.S. is not the only country that is not ready to endorse a new legally binding climate treaty. China and India are also skittish on the notion of internationally legally binding climate commitments. Is there room for stronger leadership from President Obama? Absolutely! In fact, the U.S. Congress is not likely to pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation without a stronger lean from the Administration.

Although it may not be ideal, it’s hard to argue that the new goal for Copenhagen is not ambitious. Nonetheless, I’m very optimistic that countries will reach a strong political deal later this month, particularly in light of the following recent developments.
1. President Obama announced that he will arrive in Copenhagen on Dec. 18th, the last day of the climate talks (rather than during the first week, as originally planned). He would not do this unless he firmly believed that countries would reach a significant deal.
2. President Obama announced that the U.S. would commit to lowering its emissions €˜in the range of’ 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 (i.e., roughly 4% below U.S. emissions in 1990). This target is in line with climate legislation that was passed by the House and contemplated in the Senate.
3. China announced that it would lower its emissions relative to the size of its economy by 40-45% by 2020, and India pledged to lower its emissions growth by 20 percent by 2020.
4. There’s an emerging consensus among developed countries that together they must deliver $10 billion a year by 2012 to help developing countries deal with the consequences of climate change and lower their emissions growth.
While some say these targets are too weak, they are reasonable opening bids by the world’s biggest emitters on the eve of what is shaping up to be a turning point in history and the beginning of a new era of global cooperation to tackle the threat of climate change.
Don’t forget to visit us here between now and December 20th to read more about the latest developments in the climate talks as GMF policy experts blog about their insights from on the ground in Copenhagen.

Cathleen Kelly

Director, Climate and Energy Program

The German Marshall Fund of the United States

1744 R Street, NW

Washington, DC 20009

Phone: 202-683-2631 (direct) or 202-683-2650 (main number)

Fax: 202-265-1662

email: ckelly@gmfus.org

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