CANCUN–Kermit the Frog knew it all along: Green is cool. And it seems that more and more humans, in particular those working on climate change, are beginning to follow his logic.

While the negotiations at COP16 in Cancun still promise to deliver some results by the end of the week – notably on deforestation efforts in the developing world and financing – it is clear that whatever will be agreed upon won’t be enough to keep global warming under 2 degrees Celsius, which scientists have set as the rough limit to avoid disastrous climate change. And the question remains if countries will even deliver on the commitments they have made in Copenhagen last year and might agree to in Cancun. However, there is a new issue that might be infinitely more compelling to countries than the dry UN-texts that they are expected to sign: Green growth is the new kid on the block. In its simplest terms, green growth means that countries choose to invest in renewable energies such as solar, wind or hydropower to meet their energy demands, rather than building coal plants and using fossil fuels such as oil and gas. What is compelling about this is the fact that investing in green growth helps reduce CO2 emissions while at the same time allowing countries to develop and/or sustain their current level of development. And a nice side-effect is the fact that it would make countries less dependent on the import of fossil fuels.

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), focused on exactly this issue when she addressed the NGOs in Cancun. Rather than talking at length about the negotiations and where they might be going right (or wrong), she explained in a very compelling way why going green is the way forward in her eyes. She outlined how green growth will not only help us fight climate change, but also help poor countries find their way out of poverty in a sustainable way. Figueres wants the international community to start working on the ground in developing countries and help them develop by implementing green technologies, rather than just analyzing sustainable development on a theoretical level. She demanded that the developed world follows the green development path and sets examples to see how it can be done and that businesses step up and invest more in green technologies.

Figueres’s sentiment has been re-stated throughout the week by heads of state and governments and ministers. Be it the Norwegian Minister for Environment Erik Solheim, or Mohamed Aslam, Minister of Housing and Environment of the Republic of the Maldives or President Saakashwili of Georgia, all acknowledge that green growth is the way forward. While Saakashwili explained that green growth can ease tensions in the Black Sea Region, Solheim focused on the fact that there just isn’t enough energy in the world at this point to lead all poor nations out of poverty, and that green technologies are a way out of that dilemma. Minister Aslam of the Maldives just stated plainly that as they saw no other choice, they might as well lead by example. This shows how compelling the idea of a green development path is for countries around the world. They understand that investing in green technologies has an intrinsic value for their nations’ self-interest; be it geopolitical, be it a matter of becoming less dependent on energy imports, or be it a matter of survival.

What is most interesting about all these statements is the fact that green growth has featured so prominently in the climate negotiations. It shows that the climate change debate has moved forward toward real and practical solutions. More and more countries seem to understand that as long as a legally binding international climate deal is absent, investing in green technologies might just be their next-best option. Europe has been investing in renewable energies for decades, China is set to dominate the world market on wind and solar energy and India is determined to catch up with the Europeans as well.

The mood among negotiators and the drive of more and more countries and businesses to look at renewable energies could be a real opportunity: Investing in green growth will not only help the climate – it will also create jobs and revenue and help businesses stay competitive in the 21st century. If politicians around the world set the right framework and businesses step up to the challenge, then green will indeed become the new black. Kermit will just wonder why it took us so long to get it.

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The climate change negotiations in Cancun started into their second and last week this morning. Ministers are beginning to trickle in and the President of Mexico has arrived. With the politicians arriving, the final documents of the COP –UN speak for the climate negotiations- will have to be finalized any day now to then be agreed upon by the politicians. Writing this, I am sitting at the GMF booth in the Cancun Messe, where all the NGOs have taken up shop and the negotiators come by to see what’s what before going on to the Plenary and Working Sessions, which take place at the Moon palace Hotel, a few miles from the Messe. It is palpable how the buzz of activity has picked up since last week –the halls are full, and people from all over the world are walking by. It may be for the beautiful weather and the no-tie policy, but there definitely is a sense of optimism in the air. People do actually seem to believe that the ministers will be able to sign a document of some sort by the end of the week. Talking to a senior negotiator from an African country this morning, he told me how pleased he was with the progress in some areas of the negotiations, in particular on issues relating to the Least Developed Countries. However, he also warned that more needed to be done on capacity-building, which includes technology transfer as well as financing, if developing countries were to agree to a text.

Could that statement point to a dark cloud on the otherwise sunny Cancun horizon? Will developed and developing nations split on the issue of their respective rights and obligations, on -frankly speaking – who should pay for the mess, as they did in Copenhagen? Is this, yet again, going to be the crux of the talks? To be sure, Europeans and Americans have been suspicious about the developing countries all year. Courtesy of Wikileaks, we now know of talks as early as February between European Commissioner Connie Hedegaard and Jonathan Pershing of the United States on exactly this issue. According to the cables, Pershing said that the so-called BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India, and China) were opposed to turning the Copenhagen Accord into a binding agreement. And both were skeptical about whether India and China would honor the commitments they made in the Copenhagen Accord. Clearly, trust for the BASIC countries wasn’t at an all-time high.

At the same time, developing countries have reason to mistrust the developed world. The Wikileaks report reveals that Hedegaard and Pershing also talked about one of the most important, but also contested issues: Financing. In Copenhagen, the developed world agreed to mobilize $100 billion a year by 2020, and $30 billion from 2010-2012 (the so-called “fast-start financing”). While both Hedegaard and Pershing agreed that finding the funds pledged in Copenhagen was essential, Hedegaard asked Pershing if the U.S. would need to do some “creative accounting” to come up with the money. While Pershing did not confirm this, some observers in Cancun say that this is exactly what is happening. When last week the EU outlined the details of its 7.2 billion Euro contribution between 2010 and 2012, questions remained how much new money was contained in that pledge. NGOs and poorer countries were also alarmed by the fact that loans rather than grants are to make up about half of the money.

It is clear that the developed and the developing world still have to do more to rebuild the trust which was lost in Copenhagen. While progress on the negotiations has been made, the negotiators will have to work hard with their ministers to agree on a text that will give hope for a more comprehensive agreement at COP17 in South Africa next year.

Last December, right after Copenhagen, Herman van Rompuy’s chief of staff said, when asked about the possibilities for Cancun: “Who wants to see that horror movie again?” Let’s hope that the talks end up not being a horror movie, but rather a mirror of the weather: Sunny and pleasant.

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Article originally published on euobserver.com

Remember last year when the whole world was looking at a small and cold country in Europe – Denmark – mesmerized by an international conference on climate change known as COP15?

This year, many people won’t even know where the follow-up conference, COP16, is taking place. While the next round of international climate negotiations in Cancun, Mexico is approaching fast, publics and the media on both sides of the Atlantic remain unfazed.

As new polls show, people in fact aren’t particularly concerned about climate change any more, don’t see it as a top priority, and in some cases even doubt that it is really happening.

As the German Marshall Fund’s Transatlantic Trends finds, only six percent of Americans list fighting climate change as a top priority for their country, while 20 percent of Europeans think it should be on the top of the list for their leaders. According to the Pew Global Attitudes survey, 52 percent of Germans consider climate change a serious problem, but only 46 percent of the French, 40 percent of the British, and 37 percent of Americans agree. When asked if they would be willing to pay higher prices to address global climate change, more than half of German and British respondents were willing to do so, but just little under 40 percent of French and Americans approved.

These numbers are probably connected to a rising scepticism about climate change in general. In a February poll conducted by the BBC, only 26 percent of the British believed that climate change was happening and man-made, down from 41 percent only three months earlier. In the United States, half of the population believes that global warming is due to human activities, down from 61 percent in 2003, according to a Gallup poll conducted in March.

This causes a potential problem for politicians when it comes to possible climate legislation. One of the issues with pushing forward any agenda on climate change is the simple fact that the effects of climate change are difficult to identify definitively at this moment. At the same time, ratepayers in the European Union are paying for feed-in tariffs and high taxes on fuel and voters in the United States are worried about potential costs of any climate legislation.

Republicans have already positioned themselves in opposition towards almost any legislation on climate change. With climate change legislation already being unpopular with the Democrats in power, it will become even more difficult in the future as the Republicans stand to take one or both houses in the mid-term elections.

Climate change legislation might be headed towards a rough period in Europe too. While the European Commission’s Connie Hedegaard has announced her desire of raising carbon emission reductions in the EU to 30%, member states seem hesitant to follow. The proposal has been criticized in particular by southern and eastern European member states and a final decision isn’t expected until next spring at the earliest.

In order to change this situation and get the public back on their side, politicians have to step up and make people understand that fighting climate change is important and worth their while. To do this, politicians need to re-frame the issue of climate change. They need to find a way to convey that it is one of the fundamental challenges of the 21st century while at the same time turning the tackling of climate change into a positive story.

And it can be a positive story: With more than 300,000 jobs created in Germany alone in the renewable energy market, it is a tremendous opportunity for businesses and employees alike worldwide. According to a 2009 McKinsey report, the United States alone could save a staggering $1.2 trillion by 2020 by investing in more energy efficient buildings and replacing appliances with energy-saving models. This would include cost savings of 10-20 percent on energy bills for individual households. Similar savings would be true for Europeans.

Politicians should broaden the narrative on climate change to incorporate these positive stories. They should talk about concrete opportunities for the people, meaning job creation and money savings.

President Obama announced in a recent interview with Rolling Stone Magazine that he would focus more on energy legislation next year, calling climate change an “urgent priority”. If he is serious, let’s hope he will use the right narrative to convey this to the American public.

Climate change isn’t the hot topic that it used to be. But if politicians across the Atlantic are smart and re-work their narrative into stories with a positive appeal, Europeans and Americans might get excited about it once again.

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With all what comes out of the international climate negotiations lately, it seems safe to assume that they are stuck. From August 2-6, climate negotiators from around the world met in Bonn to work on the documents to be agreed upon at the 16^th Conference of the Parties (COP16) in Cancun at the end of November. The negotiations in Bonn have been perceived as a setback not only by observers but also by the involved parties. EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard stated that the negotiations were going backwards while U.S. top-negotiator Jonathan Pershing expressed his deep concern about the future of the climate talks. In this bleak environment, and following the failure of the COP15 in Copenhagen, the question is what role – if any – the EU can play and how it can position itself on the issue of combating climate change. In order to stay influential in this important area, the only feasible remaining option for the EU is to keep investing in green technologies and help other countries do the same.

 In Bonn, the same rifts that were the major obstacle at the COP15 returned: the divide between the rich world and poorer countries. Major developing countries seemed to be backtracking on their commitments, made in Copenhagen, to slowly reduce carbon intensity. At the same time, they stated that the developed world was not sufficiently helping the developing world adapt to climate change and its consequences through financing.

 The official statement released by the European Commission was cautiously optimistic about progress in Cancun. This is not surprising as the EU has prided itself in being at the forefront of combating climate change and being a leader in the international climate negotiations. However, the question is how much power and influence the EU really has when it comes to this issue. It is almost certain that no international agreement will be reached in Cancun in December. And it is unclear where the negotiations will be headed in the years to come. So with the climate negotiations stalling, the EU has to find other ways to make its voice heard and push its agenda forward. While making unilateral commitments such as reducing its CO2 emissions by 30% (a possibility announced in May by Commissioner Hedegaard) might resonate well with the developing world, it is questionable if this will help the EU’s bargaining power. At the same time, businesses and trade unions in Europe have started raising concerns about potential loss of competitiveness and jobs.

 The EU should address these concerns and at the same time regain influence on the world stage by focusing on investment in green technology and renewable energy. This is exactly what EU member states such as Germany, Denmark and Portugal are doing. Germany is one of the world leaders in solar energy, with about 19% of the worldwide solar modules being produced there. The German renewable energy industry has created more than 250,000 jobs, with plans to reach half a million by 2020. Denmark meanwhile is home to the world’s largest offshore wind park, which generates electricity for 200,000 households. In Portugal, almost 45% of the country’s electricity needs come from renewable energy, up from 17% only five years ago, making the country less dependent on fossil fuels and volatile oil prices.

But it is not only the Europeans that have discovered green technology as the way forward. China is producing one third of the world’s solar modules and exporting its wind turbines around the world. As China sets a very good climate for investments in green technology, production in renewable energy is only set to rise.

 This is not going unnoticed in the United States. Think tanks like the Centre for American Progress point out that the United States is in danger of losing out in the technology race. Those same Chinese wind turbines are being exported to Texas, and being utilized in one of its largest wind parks. While the wind park will create fewer than 100 jobs in the United States, the production in China will create more than 2,000 jobs.

 While the international negotiations stall and the public becomes increasingly disengaged, green technology generate ever-growing interest from businesses and workforces across the world. The EU can and should use this interest to achieve its objective of combating climate change. The international negotiations might be stalling and seem complicated to the general public. However, green jobs and green technology will be welcomed not only by businesses as creating new opportunities but also by workforces around the world. The EU can play a crucial role in exporting this technology, in particular to the developing world. This could take the form of technology transfer, as well as developing new technology together. European countries already work with developing countries on projects such as DESERTEC, which aims to produce solar power in the Sahara and submit the electricity produced to African and European countries via a supergrid.

 If the EU remains a frontrunner on green technologies, its declared objective of avoiding disastrous climate change might be feasible, no matter where the international negotiations are headed. By exporting its green technologies to the rest of the world, the EU would help the developing world to be green and develop at the same time. The United States will follow suit once it realizes how much it is potentially losing out on in terms of economic opportunities. Leading by example has helped the EU drive the world in combating climate change. It is more crucial than ever that the EU lead and help the rest of the world work toward a path of sustainable and green development.

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It might be thought that the flow of tens of thousands of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico would renew American interest in achieving independence from fossil fuels and combating climate change. Sadly, this assumption remains questionable. A cursory glance at polls indicates that American attitudes towards these environmental and energy problems have not changed all that much.

While, according to a recent Pew poll, fewer Americans supported offshore drilling in May (54%) than in February (63%), they remained a majority. There is also a clear partisan divide: 41% of Democrats are supportive, compared to 76% of Republicans and 53% of Independents. In fact, the numbers among Republicans have not diminished at all since oil started gushing out of the Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20.  Some polls even suggest support for increasing offshore drilling. A CNN poll conducted at the end of May, for example, saw 57% favor an increase in offshore drilling. A major reason for this, it appears, is concern about dependence on foreign oil.

What might these numbers mean for the success of the American Power Act, the impending climate and energy bill introduced in the Senate by John Kerry and Joseph Lieberman in May? Offshore drilling is still seen as vital for the national interest, particularly in terms of how it can contribute to energy independence and jobs. The original climate and energy bill contained provisions to encourage offshore drilling, which were seen as an important concession to moderate Republicans and some undecided Democrats. Being an election year in which a sizeable majority of Republican voters favor offshore drilling, moderate Republicans seeking reelection could not have been seen supporting Obama’s environmental agenda. However, on May 06, President Barack Obama’s announcement of the extension of a moratorium on offshore drilling caused many observers to doubt whether the legislation would pass. Senator Lindsay Graham, one of the original sponsors of the bill, announced that the bill no longer had his support since its provisions on drilling had been weakened.

At the same time, there is hope in recent poll numbers. A clear majority (73%) of Americans favors legislation that supports research and investment in renewable energies such as wind and solar. Along similar lines, the public appears to place greater priority on environmental considerations over secure energy supplies (55% to 39%) reversing the results of similar polls conducted in early April. 71% of Americans are even in favor of fast-track legislation supporting further investment in renewables, including 76% of Democrats, 75% of Independents and 61% of Republicans. While a comprehensive climate and energy bill might still lack bipartisan support, federal investment in renewable energies does not.

The oil spill is a tragedy that will stay with the United States for a long time. The environmental impacts of the disaster will be enormous. But there is also a window of opportunity to push for the right investment framework for renewable energies and possibly even a bill containing investment provisions. While Europeans might have expected a more vigorous response from the American public, this is not the time to ponder on what has not been done. Rather, this crisis presents a perfect moment to work together on opportunities that do present.

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COPENHAGEN — When it comes to climate change and how to combat it, one of the fundamental questions asked by critics and supporters alike is: Who will pay? It is also one of the toughest issues being negotiated right now in snowy Copenhagen. Developing countries demand financial and technology transfers from the rich nations. The EU has pledged $10.8 billion to help developing nations combat climate change, and the United States have also announced that they would be willing to pitch in. However, the debate in the EU over who has to shoulder the majority of the burden has been heated, it is still unclear if the pledged amount is indeed enough and the US have been keeping their cards close to their chest. Also, the pledged amounts are short-term, running only for a couple of years.

In times of economic crisis, the hesitation is understandable. Is this really the time to invest in green technologies? Aren’t they too costly? Will they create jobs? All these questions concern the public, and understandably so. However, there are two strong arguments to be made for investing in green technologies, and investing in them now. First, ever since the now famous “Stern Review” by Lord Nicholas Stern and his team, evidence has hardened that we need to act now (= combat climate change by investing in clean technologies) if we want to combat climate change and not miss out on economic growth at the same time. Stern estimates that two percent of global GDP per year are required to be invested in order to avoid disastrous consequences of climate change. And more importantly, the cost of inaction could be a global GDP that is 20% lower than it otherwise might be. Critics might answer to this that we still don’t know for certain what consequences climate change will have; that we are better off investing the money in innovations that we know will actually pay off. The examples of Denmark and Germany suggest that investing in green technologies would do just that. Clean technologies are not only good for the climate; they can actually create jobs, drive innovation and make a country more competitive on a global scale. Germany and Denmark are at the forefront of global green innovation. German companies export their solar panel around the world, and the Danes and the Germans are world leaders on wind parks, being the only countries that can build the facilities for large-scale offshore wind parks. For an export nation like Germany and a small country like Denmark, being at the forefront of innovation is crucial to be able to compete in the global market place. Not to mention the fact that having your own wind parks and solar panels makes you less reliant on foreign resources. The US are looking at these developments very closely and many in the United States say that investments in green technology have to happen now if the US doesn’t want to miss out.

In addition, green technologies are crucial for developing nations. As it is undisputed that they have a right to growth, ways must be found to uncouple this growth from dirty technologies such as coal plants. Creating innovative solutions to energy demands in the developed world is the only way to solve the riddle of growth and development in the developing world that do not harm our climate.
While this all sounds good, there is a caveat. Investment and thus innovation in green technologies has been sluggish. A recent paper by Brussels-based think tank Bruegel that was co-funded by the German Marshall Fund finds that green growth hasn’t taken off yet, and will not happen at the levels necessary to avoid dangerous climate change, even with a strong carbon price. Many investments are still going towards dirty technologies. The authors of the paper suggest that in order to kick-start innovation in green growth, both a tax on carbon emissions and subsidies from governments are needed. They, like Nick Stern, argue that we need to act now €“ to drive innovation, to safe costs and last but not least to help developing nations choose a path of growth that doesn’t kill our climate.

The talks in Copenhagen are slow, but progress is being made. Green technologies could be one of the items that bring the world together in its global effort as they have the potential to provide gains for everyone.

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COPENHAGEN — Today was the first day of the ministerial segment of the climate negotiations in Copenhagen. Outside, 15,000 people were standing in line for hours to get access into the Bella Conference Center, home of the climate negotiations. Meanwhile, things were heating up inside. This morning, the African delegations led the G77 plus China, a bloc representing 135 developing countries, in a boycott from the negotiations. The protest occurred in the forest and land-use working group under the AWG-LCA negotiating track. (The AWG-LCA stands for the Ad-hoc Working Group on Long Term Cooperative Action, which is a part of the negotiating track under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The AWG-LCA is one of two negotiating tracks at the COP. The other negotiating track is under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP). The working groups are essentially the meetings in which negotiators work on the draft texts that their heads of state will discuss at the end of the COP.) Having the G77 and China walk out of one of these working groups has the potential to stall this process, kicking up the negotiations to the ministerial and heads of state levels.

The delegates didn’t have to wait long for a response: at lunchtime, the EU and Australian delegations called for a suspension of the other working groups, which meant that negotiations were suspended for the time being.

So what was the issue that everybody got so worked up about? There is a sharp disagreement between the different delegations whether the Kyoto Protocol negotiating track should provide the framework for the Copenhagen agreement or if a whole new agreement should be concluded here either under the AWG-LCA that would include commitments from the United States, China, and other emerging economies, or under a framework that merges the two negotiating tracks. Developing countries favor an agreement under Kyoto, which they see as best protecting their interests. However, it would be politically impossible for the United States to sign onto Kyoto, a treaty that Congress rejected vehemently 11 years ago. The U.S. and EU understand that in order for the United States to agree to a deal in Copenhagen, the deal must happen under a new treaty framework. The G77 plus China however fear that no legally binding agreement can be reached and that the world was letting go of the only legally binding agreement that we have €“ the Kyoto Protocol. One leader in the NGO community stated that abandoning the Kyoto Protocol was like jumping ship without having anything stable to land on.

Delegates seemed uncertain what these developments meant for the negotiations. While one European delegate was worried that things were falling apart, another senior negotiator was very calm about it, indicating that the developments were the usual brinkmanship of the second week of negotiations when everybody starts pushing a little bit harder for what they want. However, in general, there seemed to be confusion among the parties. One European said that the situation was reminiscent of the talks in Kyoto, where nobody really knew what was going on and a lot of deals were struck in side conversations.

The negotiations recommenced shortly after the President of the Conference, Danish Climate and Energy Minister Connie Hedegaard, held informal consultations with the key developing country delegations to urge them to resume negotiations. The African parties were the first to rejoin the negotiations and that set off a domino effect with the rest of the G77 plus China.

While suspension of negotiations aren’t uncommon toward the end of the COP, many worry that this will push back deliberation of key issues until the last minute when the negotiations are taken over by the heads of state and become highly political. The boycott highlights the difficult issues parties must overcome for an agreement to take place in Copenhagen.

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Article originally published on euobserver.com

The world’s climate negotiators have been clocking up a few air miles this week as they travelled to Bangkok to prepare for December’s United Nations climate change talks in Copenhagen.

While the developing world is reluctant to move forward without the developed world having taken the first step, new polling data from the US and Europe suggests that the public on both sides of the Atlantic want the negotiations to succeed and for a deal to replace the 12-year-old Kyoto Protocol.

However, differences within Europe may now be as great as across the Atlantic. While US trends show increasing awareness of the climate change problem, the picture in the EU is more complicated, with policy makers across Europe holding quite different opinions on how to tackle climate change. These differences may only grow once real costs are involved. It remains to be seen what this might mean for the future of public support for action on climate change.

In the recently published public opinion survey by the German Marshall Fund, Transatlantic Trends 2009, 84 percent of Europeans surveyed state that they are concerned with climate change, with 65 percent of Americans saying the same. This is 18 percent more than last year when 47 percent of Americans considered climate change a serious problem.

However, when asked if they would be willing to sacrifice economic growth to combat climate change, 69 percent of Europeans agree while only 43 percent of Americans are willing to make this sacrifice.

Even in eastern Europe, where the economic crisis has been most pronounced, a majority would sacrifice economic development. Substantial majorities in Europe believe climate change can only be addressed effectively at the international level (81 percent), while only a slim majority in the US (54 percent) thinks that it takes a global effort. But 70 percent of Americans think that the US should do everything it can to combat climate change, even if others do less.

These views are in tune with government policies in the respective regions. In the United States, regional initiatives such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in the northeast show the US has found ways to combat climate change that do not involve other countries.

The Waxman-Markey bill, which was recently approved by the US House of Representatives, focuses on domestic measures to decrease US emissions rather than envisioning an international deal. This helps to show why Americans are ready to take action independent of others and helps to explain the lower numbers of Americans that support international action.

This does not mean that a global deal is not necessary, but rather that other approaches are being pursued in the US right now. It is the administration’s job to keep reminding the public that finding an international agreement in Copenhagen is crucial.

Meanwhile, what is happening in Europe? At first glance, all looks well. Politicians publicly support combating climate change and have started concrete action on the European level. Last year’s climate and energy package entails the now famous 20-20-20 goals, which aim to reduce emissions on 1990 levels by 20 percent, increase energy efficiency by 20 percent and draw 20 percent of our energy use from renewable sources by 2020.

However, there are potential caveats. One open question is whether European citizens will stay as supportive of action on climate change as they are currently if some of the costs will be passed on to them through increases in electricity prices.

Thus far, these costs haven’t been felt by the public. The prices for allowances in the current round of the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) are rather low and less than what companies originally expected. Energy from renewable resources has been heavily subsidised by governments, with Germany and other countries creating incentives for renewable energy by guaranteeing above-market prices (via a feed-in tariff) without substantially passing costs on to consumers.

However, with the second round of the ETS in place and debates on subsidies on-going, energy producing companies will start passing on the costs to consumers. As a recent very heated debate in Germany about rising prices for electricity shows, this is a potentially touchy subject.

Furthermore, there is an intra-European disagreement among governments on what to do about climate change. Although majorities in eastern Europe state that they are willing to sacrifice economic growth, their governments are more reluctant.

With eastern European countries and especially Poland relying heavily on coal, they received special”transitional free allowances” under the climate and energy package. There was also pressure from western European countries such as Italy to give industries such as steel and chemical producers free allowances in order to avoid job losses.

And while the European Commission publicly announced at the beginning of September that it would offer around ‚¬15 billion to support developing countries in combating climate change (and thus trying to pave the way for an agreement in Copenhagen), there is no agreement in Europe as to who will shoulder these additional costs. Poland has made it clear that there needs to be an internal debate and asks for richer countries to chip in more.

So both sides of the Atlantic have some way to go until Copenhagen. While the Europeans in the aggregate seem ready to sign a global deal even if sacrifices need to be made, differences between eastern and western Europe remain.

These will potentially only get stronger once real costs become clear and loss of competitiveness seems possible. It is also questionable whether European publics will remain as supportive as they are now once they feel these costs. Americans, at the same time, have moved away from their previous reluctance to supporting certain measures to combat climate change.

Climate change negotiators will need to cobble together a deal publics and politicians alike across the Atlantic can support. But the numbers show that bridging differences inside Europe may be as challenging as getting over any transatlantic hurdles.

Getting a deal in Copenhagen is not just important because the climate is deteriorating more rapidly than thought; it may also be the last time public sentiments are sufficiently aligned.

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