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December 15, 2009
BY CHRIS HOLLY
COPENHAGEN—With the European Union and developing countries continuing their calls for increased “ambition” on emissions-reduction commitments from the United States and China, U.S. Senior Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern Tuesday launched a spirited defense of President Obama’s proposal to cut U.S. emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, saying the proposal is superior or equivalent to commitments by the EU and other developed countries in all but one of six emission-reduction metrics.
Stern’s comments came as high-level ministers from the 193 countries participating in the climate change summit began intense negotiations on a host of unresolved issues. These talks are aimed at resolving as many outstanding issues as possible before heads of state from more than 100 countries, including President Obama, begin arriving today.
The most difficult issues include the level of emissions reductions from developed and large developing countries and how many billions of dollars developed countries will contribute annually to developing countries to help trim their emissions and adapt to climate change. Those issues almost certainly will be left to heads of state to decide.
The EU Parliament in December 2008 approved legislation requiring its 27 members to reduce their collective emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. The legislation also holds out the possibility that if other countries make comparable commitments, the EU would raise its own commitment to 30 percent below 1990 levels.
As measured against a 1990 baseline, Obama’s proposal amounts to a 3.5 percent reduction by 2020, and officials from EU member nations—as well as developing countries and environmentalists—are pressuring the United States to put steeper cuts on the table.
Stern, who heads the U.S. delegation, has said repeatedly that the United States will not beef up its proposal. But he has said that if Congress enacts pending climate legislation, provisions of that bill, such as a renewable electricity standard, efficiency standards and funding for tropical forest protection in other countries, would allow the United States to cut its emissions significantly more than what Obama has proposed.
Stern acknowledged that under a 1990 baseline the U.S. proposal falls well short of the EU’s, but he noted that Obama’s offer calls for ramping up U.S. emissions cuts rapidly. Under a 2005 baseline, the president’s proposal would require cuts of 30 percent by 2025, 42 percent by 2030 and 83 percent by 2050. Under a 1990 baseline, the U.S. proposal would trim emissions by 18 percent by 2025 and 33 percent by 2030.
“By that measure, but only by that measure, the U.S. reduction is substantially less than the EU, for example,” Stern said. “And by the way I have nothing but respect for what the EU is doing and continues to do on climate change, so this is in no sense a criticism of the EU. It’s just an explanation of what the United States is doing.”
If one were to measure the U.S. offer against “business as usual” emissions, however, Stern said the U.S. offer is equivalent to a 17 percent reduction by 2020, while the EU proposal is a 12 percent cut.
If one measures the developed-country proposals on a per capita basis, the U.S. proposal amounts to a 29 percent reduction, while the EU proposal equates to a 25 percent cut, Stern said. If based on carbon-intensity—-the amount of carbon emitted per unit of gross domestic product—-the Obama proposal is “just about exactly in line” with other developed country proposals, he said.
And if the chosen metric is the impact of a country’s emissions reductions on atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, Stern said the U.S offer is three times better than that of other developed countries. That outcome is logical because the United States is the world’s second largest emitter so its emissions reductions would be expected to have a greater impact on atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.
“So by five out of six measures, the United States is equal to or higher than the European Union or many of our developed-country counterparts,” Stern said. “So again, this is no criticism of them, but I have fielded questions all year from many of our counterparts on why the United States isn’t doing more, and as I said, the United States is doing a lot. The only measure by which it looks like the United States isn’t doing much is 1990.”
Notwithstanding Stern’s defense of the U.S. offer, Swedish environmental minister Andreas Carlgren Tuesday said the European Union expected bigger emission-reduction commitments by the United States and China if the negotiations are to produce a strong agreement by the end of the week.
“We expect economy-wide binding targets by the United States …[and] and we expect commitment to actions to reduce emissions by China,” Carlgren told reporters. “But we still expect them to raise the ambition of their commitments. This is what we are striving to produce; this is what we want to see.”
When pressed on whether the EU might try to boost the talks by committing now to increase its pledge to 30 percent, Carlgren said the EU wants to use the possibility of a stronger EU pledge as a “lever” to pry steeper cuts from China and other countries.
“We have said many times we want to deliver the 30 percent,” he said. “But as we see [that] as a lever, if we were to make that [30 percent pledge] now, we would sell those reductions out too cheaply without making sure that China and U.S. deliver sufficiently.”
Carlgren noted that China’s offer to trim its carbon intensity by 40-45 percent by 2020 would still allow China’s overall emissions to increase, although at a slower rate.
"If China doesn’t do more, just the increase in China’s emissions would eat up all our additional 10 percent from the EU in just 10 years,” he said. “It would not be good for the climate if we sell out this 30 percent too cheaply.”
The United States is not the only country coming under intense pressure to reduce its emissions. A recent analysis by researchers from the U.S.-based Climate Interactive group, consisting of the Sustainability Institute, the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Ventana Systems, concludes that the collective emission-reduction commitments proposed by developing countries would lead to an increase in global average temperatures by 2100 of 3.8 degrees Celsius (6.8 degrees Fahrenheit). That is nearly twice as high as the 2 degrees Celsius scientists say is the maximum amount of temperature increase the Earth can sustain without seeing the worst impacts of climate change.
Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said negotiators remain divided even on the underlying objective of the treaty.
“There are still fierce splits over the shared vision, which is setting a global goal for what we’re trying to do with the overall process here in terms of limiting temperatures increases to 2 degrees or below from pre-industrial levels,” said Meyer.
He added that negotiators also are divided on what year global emissions-—including emissions from developing countries—-must peak. Scientists say global emissions must peak no later than 2020 to have a 50 percent chance of meeting the 2 degree Celsius target.
“If you want to have a chance of staying below 2 degrees or 1.5 degrees, that global peak has to be within the next few years and then the reductions have to be very serious,” Meyer said. “But if you don’t have a shared vision, you don’t know where you’re going.”
Ireland’s largest bookmaker, Paddy Power, announced last week it is taking bets on the amount of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the next Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) report submitted periodically to the United Nations.
The last report, in 2006, measured global CO2 emissions at 28.4 billion metric tons, and Paddy Power set odds of 7 to 4 that at the time of the next report the figure will be more than 34 billion tons.
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