Is President Barack Obama's decision to appear on the last day of climate negotiations in Copenhagen a game-changer? There certainly have been a lot of games played with expectations of the Copenhagen meeting over the past year. At the beginning of 2009, expectations were high that this would be the most important global climate meeting since Kyoto—where countries would finally agree to make substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. But after talks at the October preparatory meeting in Bangkok stalled, U.S. lead negotiator John Pershing lamented that the U.S. was hamstrung in making stronger GHG-reduction commitments by Congress—which has yet to pass climate legislation.
Obama's announcement that he'll arrive on the last day—re-enacting former Vice President Al Gore's last minute deal-making at the Kyoto talks in 1997—seems to raise the stakes for the Copenhagen meeting. But how much? Proposed GHG reductions announced by India and China seemed to have influenced Obama's decision. But Congress's inaction on climate will still limit what Obama can commit to in terms of concrete GHG-reduction targets.
So, what type of progress could be made within a non-binding political declaration without a Congressional bill? Some of the more structural issues related to a climate deal could be discussed, including aid to developing countries, who want a new global fund to help with climate-related disasters and to transition toward a low carbon economy to be managed by the United Nations, rather than the World Bank as the U.S. proposed last week. Linked to this discussion is the role of purchasing of offset credits in developing countries (often related to forest preservation) to help developed countries like the U.S. meet their GHG-reduction targets. Part of this debate could include the establishment of a secondary carbon derivatives market, see our concerns. Progress on agriculture could also be made (see our agriculture benchmarks).
The trouble with last minute—often behind-closed-doors—deals is that they often fail in the follow-through (see Kyoto, and the WTO's never-ending Doha Round). We'll know a lot more about whether Obama's announcement has changed the game next week when negotiations begin their two-week journey.
