A Busy Week for Climate

New York City - With President Obama's speech today before the UN meeting on climate change, convened by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, the release of excerpts from an IEA report on the climate Sunday and climate on the agenda at the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, this week has shaped up as a remarkable one in climate discussions.  On Sunday, the IEA released sections from its forth coming Energy Outlook  that are remarkably optimistic about the climate.  Today, President Obama gave a forceful--if thematic--speech to the UN--notable more than anything else for the reversal of US policy on the climate that his presidency brings relative to his predecessor.  And later in the week, the G-20 will take up the issue anew after failing to make major progress in London.  All of this is happening with Copenhagen now just around the corner.  At this point, it is worth taking stock of where the world is on what Sir David King has dubbed the hot topic.

First, the IEA report in its suprisingly positive findings shows above all, that action on climate change is within our reach.  The IEA found that the EU effort on climate has succeded more than previously thought.  It also praises China for its efforts and the US for improving fuel economy  Most notable, however, is the huge decline in emissions that has evidently accompanied the current recession.  The sharp dropoff in emissions shows that the word can cut emissions dramatically over a period of months and still survive.  In effect, it sets a boundary.  Obviousy, we don't want to see unemployment at 10% in the US in order to lower emissions.  But it shows that a lower emissions world is attainable. In fact, we are living it right now. 

The President's speech, though criticized by some environmentalists for lacking specifics, in my mind hit the right notes and reverses one of the troubling elements of much of the discussion before.  While noting that the developed world needs to do more, the President also called the developing world to account.  This strikes a slightly different note than many dicussions up to now that have reprised the poverty debate with the developing world asking for aid and the developed world expressing guilt over previous sins.  Climate change discussions--though they touch on issues of development--are not about equity between North and South but rather the survival of the planet.  Progress on saving the climate cannot be about apologizing for the last century of industrialization.  That was a necessary phase of economic development that although it raised living standards first in the developed world, in effect, paved the way for industrialization everywhere.  Nor was industrialization in the west a free ride for the workers who toiled in factories or even those who enjoyed its fruit as the high mortality of the indsutrial wage and bloody 20th Century attest.  The developing world although slower to industrialize in many ways inherits the technology, transportation network and markets created by the developed world's industrialization.  And developing countries have an even greater stake in addressing climate change because they stand to suffer disproportionately from rising sea levels, disruption of food supplies, extreme weather and other potential consequences of a hotter planet.  The President was right to call on the developing countries to be as serious as the developed ones about facing this issue.

The discussions underway at the UN and those that will be part of the G20 process, however, are not moving at the pace that anyone would like.  Although President Obama took pains to mention the passage of climate change legislation in the House, he could not point to a unifed American position as our basis for international negotiation.  The simple fact is that there is a very real possibility that a comprehensive global agreement on global greenhouse gas emissions will not be ready by Copenhagen.

If that is the case, however, as the IEA repot makes clear, that does not mean all is lost.  Rather, the US like China and, indeed, all countries needs to move forward on the many other fronts available to address the problem of greenhouse gas emissions.  Since the recent interruption of growth was, we all hope, temporary, as I have written before the answer ultimately must be technology.  In order to incent the private sector to accelerate the rollout of low carbon technologies, government needs to put the right policies in place.  That means improving fuel economy, building more efficient buildings and creating a new, smarter, more open electricity network to spur a renewable revolution. 

Regardless of what happens this week in New York and Pittsburgh, or what happens in Copenhagen the problem of climate change will not be solved in a day a month or a year, but only through the consistent application of private industry and government in all their actions to introducing that technology.  That is the real imperative underlying this week's focus on climate change.  And it must be the real goal of a wide range of policy efforts going forward whether the world secures a comprehensive agreement or not.