As I write, the curtains have dropped on the theatre of Copenhagen. Disagreements over emission targets, verification, funding and legal compliance stick out like a sore thumb. Reality is staring the world in the face amid the political slights, snubs and an ‘Accord’, led by the so-called BASIC countries (America, China, India, Brazil and South Africa) looking like a damp squib, masking huge disagreements behind the weasel words of ‘taking note’.
On 26 November, only days before the Conference kicked off, China came up with a target of cutting carbon intensity (per unit GDP) by 40-45% by 2020 from 2005 levels, compared with a much lower target of 17% announced by the US one day before. China and India are expected to cut even more, and to submit to outside verification of binding targets. But to developing countries, sustainable development is not just about cuts in emissions. It is holistic – economic development and poverty reduction are not to be compromised. Nor is sovereignty over national interests. For the US, and many countries in the West, not many voters are prepared to pay a high price for Carbon, let alone a large number of doubting Thomases.
According to a leaked UN document, even all the offers originally on the table would lead to a temperature rise of 3 degrees, compared with the Copenhagen aim of limiting a rise to 2 degrees from pre-industrial levels (guardian.co.uk, 17 December 2009).
There is thus a fundamental divergence between the developing and developed world in the sense of urgency. For voters in the West, it is mostly about trees and polar bears ‘for ourselves, our children, and children’s children’. For China, it is not so much distant lands and creatures but a Clear and Present Danger of energy, climate and food security, threatening her economic competitiveness and political survival. But Carbon is only part of her overall developmental imperatives. For some island states, however, rising sea levels demand the urgency of now.
My views featured in an interview article China Sets 2020 Emissions Target in Interest of National Security by SolveClimate at http://solveclimate.com/blog/20091126/china-sets-2020-emissions-target-interest-national-security?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:
Disappointment over Copenhagen aside, however, there are as strategic differences as there are practical areas of common interest between China and the US. Witness the outline of a detailed Green Tech Partnership Agreement signed during President Obama’s recent visit to China. This is summarized in Slide 23 of my presentation China on the doorstep to a Low Carbon Future at the CineForum on Climate Change: The Road To Ecotopia held in London on 4 December. The presentation is accessible at http://www.andrewleunginternationalconsultants.com/files/china-on-the-doorstep-to-a-low-carbon-future.pdf
Earlier, I also outlined How science and technology will help China’s Green Revolution at the World Hi-Tech Forum in London on 8 October. This presentation is at http://www.andrewleunginternationalconsultants.com/files/how-science-and-technology-will-help-chinas-green-revolution.pdf
Perhaps it is quiet and practical areas like these, rather than the sound and fury of Copenhagen, that are likely to yield concrete results.
The Copenhagen theatre is part of a global drama defined by a paradigm shift in geopolitics and geo-economics as the result of the world’s rampant demand for energy and other resources. I have tried to unveil this in my article The Green Swans of Climate Change at http://www.andrewleunginternationalconsultants.com/files/the-green-swans-of-climate-change.pdf
Watch this space, and sit tight.