The changing climate

Global slowdown and politics weaken emission reduction resolve

The decision of the US Senate not to ratify the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act, 2009, passed last year by the US House of Representatives in the run up to the Copenhagen Climate Summit, is a reminder of the evaporating support for tough measures to deal with climate change and carbon emissions in developed economies. For all the brouhaha and the bravado of the past decade, and the pressure on India and China to make binding commitments on emission reduction, developed economies, in particular the United States, have not yet demonstrated their commitment to emission reduction. Two factors seem to have shaped political opinion in the US between last July and now.

 

First, hopes of a global economic turnaround have not materialised. Persisting concern about economic slowdown and unemployment have diminished US President Barrack Obama’s political support base at home. The ‘climate change sceptic’ Republican Party is back in business and influencing opinion on this issue. It was the refusal of Republicans to back the Democrat-sponsored bill that resulted in the devastating blow in the Senate. Indeed, even in Europe the worsened economic situation in 2010 has weakened the support base for climate change action. In both the US and Europe, the ‘climategate’ affair, which raised new doubts about the facts behind the opinion, has also contributed to declining public support for emission reduction commitments. Second, the geopolitical impact of the Copenhagen Summit has been to weaken the global political support base for the kind of action that was being sought prior to Copenhagen. In fact, the US Senate vote reaffirms the validity of the view that India finally came to embody at Copenhagen after all the confusion in the run up to the Summit.

The combination of renewed concerns about growth and unemployment at home and the growing unpopularity of incumbent governments has clearly diminished the support base for action on climate change in the developed world. This is, however, unfortunate because the developed world bears the huge responsibility for undoing the damage of carbon emission over the past two centuries and reducing emission intensity at home. Interestingly, a recent study at the Australian National University shows that both India and China are better placed to meet their more realistic emission intensity reduction targets than the developed economies. The study concludes that “India could achieve its goal of a 20-25 per cent cut in emissions intensity if the recent rate of progress in energy efficiency is maintained.” On the other hand, the study (How Ambitious are China and India’s Emissions Intensity Targets? David I Stern and Frank Jotzo, Research Report No. 51, March 2010, Crawford School of Economics and Government, Australian National University) is concerned that the US and Europe are not doing enough. The study concludes: “The debate now is no longer over whether developed countries should do ‘something’ while developing countries continued to do ‘nothing’ for climate change mitigation. Rather, it appears that countries’ targets on the table since Copenhagen, despite all the disagreements over their legal status, can be the starting point for a serious debate about who does how much, and how.” The outcome of the US Senate action does not, however, inspire much confidence.

Does this mean Copenhagen is dead? To conclude that would be a pity. Rather, the time has come for a more pragmatic and development-oriented approach to the problem. The US and Europe can do more for emission reduction both by doing more at home and by helping developing countries, technologically and financially, to do more.