IT'S NOT AS IF...:

Climate change exercise set to fail (Lenore Taylor, 12/14/09, The Australian)

THE message from the US, Australia and other rich countries is unequivocal.

China is the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter and it cannot continue to hide behind the developing nations' bloc to avoid making clear and checkable promises to reduce its emissions.

US special envoy on climate change Todd Stern calls that idea "old think". And he says the US will not do a deal without the major developing nations (read: China) stepping up.

Without the largest and second largest polluters in the world, this exercise will fail.

...Mr. Stern can commit America to reductions either.

MORE:
What’s Rotten for Obama in Denmark (John M. Broder, 12/13/09, NY Times)

Mr. Obama enters the Copenhagen negotiations without anything close to consensus in his own party for his cap-and-trade plan to reduce emissions. The issue pits coastal liberals against the so-called Brown Dogs of the Rust Belt and the Great Plains whose states depend heavily on coal for power and manufacturing for jobs. At least a dozen of these Democrats have made it clear they will not accept any legislation — or any treaty — that threatens their industries or jobs. Another Senate coalition emerged last week behind a proposal to tax fossil fuels and return most of the revenues to consumers to compensate for higher energy prices. But that plan, though it has drawn some Republican support, is also unlikely to meet the 60-vote threshold required to call a vote.

It is not at all clear today that Mr. Obama and his allies in the Senate can overcome these obstacles next year, or ever. And without the Senate, the entire international project is in jeopardy because without the participation of the United States — which emits 20 percent of all greenhouse gases — any international regime is bound to fall short.

See: Kyoto Protocol. That was the ill-fated 1997 climate accord that the Senate refused to consider because it made no binding demands on developing nations to limit their emissions.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 13, 2009 8:50 AM