The (hardly) united state of America (COP 13)

11 Dec 2007 – Geoff Lye

As Bali prepares to host 100+ environment ministers from around the world for the crucial final days of the conference, the mood seems to be toughening – and worsening. Battle lines are being drawn up on the central issue of targets with the US, Japan and Canada aligned against even a target range for cuts in emissions by the developed nations. The EU and developing nations are pressing (now fighting) for 25-40% cuts by 2020. Yet it is hard to believe that the U.S. delegation is here representing the same country as the two constituencies whose side event meetings I went to today.

My morning was largely taken up with a review of the history, status and priorities of USCAP (US Climate Action Partnership). I thought I knew most of what they have been doing since they launched their Call to Action in January, but was surprised by the pace of developments. USCAP’s panel comprised what only a few years ago would have seemed some highly unlikely partners including NRDC, Pew Center, Rio Tinto, Shell and WRI (with Dow, Environmental Defense and PG&E offering vocal support from the sidelines). For those of us who have worked in the U.S. over the last decade, this was almost surreal. It is probably not an overstatement to say, as I did at the meeting, that when the history of climate solutions is written the USCAP initiative will be seen as playing a critical catalytic role in shifting the debate and policy in the U.S. – and thereby in the world.

Before the meeting, I spoke to Jonathan Lash (I had the good fortune to get to know him well at a conference series in Brazil two years ago). His reply to my question ‘What do you make of the last two years?’ ‘Simply overwhelming.’ He has endless anecdotes of previously unthinkable (but positive) things that he has been party to in the USCAP process and elsewhere. From the panel, both the business and NGO representatives felt that the power of combined and fully aligned public positions and committee representations in Washington had been massively effective in disrupting existing political thinking. The energy for serious climate engagement by the US corporate community looks unstoppable. I am not sure whether Joanathan keeps a blog but I recall that he keeps a detailed diary. It must make fascinating reading!

I bumped into David Hone on the way in and he again represented Shell very well on this panel offering a clear articulation of USCAP’s thinking. He was also the lead quote in an article in the Financial Times today under the heading Business lobby demands clear emissions goals. It then reads: ‘David Hone, group climate change adviser for Shell, the oil group, said countries should be given definite emissions targets, broken down into “clearly segmented timeframes”. The real confidence would ultimately come once we’ve set and passed one or two [target] deadlines and someone’s held to task if we don’t meet them. If that doesn’t happen, then the whole thing starts to unravel.”

My day had three serendipitous moments. The first was at the USCAP meeting when I found myself sitting next to an Australian lady who introduced herself as Susan Butler from – of all companies – Sustain-Agility! They are using (I think) high end IT to facilitate corporate climate responsibility.

The second serendipity. In the lobby as I got back to my hotel was Diana Liverman who had just met up with John Schellenhuber (whom, by pure chance, I quoted in the December 8th blog entry). She asked me to join John and Heike Schroeder, another ECI colleague, for lunch. Given his role as climate adviser to Angela Merkel and as part of the German delegation, he offered an insider’s perspective on the political games at play. There are clearly many unpredictable moves to come on the Bali climate chess board over the next days and nights. He was also interested to pursue the idea on an International Climate Fund, as raised by Ecosecurities’ Pedro Moura Costa on Sunday.

Third serendipity. Late afternoon, I took a taxi ride back to the conference. My co-passenger turned out to be Juliet Eiperin a staff writer with the Washington Post who knows our DC team and has met John Elkington in the recent past (she asked me to let him know that she had just written a book which involved her swimming with whale sharks – as he had recommended). Her insights into the issues facing the US delegation given the certainty that we will not have a Bush administration in 2009 were really interesting, but I am now sure whether conversations with journalists in taxis are on or off the record. On balance, I think blogging should require an ‘opt in’ for private conversations rather than an ‘opt out’.

While she headed off for a reception, I went to a panel session on California’s response to climate change (though ‘global warming’ seems to be the preferred US terminology). This was the second example where the gap between California and the Bush Administration was bizarre. The conviction of the need to act and the commitment to make California a world leader in shifting to a low carbon economy was unequivocal if judged by the tone and content of the comments made by Linda Adams, Secretary of the California EPA and Mary Nichols, Chair of the California Air Resources Board. The only dissenting debate in the room was in relation to whether California (and the US more generally) could deliver what they describe as a ‘carbon friendly’ future. Mary Nichols was very clear that the programs in place were not intending – or intended to – change lifestyles but rather to use markets and technologies to promote both climate protection and economic growth for an even better quality of life.

The techno-fix strategy is, on reflection, about the one thing where USCAP, California and the Bush administration stand united.