Why Action in Copenhagen on Climate Matters by Jennifer Warren

To counter the effects of climate change, the work ahead of us looks daunting. Waterways which feed crops and wind their way into oceans are showing signs of stress across the globe. Coral reefs on both sides of the country from the Pelican Cays of Washington and the Florida Keys are dying, owing to warming waters. Floods, droughts, with some catalyzing devastating wildfires, and a well-noted increase in the frequency of extreme weather events are becoming par for the course. Over the last century, the Earth’s surface has increased on average by 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit (0.7 C), and more so in the Arctic. Most scientists agree that temperatures will rise a minimum of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F), and maybe more, over the next 50 to 100 yearsi. Water resources and hydrology, energy systems, and air quality and temperature are toxically combining in unsustainable ways. We must get started.

Heading into the December United Nations Copenhagen talks on climate change to replace the Kyoto Protocol which the last administration passed on, the U.S. does so looking scattered. On the energy front to date, the House has passed a form of “cap-and-trade” legislation to restrict emissions, but it is running into difficulties passing the Senate. Horse-trading abounds. Yes, we have made greater investments in renewables and will continue to do so; and new regulation to track the carbon emissions of the heavy emitters of industrial sites and petroleum products is a great leap forward toward controlling them. But large-country emitters such as China and India have upped their green game, laying out plans national in scope to combat climate change. Together they plan to study the effects of Himalayan glacier melt as it will impact approximately one-quarter of China’s and hundreds of millions of Indians according to a recent U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

The developing world, including China and India, have their own bargaining positions to get what they need in Copenhagen and thereafter. China is flexing its muscles about controlling its emissions with a renewables standard that 15% of its power generation come from renewables by 2020. As part of a cleaner mix for China, nuclear power is also expected to replace some of their dirtier coal-fired power plants. Beijing has recently enacted a measure to reduce its oil consumption via better fuel economy standards, similar to new U.S measures put forth by the EPA. It will continue its focus on reductions to energy intensity or conservation. India has a newly crafted national climate change policy but their financial resource constraints are greater than China’s. They especially need private investment in power generation and water infrastructure but have attracted fewer private investors than China in the past. Very recently, India changed its tune from this summer, saying it will now agree to a numeric target for emissions reductions. China’s cooperative stance and both U.S., Japanese, and Chinese greener policy pronouncements has likely influenced their reversed position.

China and the U.S., the number one and two top emitters in that order, have a long and over-looked history on energy cooperation, including the development of nuclear power and the famous Three Gorges Dam. The U.S. was instrumental in developing China’s

energy efficiency platform in the late 1980s through collaboration with the DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. An opportunity for green or clean tech trade in China exists surrounding its estimated $3.7 trillion needed in energy-relate d infrastructure from 2006-2030. This underscores an important emission divide that is emerging: the developing world will account for the largest growth in carbon emissions, though the developed world has contributed to the cumulative amounts spewed in the atmosphere to date. And after 2010, that growth climbs steeply, overpowering the growth of developed countries emissions. One by-product of the global recession has been lower emissions with industrialized countries expected to reduce oil consumption by 3.7% up to 2014, but it won’t last.

The developed world must help developing countries in keeping their emissions in check with hard numbers and incentives through trade and financing arrangements. We can do this through enhanced, targeted trade initiatives as we have in the past and market-based solutions. We must act now for a cooperative solution in spite of everyman-for-himself attitudes running in parallel. The global number to limit greenhouse gas emissions is 35 billion tons by 2030 from today’s 50 billion tons, and even further by 2050 to avoid perilously tipping the planet, according to former World Bank chief economist and climate expert Nicolas Stern of London School of Economics.

Ahead of Washington and other capitols, firms are leading the way in demanding action on climate change. Household names such as Starbucks, Yahoo, PepsiCo, Adidas, and British Airways plus a host of internationals are insisting that climate change action underpins future economic growth and development. They are right on that count, not to mention the tolls taken on farmers in developing and developed countries, global economic and health consequences, resource conflicts, and environmental refugees. Swiss Re, the global reinsurer, predicted in 2004 that another decade of global warming would hit insurers with between $30-40 billion in weather-related claims every year. The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change has estimated that the world will spend an extra $36 billion to $135 billion each year by 2030 to address climate change.

Part of the solution comes down to simple insurance principles of risk management. Placing serious action items on the agenda for governments around the world will have a better pay off than letting the house burn down first. In the U.S. case, our premium payments to defray risk might consist of preferential trade and financing agreements in agriculture, energy and water-related sustainable technologies alongside a genuine concrete commitment to reduce emissions. The recent financial crisis was a lesson in prevention and risk management. The climate change crisis that’s forecast, already has many victims. While climate change is an elusive public policy issue, it’s casualties — human, animal, and the elements —will rise if nothing much gets done. Will we tell our grandchildren that America was a leader or a follower in the moment the governments of the world historically came together to redress the imbalances between man and nature?

Jennifer Warren is a Dallas-based writer and Next Generation Project Fellow of the American Assembly at Columbia.

i “Triaging the Train Wreck of Climate Change,” by biologist Brian Helmuth, Miller-McCune, Sept 8, 2009.