President Obama Arrives, Bringing Nothing New
[The following blog post was cross-posted from our friend's 1Sky's blog where it was originally posted by Gillian Caldwell. 1Sky will be among the attendees in Copenhagen starting on December 12 and will follow the action in Copenhagen.]
President Obama reportedly got off Air Force One and moved immediately into a Heads of State meeting. From there, he moved to address the plenary in what appeared to be a serious, determined and frustrated mood (read full text of his speech here or watch the video). He said he did not come to talk - that he came to act. And that we have to come together to address a common threat.
Obama identified three prerequisites to a successful global accord today:
"First, all major economies must put forward decisive national actions that will reduce their emissions, and begin to turn the corner on climate change. I'm pleased that many of us have already done so, and I'm confident that America will fulfill the commitments that we have made: cutting our emissions in the range of 17 percent by 2020, and by more than 80 percent by 2050 in line with final legislation.
Second, we must have a mechanism to review whether we are keeping our commitments, and to exchange this information in a transparent manner. These measures need not be intrusive, or infringe upon sovereignty. They must, however, ensure that an accord is credible, and that we are living up to our obligations. For without such accountability, any agreement would be empty words on a page.
Third, we must have financing that helps developing countries adapt, particularly the least-developed and most vulnerable to climate change. America will be a part of fast-start funding that will ramp up to $10 billion in 2012. And, yesterday, Secretary Clinton made it clear that we will engage in a global effort to mobilize $100 billion in financing by 2020, if - and only if - it is part of the broader accord that I have just described.
Mitigation. Transparency. And financing. It is a clear formula - one that embraces the principle of common but differentiated responses and respective capabilities. And it adds up to a significant accord - one that takes us farther than we have ever gone before as an international community."
The biggest disappointment was that he didn't bring anything new to the table - he reiterated the same position that has been outlined by U.S. negotiators all week, including continuing to propose a U.S. target "in the range of 17%" from 2005 levels by 2020. It is particularly maddening that President Obama and others in the administration continually refuse to specify their baseline -- which is to their strategic advantage since everyone else is using the 1990 baseline and the only industrialized country proposing a lower target than the United States is Canada, whose performance has earned them repeated Fossils of the Day throughout the negotiations. His speech was not well received in the plenary, or in the NGO forum where I am watching it. Indeed, he was booed by the global community.
Meanwhile, a draft of the text of the agreement was leaked and picked up by the press. More on that as soon as I have had a chance to analyze it. The New York Times reports the United Nations Secretariat has "reportedly advised negotiators to extend their stays through Sunday night." So we are unlikely to see a conclusion to this today as originally planned.
Here's the video:
