By Annie Downs
The end of November marks another United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference. This year, government representatives, NGOs, and climate change advocacy leaders are gathering in Durban to continue discussions on climate change. Previous conferences in Copenhagen and Cancun have produced lackluster results, and before the opening bell even sounded in South Africa, critics seemed ready to deem the Conference a failure.
Yet there are reasons the Durban conference can, and in a very real sense must, make larger strides than its predecessors. While meetings in Copenhagen and Cancun seemed to have relatively little sense of political or environmental urgency, Durban is marked by both. A 2012 expiration date for the Kyoto Protocol means that the largest binding international agreement for reducing greenhouse gas emissions could soon be swept under the rug, leaving the international community back at square one. While many developed nations, including the E.U., are committed to extending the Protocol to 2018, dissenters will make negotiations complicated. The U.S. remains a notable objector. The Protocol does not apply emission limitations to developing nations, including China and India, and until this condition is included, the U.S. has signaled it will not ratify the agreement. Even countries that initially ratified the Kyoto Protocol are becoming hesitant about extending an agreement that does not place conditions on developing nations. Russia, Japan, and Canada have voiced that they will not continue to participate in the Protocol unless it is significantly reworked.
Climate change doesn’t wait for politics. As government representatives continue to wheel and deal, the International Energy Association has warned that a climate change “tipping point” is approaching. In early November, the IEA released a report predicting that only five years remain in which the global community can make the massive changes needed to prevent irreversible impacts of climate change. Current reliance on dirty energy sources is pushing average temperatures up, nearly to the 2-degree Celsius ceiling informally agreed to at the 2009 Copenhagen summit. Recently, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report linking recent natural disasters to climate change. According to the IEA, the only way to stop these conditions from taking a permanent, more extreme hold on the world is to drastically shift our dependence on energy resources.
Current energy dependence patterns will account for at least 80 percent of the carbon dioxide targets agreed upon in the Kyoto Protocol. In order to stay below target emissions, the IEA warns that global dependence on coal and oil must be phased out in favor of nuclear power, natural gas, and renewable energy sources. Global energy choices will not only have an impact on the future of the world’s climate, but also the economy. Continued dependence on dirty energy is causing what the IEA terms a “false economy.” Predicted increases in the price of oil mean that continued dependence is costly. Furthermore, building renewable energy plants today will generate future savings. Even if renewable energy subsidies are multiplied four-fold from current levels, they would add up to less than half the amount that is being spent on global fossil fuel subsidies. While policy leaders seem committed to making small, internal alterations to carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions, the large-scale changes the IEA claims are necessary have been hampered by political stagnation.
The Framework Convention on Climate Change conference faces an additional challenge. Though the influence of climate change naysayers has diminished in recent years, a timely leak of e-mails between climate change scientists can be seen as a publicity campaign targeted to cast a shadow over the lofty goals of policy makers in Durban. In a seemingly identical incident to the e-mail leak that occurred on the eve of the Copenhagen conference, a cache of e-mails from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia in the U.K. were released this month. The e-mails include critiques of scientific techniques used in studies of climate change. Experts believe the e-mail leak is a targeted attempt by opponents of regulation to cast doubt over the relevance of global warming directives. During the Copenhagen meeting, this tactic seemed effective, and an investigation was launched aimed at assessing the credibility of scientific data supporting global warming. This year, if meaningful work is to be done, it is imperative that the e-mail leak does not cause the same response.
The time for small deals and political inertia over climate change has come and gone. Both economic and global climate trends demand that Durban produce results. Rather than using the conference as a time for discussion of small-scale changes and a simple extension of the Kyoto Protocol, government representatives should use the meeting in Durban as a chance to confront the major issues in the Protocol. An agreement that does not include the U.S., China, or India cannot have the major effect on global energy production that the IEA claims is necessary. The 2012 expiration date of the Kyoto Protocol offers the perfect opportunity for leaders to think about reshaping the agreement to reflect current patterns of growth and energy dependence – an agreement that developing nations and the U.S. could sign on to.
Established in 1995, the Georgetown Public Policy Review is the McCourt School of Public Policy’s nonpartisan, graduate student-run publication. Our mission is to provide an outlet for innovative new thinkers and established policymakers to offer perspectives on the politics and policies that shape our nation and our world.