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Science has presented persuasive evidence that emissions from human activities have forced an increase in average global temperatures, but politics will determine how the world deals with climate change when negotiations begin at Copenhagen. And politics means politicians, and we all know what that means.
There are two main issues facing the negotiators. The first is reducing greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels such as coal and oil. As noted above, the developing world and the developed world are playing the old game of "You go first." Each wants the other to be the first to make the major concession.
President Obama and the Democrats would like to pass legislation, but as the fight over health care has shown, controlling Congress and the White House is no guarantee of success. And the climate bill is in the same position as health care; competing versions in the House and Senate leave it unclear exactly which approach the final legislation will take and how far it will go in meeting emission reduction goals set by India and China, goals which are much tougher than what is currently in the House bill. All that will be red meat for opponents.
China and India may be betting that the resulting bill will fall sufficiently short of what is needed to give them an excuse to defer painful measures on their part, should they chose to do. What might lead them to decide otherwise?
Money, what else? The second big issue at Copenhagen is how much money the developed world is willing to pledge to help developing nations with the costs of reducing their emissions and adapting to the impacts of climate change.
The European Union has put out a number that was immediately denounced as inadequate. But given the lingering after-effects of the global economic crisis, it is hard to see the Europeans or anyone else committing the kind of money that many feel is needed. The economic crisis is a double whammy in that it also makes countries reluctant to adopt stringent emission reduction measures that would impose new costs on economic systems still struggling to recover.
Some things I have learned after years of blogging about the political process: The real action doesn't happen in public view, you will see lots of false dawns, and the final decisions are usually left to the last minute.
This would be fun to watch were it not for that feeling in the pit of my stomach that time is not on our side and failure is not an option. For some reason I keep hearing a line from the Crosby, Stills and Nash song Southern Cross: "And we never failed to fail, it was the easiest thing to do."
The essay first appeared on PlanetRestart.org
