THE PLANK SEPTEMBER 24, 2007
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In the wake of news that the Arctic ice is melting faster than anyone expected, the UN climate summit is kicking off in New York today. It's true, nothing super-meaningful is going to come out of the conference--especially since President Bush has refused to attend, preferring to hold his own summit in Bali--but, as Matt Yglesias points out, the kabuki still serves a purpose, since it helps keep talks over how the world can best mitigate climate change moving in such a way that a new U.S. president could come into office in 2009 and hit the ground running.
On a conference call last week with reporters, John Kerry and Tim Wirth--the main U.S. negotiator for the first Kyoto agreement--put the timeline in perspective. The Kyoto Protocol is set to expire in 2012. Kerry and Wirth estimated that it would take three years from the time that there's agreement on a new treaty to actual ratification. So in order for there to be any chance of a new treaty taking effect in 2012--and avoid having all the existing emission-reduction mechanisms in Europe and elsewhere come to a halt--the next U.S. president would, ideally, negotiate and get a new treaty agreed to by the end of 2009.
Kerry, for his part, seemed to think this would be insanely difficult but still doable: "If you have [a new president] who understands the nature of the challenge, who realizes the legitimacy of the crisis ... then I believe you can put experienced people in place and very rapidly move the United States," he said. "It'll be a push but we have no choice." The big question, though, is how effective the new treaty would actually be. Kerry argued that, even though the last Kyoto agreement was nixed by the Senate 95-0, a treaty that addressed concerns about China, India, and other developing countries could potentially get Congress' approval. We'll see. I'm mildly optimistic about Congress passing some sort of cap-and-trade system, less so about signing onto a global treaty by 2009.
Note, too, that Kerry's scenario would depend on having a president who made climate change a top priority-higher than, say, health care or taxes. That doesn't seem to be in the cards at this point in the campaign.
--Bradford Plumer
6 comments
avoid having all the existing emission-reduction mechanisms in Europe and elsewhere come to a halt I'm all for a workable scheme that reduces carbon emissions, but this seems a rather irrelevant point. Firstly (and most critically) my understanding is that emissions are not being reduced by the existing mechanism. Secondly, since like all international treaties, Kyoto is ratified by individual countries' parliaments. If the Europeans want to extend the existing laws (which they were the main proponents of) they will be able to without much difficulty. I have a hard time envisioning a "grinding halt" in 2012 where emissions suddenly jump up, especially in Europe.
- Nari224
September 24, 2007 at 11:06am
I agree that Europe's cap-and-trade system has had a lot of problems--I've written about it before. But it's still easier to try to improve off of that than letting it expire and starting again from scratch. You could be right and the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme wouldn't just fall apart if Kyoto expired, but it's not implausible (what if individual countries start bowing out if they're not obliged to participate, etc.).
- Brad Plumer
September 24, 2007 at 11:20am
Thanks for the reply. I haven't lived in Europe for a couple of years at this point but when I did there was a strong level of public support in the big three (UK, France, Germany) for carbon emission limits. I wouldn't be surprised if there was enough public support to push the treaty legislation into the EU arena and force it on all of the member states (all of whom are currently happily working around it anyway). Wikipedia tells me that the EU is already a signatory in it's own right as well as the member states. And seriously, in they absence of an alternative, how are they going to keep feeling superior to the US if they dont? The fallback is also to extend the Kyoto treaty much in its present form. This obviously only applies to Europe (or more specifically the EU); I share you concern about other countries. However I am concerned that having an agreed framework (Kyoto or whatever may follow) that doesn't actually meet it's stated goals only serves to make everyone (well, the citizens of the signatory countries) feel better. And this in turn takes the political heat off of actually finding a real solution. Guess we'll have to wait and see what comes out of this and the following summits though on that point.
- Nari224
September 24, 2007 at 11:55am
"However I am concerned that having an agreed framework (Kyoto or whatever may follow) that doesn't actually meet it's stated goals only serves to make everyone (well, the citizens of the signatory countries) feel better." Hm, that's a good point. It's possible that it may be preferable to let Kyoto expire and spend a few more years putting together something that genuinely works (if that's even possible) than race to extend Kyoto and end up agreeing to something that doesn't work.
- Brad Plumer
September 24, 2007 at 12:02pm
That for such an important problem, possibly doing nothing for a while is the best way forward. Makes one weep.
- Nari224
September 24, 2007 at 12:50pm
Set aside the lunacy of an agreement that doesn't cover China. How many Kyoto signatories are even in compliance with their treaty obligations? Any?
- teplukhin2you
September 24, 2007 at 2:27pm