The Anti-Climate Summit Walden Bello | July 15, 2008 Editor: John Feffer
Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org
While drafting the so-called Bali Roadmap during the UN Conference on climate change last December, delegates faced a painful choice. They could specifically mention the necessity of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 25-40% by 2020 and face the possibility of a U.S. walkout from the negotiations. Or they could drop all mention of targets to keep Washington in the negotiations – and risk of the United States fatally obstructing the process of coming up with a tough regime of mandatory emissions cuts that would have to be in place by the UN’s climate meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009. The delegates went with the latter and appeased Washington by not mentioning any targets. After the declaration on climate issued by the G8 summit a few days ago in Hokkaido, Japan, it is clear that the delegates in Bali made a strategic mistake. The G8’s endorsement of a 50% reduction in emissions by 2050, which they have presented as a major step forward, is actually, as the South African government put it, a “regression from what is required to make a meaningful contribution to meeting the challenges of climate change.” In fact, “regression” is too polite. The G8 position is a giant step backward. It may have effectively undermined the prospects for an effective global climate strategy for the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol that is expected to be finalized at the crucial UN meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009. Deconstructing the G8 Position Given the massive confusion that the G8 climate communique has created globally, it is worthwhile to deconstruct the position in detail. The 25-40% reduction from 1990 emission levels by 2020 that could have been adopted in Bali grew out of a developing consensus. Based on the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), this consensus holds that preventing global mean temperature from rising above the critical threshold of 2 degrees centigrade in the 21st century will require radical cuts in greenhouse gas emissions of 80-90% by 2050. The 25-40% reductions were an intermediate target on the path to achieving this goal. The G8 “commitment” of about half this final target is grossly inadequate. Several other considerations highlight the dangers of the Washington-driven formula First, the G8 proposes a global cut, not one that would be undertaken only by the industrialized or “Annex One” countries. As such, big polluters like the United States can actually free-ride on the rest of the world. Second, the cut has no clear baseline. When making the announcement, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda initially said the cut was from 1990 levels. Then he had to take back that statement and subsequently mentioned the higher levels of 2000 as the baseline. Third, this declaration of intent is not binding, and the G8 have given no indication that they want to bring their “pledge” fully under the UN climate negotiations framework that would bind its signatories. Indeed, the G8 announcement reinforces the G8 as a site for climate action that rivals the UN process and effectively subverts it. Not surprisingly, the G8 declaration emerged as part of a parallel process known as the “Major Economies Meeting.” The Major Economies Meeting is a U.S. initiative to wrest decision-making on climate from the UN framework and process.

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