Can Global Summits Produce a Climate Agreement?

When world leaders went to Copenhagen last year, the media typically summarized the purpose of their meeting as "negotiating a successor to the expiring Kyoto Protocol." But what optimistic advocates were hoping for was far more. Where Kyoto was a modest agreement that had little buy-in from major polluters, some thought Copenhagen could result in a grand climate bargain that would save us all.

Of course, no climate watcher truly believed Copenhagen would produce a break-through. The parties were simply too far apart on important issues. When President Barack Obama flew in and famously barged into a meeting of the BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India, and China), the media detected a climax. Of course, no breakthrough was reached. Some one had to be blamed. The United States and the United Kingdom generally blamed China. China generally blamed the United States and other rich countries.

As representatives meet in Tianjin, China, ahead of November's COP-16 meeting in Cancun, Mexico, the naive optimism of Copenhagen has faded into cold realism. As John Broder writes in The New York Times, observers such as the Natural Resources Defense Council's Jake Schmidt have begun to question whether a grand bargain among hundreds of nations is possible. Perhaps, some say, it's time to negotiate a bargain among the top polluters.

If the United States, China, Europe, and other large polluters struck a bargain outside the U.N. process, the logic goes, smaller countries' demands will not be as consequential. Great plan, you might think; if it's too hard to form an agreement among many people, let's just agree among the important few. Everyone would benefit, even the obstinate nations excluded.

But such a non-U.N. bargain faces the hard reality that the biggest polluters are also some of the least compromising negotiators. The Guardian reports that the United States and China, which account for more than 40 percent of global emissions, are at loggerheads while Europe, Brazil, South Africa, and other important countries have expressed a willingness to compromise. The United States and China may not be as virulently blaming each other as they did after Copenhagen, but now others are starting to point their finger at the elephants in the room.

As I argued earlier this week, the United States and China have no choice but to cooperate. They, along with other key economies, must make a deal that reduces emissions. Looking ahead to Cancun, no one expects much progress. But even outside the Cancun process, we'll never develop a viable climate policy if real compromise doesn't take root.

Photo credit: scazon via Flickr

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