Mexico Protocol to Replace Kyoto? Obama May Make Copenhagen the Staging Ground
At least sixty-five heads of state will attend the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, but as we've heard, President Barack Obama is unlikely to be one of them. Neither is China's Hu Jintao or Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India. However, Obama's advisers say he is pushing a private solution that involves making an international, binding agreement at a scheduled meeting in Mexico City next year. He has already had talks with Danish PM Løkke Rasmussen — the host and chairman of the climate talk — about the possibility.
Why the delay? The U.S. doesn't want to commit to binding emission reductions before it passes a bill through Congress. But in doing so, they lag behind all other countries. Yvo de Boer, head of the secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, explains that “We now have offers of [emission] targets from all industrialized countries except the United States.” The talking my be done at Copenhagen, and a political promise made there, but it could be Mexico that takes the glory. That is of course dependent on whether we're able to make an international agreement that's comprehensive and meaningful by the time the Mexico meeting happens. A Mexico Protocol may be the silver-lining of the dark clouds gathering over Copenhagen.
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