HughBartling.com

With all of the talk of an impending flu pandemic, the meeting of high-level ministers from the world’s “major economies” has not been given much press.  Perhaps this also may be a result of the fact that nothing path breaking was agreed upon in the meetings that just wrapped up in Washington.

According to the official recap released yesteday by the State Department:

There was wide support for considering how best the Major Economies Forum can contribute to a successful outcome at the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December. The meeting included active exchanges on this topic, and participants agreed to continue discussions on mitigation, finance, adaptation and related issues at their next meeting, including exploring shared assumptions. The discussions underscored the need for near term ambitious actions for all, as well as pathways, and the development of mid-term goals for developed countries.

Participants commented on the potential for the Major Economies Forum to support the development of transformational technologies critical to mitigating climate change globally.

The highlighted words reflect that little of substance was agreed upon in this US-sponsored parallel session to the ongoing United Nations talks.  When Bush conceived of these talks a year ago, it was not clear what was going to be accomplished.  Skepticism of Bush’s intentions tempered enthusiasm.

With the US rhetoric on climate change shifting under Obama, at least a spirit of participation and pragmatism has been developed.  Yet, major gaps remain between the positions of the US, the EU, and emerging economies.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that the EU is frustrated with US and Australian foot dragging on agreeing to an adequate medium term (2020) level of greenhouse gas reduction.

The Chinese envoy was disappointed that the issue of transferring green technologies to developing economies was not even discussed–which is interesting since technology transfer is a major component of the ongoing UN talks.

Fiona Harvey of the Financial Times suggests this omission may reflect a major sticking point between China & India and the US.  Namely, the issue of how to address rapidly rising developing country emissions.  Although China recently surpassed the US as the largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions, their per-capita levels are minuscule.  Thus, asking developing countries to make reductions (as Bush demanded) is unreasonable and inequitable.  What is on the table, Harvey reports, is asking developing countries to curb their GHG growth rather than engage in absolute cuts.

Andrew Light and Nina Hachigan at the Center for American Progress have a good post saying that China is giving signals that they are willing to negotiate on this point.

This latter issue will be interesting to watch as leaders from the major economies convene in Italy in July.  If an agreeable arrangement between China and the US can be worked out prior to Copenhagen, there will be significant momentum for the UN meetings to result in a meaningful agreement.

On the campaign trail last year, Barack Obama expressed concern about the practice of mountaintop removal in Appalachian coal mining.  Mountaintop removal involves literally tearing off the top of a mountain to gain access to the coal and dumping the waste rock and soil directly into streams and riparian areas.  As one could imagine, the practice is devastating to forests and water quality in the region.

There are regulations that require restoration of damaged land and safe depositing of waste materials, but the Bush Administration aggressively used its regulatory power to issue rules that were heavily favorable to industry and severely damaging to the environment.

That is why reports that Obama is going to retain a key Bush appointee as head of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement are troubling.  Glenda Owens is the interim head of the agency.  Although she is a career bureaucrat, she has been criticized for lax enforcement of environmental laws and the agency as a whole has had a record during the Bush years of issuing environmentally-questionable permits to mine operators.

It is still unclear whether or not Obama is going to retain Owens.  After the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility put out a press release saying Owens has been tapped to head the agency, the Washington Post reported that the Secretary of the Interior’s spokesperson said that she is simply “someone who is being considered.”

During the last week climate negotiators from around the world descended on Bonn to engage in talks leading up December’s meeting in Copenhagen which is supposed to result in a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol.

The Bonn meeting was the first major international negotiation attended by US President Barack Obama’s new climate team, headed by Todd Stern and Jonathan Pershing.

According to reports from the meeting, delegates appreciated the engagement by Stern–which contrasted to the recalcitrant position of the Bush Administration.

However, in terms of actual progress towards Copenhagen, the US position is appearing to fall short of Europe.   While the EU has promoted a 30% reduction of greenhouse gases from 1990 levels by 2020, the US simply wants to reach its 1990 levels by the same date.  Both the EU and the US agree on an 80% reduction from 1990 levels by 2050.  According to USA Today, the US appears to be pushing the idea that the Copenhagen agreement should focus more on 2050 targets–as opposed to 2020.  The problem with this position is that it makes it easy to defer action to the future, which may translate into inaction as political regimes change.

Additionally, the New York Times article seemed to suggest that Obama’s team is embracing the Bush position that the US will only agree to binding emissions reductions if China and India do as well.  This position is likely to be a deal-killer for China and India who argue that their per-capita emissions remain low and that for reasons of equity, rich industrialized countries should bear the burden of binding emissions reductions.

The US didn’t bring specific numbers on emissions reductions and obligations to the table in Bonn, so it is hard to analyze the full extent of their position.  Later this month, Obama is convening a meeting of leaders of the world’s major economies to discuss climate change.  It will be interesting to watch those proceedings closely since they will undoubtedly influence the next UN-sponsored forum which will once again take place in Bonn at the beginning of June.