Get News & Views Updates
Most Popular This Week
- No More Steubenvilles: How To Raise Boys to be Kind Men
- 37 Percent of People Completely Lost
- An Open Challenge to Michelle Rhee and the Corporate Education Zombies
- Ten Years After: How Not to Teach About the Iraq War
- Which Members of Congress Are Standing Up for Economic Decency – And Which “Progressives” Aren’t
Popular content
Today's Top News
Europe's Post-Copenhagen View of Obama
The Copenhagen summit on climate change taught Europe a hard lesson about its trans-Atlantic partner. Great hope had greeted President Obama when he replaced George W. Bush at the American helm, but a year later Europeans are realizing that Mr. Obama is going to have a very difficult time delivering on his agenda.
During the Copenhagen summit, the American media portrayed President Obama as a global dealmaker, shuttling from leader to leader trying to broker various compromises. What Mr. Obama was really doing was a lot of fence-mending, because the United States was seen as the principal obstacle - and Mr. Obama as the footdragger-in-chief - that prevented any ambitious agreements from being signed.
Certainly the developing countries, led by China and India, were behaving stubbornly, but for good reason. The United States is by far the largest per-capita polluter in the world. Each American generates about 45,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, twice as much as the average European or Japanese, and 4 to 10 times more than someone living in China, India or any other developing country. China is close to the U.S. in terms of total carbon emissions - each emits about 25 percent of the world's total - but it has four times more people.
The U.S. demanded that the developing world join in making drastic cuts, but the poorer countries cried foul. As one Indian official said, "First you do virtually nothing to cut your emissions, and then you threaten us [the developing world] with drowning from global warming sea level rise if we don't cut ours. It won't wash."
So it was known all along that the U.S. had to offer something ambitious to start off the bargaining. In a real sense, the success of Copenhagen depended on the United States - that is, on President Obama.
Instead, what Mr. Obama offered was a bait-and-switch. Leading up to Copenhagen, Europe already had committed itself to reduce carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2020, and offered to go to 30 percent if the U.S. matched it.
That was a generous offer, especially considering that Europe already has an "ecological footprint" that is half that of the United States because it has done far more than the U.S. to implement conservation and renewable technologies.
American negotiators countered by offering to reduce carbon emissions by 17 percent - but stipulated that it would be 17 percent of 2005 levels, whereas most other countries used the benchmark of 1990 levels. The difference is substantial: In effect, America was agreeing to reduce carbon emissions by only about 4 percent of 1990 levels.
When the U.S. negotiators made this offer, the shock that echoed around Copenhagen was palpable. Everyone knew its ramifications - mainly that China, India and the developing nations would walk away from any significant agreement. So when Mr. Obama finally arrived in Copenhagen, he was in complete face-saving mode.
Another sticking point at Copenhagen was that the developing world insisted, quite rightly, that the developed world should pay for much of the poor nations' carbon mitigations, since the developed world had caused most of the pollution to begin with.
Here again, Europe stepped up with an initial offering of up to $15 billion a year for the next decade to help developing nations cope with climate warming. Yet the Obama administration didn't offer anything close to that amount.
A consistent pattern has emerged, where the world has seen more symbolic gestures than accomplishments from the Obama administration.
Even the White House's biggest achievement has been a disappointment. President Obama signed an executive order to increase U.S. motor vehicle mileage standards to 32 miles per gallon - but not until 2020. That's a level that European and Japanese cars, which already average 40 m.p.g., have long surpassed, and even China will soon achieve.
Why has President Obama been so unwilling to match his lofty words with concrete deeds?
One major reason is the U.S. Senate. Mr. Obama needs 60 of the 100 Senate votes to get climate policy - or any other measure, like health care. This means that the 40 Republican senators joined by a single Democrat or independent can block any measure.
Mr. Obama isn't delivering because he can't deliver. The majorities needed for major policy changes are too high a threshold, even for someone with Mr. Obama's political gifts.
Following Copenhagen, Germany's environment minister, Norbert Röttgen, had some stinging criticisms for President Obama, as well as for China's leadership. "We are experiencing a lack of results and an inability to act, triggered mainly by the United States which, in the case of climate protection, is no longer capable of leading," he said. "China doesn't want to lead, and the U.S. cannot lead."
Europe, on the other hand, presented itself as a unified bloc at the summit, with clear goals and a solid strategy. It already has done much to reduce its own carbon footprint. But Europe cannot solve the problem alone. Since its share of global carbon emissions is only about 14 percent, Europe could stop emitting CO2 tomorrow and global warming would still be catastrophic. Said Mr. Röttgen, "On this issue those who emit the most have the greatest power."
So one of the unfortunate lessons from Copenhagen is that even an Obama-led United States cannot be counted on as a reliable partner. Europe is trying to step into the leadership vacuum, but without the world's largest national economy and per capita polluter making greater efforts, success is in jeopardy.
- Posted in
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
57 Comments so far
Show AllArticle: "Why has President Obama been so unwilling to match his lofty words with concrete deeds?
One major reason is the U.S. Senate. Mr. Obama needs 60 of the 100 Senate votes to get climate policy - or any other measure, like health care. This means that the 40 Republican senators joined by a single Democrat or independent can block any measure.
Mr. Obama isn't delivering because he can't deliver."
Thats it: The U.S. isn't a democracy because the senators from 20 rural red-states, maybe composing 20% of the U.S. population, can block legislation they don't like. These folks are steeped in their 'manifest destiny' and pro-capitalist, anti-government positions. Many of them are getting over $1.60 FROM the federal government for every dollar they send back in taxes, because they CONTROL the Senate, and no legislation is going to get past them without greasing their palms. These are the Sarah Palin folks, 1/5th of America: they know perfectly well they don't live in a Democracy, and they don't give a cr*p about Climate Change or the rest of the world.
I'm sorry to say it, but if the rest of the world wants action on Climate Change, its going to have to SPECIFICALLY target the people in these 20 rural red-states, or they will never get the message. Cuz the system we have in America REWARDS them for parking their castles on the Rhine and not letting any commercial traffic pass without booty. I recommend the rest of the world find out who these people are, and find a way to target them for their positions, like economically. Otherwise, NOTHING is going to get done, no matter who the president of the U.S. is.
The article and your excuses are just more apologies for the Uncle Tom that we have sitting as president today. Democrats have control of the White House and congress and the country's still moving even more to the right than under Bush, stop blaming the rural red-states.
Obama's fraud. A liar and a war criminal. Case closed.
I'm not cutting Obama any slack - one should not do that for ANY public official in any democracy, but truth is that in the more developed EU countries they have been working on this for decades. I lived in Germany almost 15 years ago and they were working on alternative energy solutions, investing in expanding public transport (auto companies were paying for it), and doing advanced recycling programs (like recycling junk cars!) way back then. In fact they'd been committed to such initiatives long before. At that time, we were still artificially subsidizing gasoline to support near-dead car industries, dithering with solar as if it were a novelty, ignoring the message of the environmental movement and wasting fuel like it was [sic] water. Our environmental "efforts" involved VOLUNTARILY separating our trash, turning down our thermostats and changing our light bulbs. Yawn!
Simply, there's a lot to undo for any one President given the height to which this long ignored (and effectively lobbied) problem had grown. And Obama of all Presidents is not going to get the kind of imperial powers from the Financial Class that Bush got to implement unilateral change (the way he finally did).
The Financial Class laughs up its sleeve at Obama. He's just red meat they tossed to progressives and the rest of America. He is allowed to look like change, to promise a new agenda but he's limited at what he can do. He's controllable because he's polite and urbane.
He’s Harvard educated in the politics of compromise where the compromise always favors the status quo.
He’s a gentleman boxing by the Marquess of Queensberry rules … in a street fight with Wall Street thugs.
He’s simply OK. I’m not going to trash him. I just think he’d have been better in times of peace and prosperity when we needed a symbol of ourselves we could feel good about. He might have been a better Clinton for no other reason than that he was happily married and could have kept his johnson in his pants. I accept that this is not a ringing endorsement.
These dreadful days America needed a good old-fashioned leader; not a Chief “Executive” and certainly not one with a Harvard provenance. We needed a morally obsessed, ass-kicking, take-no-prisoners Leader. We needed someone that if everybody was going to hate them, it would be for what he or she did and not what they didn’t do.
We needed someone who'd risk a second term for doing what is right and NOT what is merely achievable. The health care bill, in whatever form it takes, will be his legacy. It won’t be the best health care system we deserve. It will still risk thousands of lives. It will simply be the best Obama can give us, given how hamstrung and compromised he is. The financial “reforms” will not be what we need to avert a repeat of this disaster. They’ll simply be the best Obama can manage given the fact that he is controlled and compromised by Wall Street. He’s funded and surrounded by them for God’s sake.
I'd feel genuinely sorry for Obama if there weren’t so many lives at stake. As it is ... I have little hope for him. If he gets re-elected it will only be because the opposition is too fragmented or delivers candidates too horrible to consider (which is likely).
But it WON'T be a victory for him or for us.
We need to start changing the game in 2010. No Democrats to office. No Republicans. Locate, develop, vote in Liberal and Progressive INDEPENDENTS.If you can't find one ... BECOME ONE! Run for office and run the swine away from the trough.
Like the movement to move your money from big global banks to small community banks, we need to start investing our votes in politicians that are truly independent and that are not owned by the power elite.
If Europe has only learned that 0bama will "have trouble delivering," they had best attend the rest of the lesson.
0bama has delivered in spades: he has delivered his constituency to his sponsors.
The US follows a corporate-style strategy with respect to climate change: they expect to save money by allowing other people to solve the problem while they pursue dominance of hydrocarbons, then wrest the solutions or the advantages thereof by force of arms and capital.
The ideal case for such chilling and cynical exploitation is one in which technical solutions advance, but their implementation remains sparse, a privilege of money and power.
This involves lethal differences in self-interest.
To walt January 15th, 2010 5:31 am---
Astute, cogent, and mature. A nearly transcendent sentience.
I expect your children turned out okay?
Meanwhile, I return to my original question: What is the carbon footprint of 10,000 nuclear warheads?
I now add: What society or culture, knowing quite well the ecological threat, nevertheless created them? Was there a higher goal---e.g., to sequester the energy potential?
Is the gene for self-destruction universal in our species? Think Oppenheimer after the Trinity test.
-30-
So everyone agrees: We don't need a Fat American telling us how Europeans think, making excuses for the latest excuse for a President, least of all in the paper of record, and in order to drum up sales of his (the Fat American's) new book.
During the '04 primaries I asked Dennis Kucinich if he regretted his vote for endless war (see post by locust), and he said that he did not. He defended it. I wonder if he has changed his mind?