Climate Talks Lurch Forward but Fail to Make Significant Progress Toward Science Based Greenhouse Pollution Reduction Targets

The international climate talks closed here today in Cancun without substantial forward progress on the central issue of establishing science based greenhouse pollution reduction targets. On the positive side, the conference was marked by a broad affirmation of support for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change process. The talks have once again fallen far short, however, of providing the concrete and immediate pollution reductions that are needed to truly address the growing climate crisis.

The Cancun decision, announced in the early morning hours over the protest of Bolivia which repeatedly called for a stronger, science-based agreement, takes note of the paltry reduction pledges announced in Copenhagen but fails to explicitly acknowledge the gap between those pledges and the reductions needed to avert catastrophic climate impacts.

"The enormous gap between the cuts required by science and the pledges made in Copenhagen was truly the elephant in the room throughout the Cancun talks," said Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute and one of several Center staffers who attended the talks in Cancun. "Tragically it appears that this elephant will travel to Durban, as the conference failed to adequately acknowledge the gap, let alone establish a concrete process to close it. The current pledges will lead to warming of over 3.5o C (6.3o F), a truly horrifying prospect."

The gap between the greenhouse pollution reductions needed to keep warming below 2o C (3.6o F), the stated goal of the Copenhagen accord, and the Copenhagen pledges, is between five and nine gigatonnes of carbon dioxide. For comparison, the annual emissions of all the world's cars, trucks, and buses is about 5 gigatonnes, and the annual emissions of the U.S. is about 7 gigatonnes. Negotiators failed to adopt any of the solutions under consideration in Cancun to close the gap. Solutions include closing existing loopholes such as the potential use of surplus emission credits from the European Union emission trading scheme, closing the "logging loophole" which would allow emissions from deforestation to increase without being counted, and simply increasing the pollution reduction targets.

The Cancun decision also fails to acknowledge that 2o C (3.6o F) warming is not safe, but is instead merely a marker in the continuum between dangerous and catastrophic climate change. While the decision "recognizes the need to consider" strengthening the cuts and lowering the temperature target to below 1.5o C (2.7o F), the review process established would not conclude until 2015, by which time the ability to achieve this lower target may be precluded.

"With clear scientific advice that global emissions must peak in the next 5 years to preserve our ability to avoid extreme and widespread damage from climate change, enshrining grossly inadequate greenhouse pollution reduction targets through 2015 is simply unacceptable," said Siegel.

The key to unlocking progress in this and many other areas of the talks lies with the United States, which is the world's largest cumulative emitter yet the only industrialized country in the world to refuse to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. The U.S. has long slowed progress in the negotiations, and the unconstructive U.S. role continued in Cancun, as the Obama administration refused to offer the pollution reductions so clearly demanded by the science, while making strident demands of developing countries and making virtually no concessions itself. "As U.S. citizens look to President Obama to make good on his campaign promise to provide leadership on the climate crisis and join the world in seeking the fair, ambitious, and legally binding agreement needed to solve this problem, the U.S. instead continues to drag its heels," added Siegel.

The irony of the administration's continued intransigence is that the U.S. already has the strongest domestic environmental laws in the world, including the Clean Air Act, through which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can effectively achieve deep and rapid greenhouse pollution reductions. As the climate negotiations entered their final hours, the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia denied a request by the nation's largest polluters and some states to block the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse pollution.

"The Court's rejection of polluters' ridiculous arguments against the EPA's common-sense greenhouse pollution rules reaffirms President Obama's authority and responsibility to reduce greenhouse pollution through existing Clean Air Act programs," said Siegel. "There are no further excuses for the President's failure to lead the way forward on the most important issue humanity has ever faced."