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350 OR BUST!
Posted by Vera Pardee
December 13, 2009, 1:43 p.m.

Bill McKibben. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons/Hotshot977.

On Friday, for the first time ever, a country introduced language into the official convention text requiring the world to reach a CO2 concentration target of no more than 350 parts per million (never mind the swirling rumors that the text has already been deleted). The undaunted proponent and the world’s de facto leader in the fight for a survivable climate once again was tiny Tuvalu, supported by AOSIS, the Alliance of Small Island States. At a joint press conference with Bill McKibben of 350.org, the island states outlined current and future effects of climate change on their country and people. On many of the islands, freshwater is no longer available without prior desalination treatment, as ocean waters encroach upon coastlines and into the waterways and groundwater. Desertification and malnutrition are spreading even while hurricanes have increased — three hurricanes hit one of the islands last year alone. Hurricanes bring floods and soon thereafter pools of stagnating water that provide breeding grounds for mosquitoes, which in turn cause dengue fever, previously unknown on the islands. Populations are moving from one island to another (Tuvalu’s highest point measures all of four meters above sea level) or within an island to higher ground, beginning a process of mass migration, and sea walls are under construction though adequate funding is lacking. An island state ambassador told the packed crowd at the press conference, “We are the world’s climate change sentinel. Unless you act, we will die. If you do not act, your children will be next.”  Stark, haunting, and uncompromising words. Frostpaw, the Arctic climate change sentinel whose icy habitat is melting while Tuvalu sinks into the sea, marched through the halls, attracting huge crowds and drawing thousands of photos, and aligned his fight with Tuvalu, 350.org, and the many other groups that stand with them.

In the face of Tuvalu’s remarkable courage in calling out the world, the U.S. negotiating position remains blunt and appears to be hardening. Todd Stern has left no doubt that the United States will not sign the Kyoto Protocol or any other agreement that looks like it; moreover, the United States will not sign any legally binding agreement at this convention. It offers no more than a 3 percent emission reduction from 1990 baselines by 2020 (by comparison, for example, Germany is ready to bind itself to 40-percent reductions), rejects even the idea of reparations, and states that during technology transfer negotiations, intellectual property issues are not on the table. And unless China, India, and other developing countries agree that they must commit to emissions reductions, even the so-called “operational agreement” (a nonbinding political deal that leaves all the hard decisions for later) could be in question.

The wind blowing across the Atlantic from Washington bodes ill as well. The new Kerry-Lieberman-Graham framework (otherwise called the tripartisan trifecta for the coal, oil, and nuclear industries, or the Framework for Dirty Energy Recovery) touts its new “clean energy” cap-and-trade plan that will increase U.S. domestic oil drilling both offshore and on our public lands, subsidize nuclear energy and carbon capture and sequestration (omitting to mention that after decades of preparation we still believe it unsafe to store nuclear waste hundreds of feet underground at hermetically sealed mines at Yucca Mountain and yet are sold the idea that plenty of natural underground reservoirs exist to sequester untold tons of gas “forever”), subsidize agriculture but exempt it from all emissions-reduction obligations, wipe out EPA’s authority to regulate carbon pollution, and prohibit all independent state action. After inadequate efforts by Waxman-Markey and Kerry-Boxer, Kerry and his new cohorts have now produced the dirty-energy-industry dream scheme. One might describe this move as obeisance to industry lobbyists who back up the desires of politicians’ most organized constituents with cash contributions. One might, of course, see these unfolding events more darkly and call them other names. You take your pick.

And yet, the solutions are not all that complex. There is no devilish dichotomy between regulation and market mechanisms. They have always worked well together and can do so now. Governments set regulatory goals and boundaries and provide financing where the scale of the necessary investment exceeds private capabilities, and the market goes to work to translate this framework into reality. The Copenhagen convention showcases hundreds of real, viable, practical, and current solutions that, with sufficient government backing, can get us the clean-energy industry we need to reach 350 ppm. The Scandinavian and many other European countries recognized this early and have raced far ahead of the United States in research and development, imposing meaningful regulation and providing the necessary start-up financing that has already produced both market-based solutions and changes in consumer demands and behavior. Even the car industry is on board. At the Frankfurt airport, I picked up a copy of the influential, mainstream magazine Der Spiegel and found, on the inside cover, an ad for a sleek, seductive Audi proclaiming proudly that it emits no more than 99 grams of CO2 per kilometer (a performance that far exceeds what EPA believes is the very best American can do seven years from now, in 2016). It is, after all, a market truism that one gets what one pays for. The Framework for Dirty Energy Recovery (the abovementioned Kerry-Lieberman-Graham proposal) would pour America’s resources into 19th and 20th century technology and leave us behind forever while doing irreversible damage to our globe. For all those who wish to reach true clean energy and a solution to global climate change, the answer is clear: It’s 350 or bust.

Next post A Weekend of Protests

 

Polar bears on Hudson Bay © Brendan Cummings; 350 Cadillac Ranch © Jeanne Miller, 350.org