by Keith Schneider
COPENHAGEN—Lisa Jackson, the administrator of the
Environmental Protection Agency, pushed through a crush of visitors at the U.S.
Center late this morning, stepped to the podium in front of a packed meeting
room, and became the first of President Obama’s senior advisors to appear at
the U.N. Climate Change Conference specifically to make the case that the United
States is assuming its share of the global burden to cool the planet.
Whether delegates from 191 other nations represented here,
and thousands of activists and journalists who’ve joined them in Copenhagen,
will be convinced is not at all clear. Conference organizers and delegates
worried today that developing nations might walk out of the proceedings, a
decision that would be spurred, at least in part, by assertions from poor
countries that rich nations are not doing enough to combat climate change.
Jackson’s appearance will be followed over the next week by
the secretaries of Interior, Commerce, Energy, Agriculture, and the president
himself. All will speak from a script about the Obama administration’s work
this year to shift the federal government’s work on climate change from
Bush-era denial to focused activism. The new administration narrative, much of
it to be staged at the 6,500-square-foot U.S. Center, is aimed at convincing
the world that a new reckoning with the planet’s dire climate situation is at
hand. Said Jackson: “2009 cements the place in history when the United States
seized the challenge of dealing with greenhouse gas pollution. “
Different than Bush
There is no argument, by the administration’s supporters and its most
vociferous critics, that when it comes to a focused response to warming
temperatures and increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the
U.S. has vastly improved its game. The persistent rumble of discontent at these
talks, and others in the last year, is whether it’s enough.
A lot of nations say it’s not. A number of American NGO
staffers agree. The Obama administration, at war with the fossil industry and
its allies in Congress, says it’s doing everything in its power to negotiate a
climate deal here that has authentic merit.
The mission for Jackson here today, and for the colleagues
that follow her, is to break through the doubts. In her brief remarks, she took
note of the progression of the EPA and the Obama administration’s actions to
reduce climate-changing air emissions since the inauguration.
Last month, for instance, the president announced that the
U.S. was prepared to make a commitment here to a reduction in greenhouse
emissions in the “range of 17 percent” below 2005 levels, the first time the
U.S. has issued such targets. Earlier this year Jackson and her agency issued
new vehicle emissions and efficiency standards, and a new rule requiring large
polluters to report their greenhouse gas emissions. In February, the president
signed the economic recovery bill that included—depending on how you count—$80 billion to $110 billion for climate gas-reducing clean energy technology,
energy efficiency, public transit, and research investments.
And on Monday, on the same day that the climate conference
opened, the EPA issued a formal finding that carbon dioxide and five other
compounds endanger public health and safety. The so-called “endangerment”
finding, which was mandated by a 2007 Supreme Court decision, clears the way
for Jackson and her agency to begin regulating greenhouse gas emissions.
Conference presence updated
There’s also little argument that the American approach to this conference—visible, aggressive, and reliant on the administration’s political star power—also differs significantly from the previous global negotiations over the
last year in places like Bonn and Barcelona.
In those talks, the U.S. seemed continually on the
defensive. In Barcelona, where climate negotiators gathered in late October,
the U.S. was greeted by serious challenge from big and small nations, rich and
poor, about its refusal to set targets on emissions and financial contributions
to developing countries. The early days of that negotiation were marked by some
predictions that the U.S. position might push the talks to collapse.
Jonathan Pershing, the deputy special envoy for climate change
and the chief U.S. negotiator, tried to explain that the Obama administration
was reluctant to repeat the ordeal of 1997, when the Clinton administration
signed the Kyoto Protocol to limit emissions, but encountered such stiff
resistance in the Senate that the treaty was never submitted for a vote.
Delegates from other nations scoffed, saying Pershing’s defense of the
administration’s decision to withhold those two crucial numbers—emissions
limits and financial investment—was a matter of internal domestic politics
that the U.S. needed to resolve, just like any other nation.
In Washington, a battle over climate
The ideological battle over clean energy and climate change has only gotten
more nasty. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the Democratic Majority Leader, put off debate
and a vote on a proposed Senate version of climate and clean energy bill until
the spring. And a manufactured scandal by opponents to climate action,
involving email messages stolen from an English climate research group, has
energized allies of the fossil fuel industry in and outside government, and
reached the doorsteps of the Bella Center, where the climate conference is
being held.
But in the weeks since the Barcelona negotiations, the
administration has unfurled the results of the months of private climate
negotiations that the president and his aides have undertaken with U.S. allies.
The president met with the leaders of China and India this fall. After the
president announced the American emissions target, China and India announced
new targets of their own, the first time that has occurred.
The White House also announced that the U.S. had established
the U.S. Center at the Copenhagen Conference. Along with the cabinet secretaries scheduled to speak here Carol
Browner, the coordinator of energy and climate policy, and Nancy Sutley, the
chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, will also make high-profile
presentations.
U.S. Center planned a year ago
A senior State Department official who participated in planning the U.S.
Center, who asked not to be identified, confirmed that the U.S. Center was a
center piece of the American marketing strategy, developed at the start of the
year, to change how the administration and the country are viewed at climate conferences.
The official did not say when the administration decided to
showcase its top energy, environment, and natural resources officials here. But
the planning appears to have coincided with the president’s own decision to
attend the Copenhagen conference, which he originally scheduled for tomorrow,
and then rescheduled to Dec. 18, the conference’s last day. President Obama
will be one of 110 heads of state that are now expected to attend the
conference, according to the United Nations conference organizers.
Yesterday, according to participants, Jackson received a
standing ovation when she was introduced at a private meeting with American NGO
activists. U.S. delegation members said they anticipate President Obama also will
be warmly embraced here. Very clearly, judging by the bounce in the steps of
lower-level officials who’ve appeared at the U.S. Center, the president will be
greeted by an energized staff that no longer feels like it needs to defend the
American position on the deteriorating climate.
Spread the news on what the føck is going on in Copenhagen with friends via email, Facebook, Twitter, or smoke signals.
Related Links:
Copenhagen: Where Africa took on Obama
Climate skeptics descend on the Copenhagen talks
