E3G

Creating a secure climate: the G8 leadership challenge

By Jennifer Morgan

ENGAGING THE UNITED STATES

All eyes will of course be on the new President of the United States as he or she takes office in January. How the US re-engages with the world on climate change will have a defining impact on the outcome of Copenhagen.

On the one hand, the signs are good. The leading candidates have set out fundamentally different positions from the Bush administration, including support for mandatory caps on US emissions and national regulations for efficiency and renewables. On the other, the US economy is in bad shape and politicians are deeply troubled about the loss of jobs and competitiveness to China and other emerging economies.

The next president needs to understand that a strong multilateral position on climate change is vital to support the country’s re-emergence as a popular and positive international force. Without this level of priority the issue will not get the attention it needs in the first hundred days of the new administration.

Europe should engage now with the presidential candidates to underline this message and stress the need for a special envoy for climate change at the next major meeting in Poznan in November.

FAIR DEAL FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Big developing countries such as China and India need to commit to ambitious action in return for increased technological and financial assistance. This is perhaps the most difficult challenge for Copenhagen and will rest heavily on the level of confidence built between the key players in the coming eighteen months.

China is especially important: by some estimates it is now the world’s largest emitter and there is no realistic chance of the US ratifying a global climate deal without meaningful Chinese participation.

Beijing is taking important steps in the right direction, including its ambitious drive to raise energy efficiency by twenty percent between 2005 and 2010. However it will only sign-up to additional commitments as part of a global deal if it is confident they are consistent with its wider economic growth goals.

Developing countries emphasise that, on a per capita basis, their emissions remain well below those of the developed world. The average American emits six times more carbon than the average Chinese and thirteen times more than the average Indian.

Since the US and Europe have been industrial economies for longer, the historical inequity is even greater. At the same time, the costs of climate change fall disproportionately on poor people in the developing world. This perceived lack of fairness is at the heart of the global deal negotiations and could easily derail them.

With time against us, we need to rise above these arguments and recognise the problem for what it is – a threat to our collective security. Technical solutions are available and the economic case for investing in them is understood. The issue is how we distribute the short-term costs of the transition to a low-carbon economy and overcome the political obstacles; including powerful vested interests. The G8 summit will be an important test.