E3G

G8 took step forward - thanks to European leadership

By Jennifer Morgan

The Heiligendamm Summit is an example of the rocky and precarious road to come in the next few years on climate and energy security.

Full of high points and low points, even those people closest to the Summit could not say what they thought the outcome might be. Total collapse? Breakthrough? Muddling forward? The prognoses were murky.

Would Merkel stand alone? Would Blair’s personal legacy get in the way? Just what might Sarkozy try at his debut G8? These questions were unanswerable just hours before the Summit.

Instead of playing their individual politics, however, the European leaders worked as a team to outmanoeuvre the wrecking attempts of the Bush Administration. By doing so, they ensured that at least a small step forward was made in the process to curb climate change: A comprehensive global agreement should be agreed upon by 2009 under the United Nations.

This European cooperation is encouraging. Although the European Union is still officially working to implement its new structures after the last Council meeting, it has, in the context of the climate and energy debate, taken a first step in sensing what it means for Europe to play a leadership role in the world. Such a steady hand with focused climate diplomacy will be essential on the rocky road ahead. The daunting challenge now is to fill in the content of that global agreement.

Wrecking attempts

When President Bush stepped onto the stage and pronounced his new belief in the seriousness of the climate problem, you might have thought that the world would jump for joy and jump right in? Wrong.

The first official rock was thrown just days before the Summit. With their proposal rejected by G8 members the week before in the official Sherpa meeting, the Bush Administration decided to launch the same proposal as an existing U.S. Initiative on Climate Change.

This was an attempt to ensure that President Bush was not isolated at the G8 Summit, but its content was a “back to the future” proposal. All that was on offer was a voluntary pledge and review of actions towards some undefined long-term objective. The proposal was a clear attempt to move the climate discussion out of the UN-agreed mandatory targets arena (such as those included in the Kyoto Protocol) and back into a self-defined voluntary scheme.

In an attempt to garner support in the weeks before the Summit, the White House team were busy travelling the developing world. They hoped that their vague offerings of technology cooperation would be accepted in exchange for participation in their “major emitting countries” initiative.

This didn’t work. Days before the G8 Summit senior Chinese diplomats were working ardently to assure the European Union that such an initiative would not gain their support.

Both Canada and Japan shimmied towards the European Union. They confirmed their support for the UN process, and displayed willingness to put halving global emissions on the table.

Positive engagement

It seems that climate and energy security is rapidly becoming more important than its value as a global political football, especially to developing countries. This shift, of large importance, begins to come through in the G8+5 document and in the two Chinese position papers released before the end of the Summit.

Rather than blaming the North and asking for technology transfer (a traditional approach of the G77& China to the global climate debate), the Heiligendamm statement noted that all countries have to do their “fair share” and indicated a willingness to begin that conversation.

The proof that this has taken hold could be seen two weeks later, when a senior Indian diplomat was working hard to differentiate India from China in regards to what that “fair share” might be.

The +5 also indicated their support for a “flexible, fair and effective global framework and concerted international action” and their interest in carbon markets. This is hardly the Bush approach. And rather than the traditional call for technology transfer, they noted the need for the means for adaptation and “enhanced technology cooperation and financing” and indicated their cooperation in tackling Intellectual Property Rights issues.

Is this a breakthrough? Hardly. Is it a recognition of the shared dilemma that the G8+5 have in common and the need for a shared response? Definitely.

Thanks to a deepening realisation of the coming climate impacts, including those around security issues, the +5 representatives of the world’s emerging economies are willing to discuss a shared response. They understand that there is an opportunity for more sustainable and low carbon economic growth. They recognise that they have to move, but want to ensure that they are supported in doing so.

Moving forward

The opening for a new, ambitious and opportunity-oriented discussion is clear. The question is no longer whether to move to something new and more ambitious but how and what.

It is in this context that Chancellor Merkel must fully embrace her role as the one post-Blair global leader on climate change, working in step with her European colleagues. Her first challenge is to ensure that the 2009 “Global Deal” is not only completed by then but is ambitious enough to respond to the crisis at hand.

Leadership will not emerge out of the formal UN process but rather must come from expanding the scope of the possible. Merkel will have to get the politics right not just nationally, where she faces the challenge of German implementation of EU targets, but also internationally. She will need to continue efforts to engage the emerging economies in the transformational process to achieve a global low carbon economy.

The debate is far from over and new wrecking balls will come flying through. The upcoming Australian-hosted APEC meeting will be the first of these, closely followed by the Bush-hosted “major emitters” meeting.

The EU must keep a steady hand. It will need to work with and support the emerging economies and Japan - the next G8 President. The EU will have to use all its diplomatic, market and economic might to deliver an ambitious response to the climate crisis.