Into Thin Air

Paradox has long been a watchword of international climate change mitigation efforts. The United Nations Climate Change Conference, ending today in Copenhagen, has so far done more to bolster this notion than it has done to bind nations in new measures to combat our environmental crisis.

As world leaders continue to arrive and make their presence felt (or lack thereof), this final week of the summit has witnessed bizarre contradictions of rhetoric and procedural protocol. Perhaps most disappointing has been the action of ‘the Group of 77,’ a consortium of over 100 small or developing nations with a vast range of geopolitical backgrounds, as well as agendas for the conference. Where the nations seem to agree is on the added difficulty facing poorer or more developing countries that would bear the brunt of many of the measures to mitigate climate change, from protecting forests to limiting use of fossil fuels. Unfortunately, this tenuous union has led to bold and sweeping gestures that may turn the tables on former imperialist nations, but lack actual productive value.

The position taken by Mithika Mwenda of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, a South African-based advocacy group at the summit, is particularly troubling. Mithika has implied that efforts such as those of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to set up financial compensation for poor countries to enact climate change reforms will “sell out the lives and hopes of Africans for a pittance”—strong words for a leading African minister working toward the same stated goal as PACJA. Yet perhaps Mwenda’s comment aptly calls into question the “hopes” Africans harbor for the summit—is climate change the central issue here, or a symbolic rebalancing of power, a demonstration of Africa’s importance at the cost of global efforts? The Group of 77’s blocking efforts earlier this week would seemingly serve that objective better than one of progress in climate reform.

The same nations complaining of obstruction, however, are themselves (surprise, surprise) guilty of adding hot air to the debate. Great Britain’s climate secretary Ed Miliband made headlines in England for his acknowledgment of the obvious: “People will be rightly furious if agreement [at the conference] is not possible.” His countryman Tony Blair has chimed in as well, demanding a hasty resolution. Yet the EU has pledged less than $10 billion to short-term climate aid for developing nations. To put that in perspective, Japan has individually promised $15 billion. Miliband might do better to work on solutions than to make sweeping remarks to the world press.

As for China and the United States, the largest, most petulant children in this mess of a summit sandbox? Paradoxical practices have plagued their policies as well. China has publicly complained about the “lack of transparency” on the part of Denmark, the summit’s host nation, in its composition of the talks. Yet China has raised obstructive technical objections to specific lines of text throughout the week—eerily similar to the personal account of China’s actions at last year’s climate talks in Paris, shared with me by a prominent scientist who served in the U.S. delegation there. If China is up to its old tricks, calls for greater transparency seem, at best, confused.

Perhaps the most astounding public assertion of Copenhagen has come from an unlikely source, Senator John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). Kerry, receiving applause from the packed assembly hall, promised of the United States that, “100 percent, we are going to pass major climate and energy legislation that is going to have an impact on emissions.” One does not have to look very far into issues up for debate in Congress to recognize the boldness of this claim, in the midst of a bitter deadlock over health-care reform and the maddening twists of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) Lieberman himself would be a strong candidate for the prize of highest unintentional irony in a public statement for some of his recent comments, but for now his fellow Yale graduate Kerry has done enough. The notion that in such a polarized, anything-goes political climate any legislation would be a “100 percent” guarantee seems grandiose.Specify the legislation is on climate-related fuel emissions? To put it mildly, that will not improve the bill’s odds.

President Obama and other world leaders can salvage tangible progress out of the Copenhagen conference today—but the odds have been stacked heavily against their success. Maintaining uniform, reasonable policies will help nations work toward climate-mitigation success. Sweeping statements unmatched by actions, however, will simply spray more carbon dioxide into the embattled atmosphere, not work to protect it.

Alexander R. Konrad ’11, a Crimson associate editorial editor, is a history concentrator in Quincy House.