In case you haven’t heard, the United Nations Climate Change Conference began in Copenhagen today. This morning I woke up to find my RSS feed bursting with related news and “101” tutorials. By 6:00 AM, I already had a few emails from my colleagues in Denmark, well in to the day, excited to share their first impressions. One friend simply stated, “Everyone is talking about Obama. China is a close second. High energy!”
That emailed reflection isn’t too far from where the attention of 20,000 delegates will be throughout the conference. Namely, what is the U.S. going to do? Next, how closely will other rich countries follow? And, how will these countries help the poor along? As answers come together, a significant trend has already emerged. Bradford Plumer observes:
“…you’re starting to see, essentially, a race to the top. After Obama announced [three] weeks ago that the United States would commit to a reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions at Copenhagen, China quickly followed with its own pledge. That, in turn, led to Indian officials telling journalists that their country doesn’t want to be viewed as the laggard in climate talks…peer pressure seems to work.”
The Copenhagen “carbon circus” will not produce a multilateral climate treaty. Such an unlikely outcome would require an unprecedented level of cooperation, between 192 countries, in less than two weeks. It would be a mistake however, to suspect that significant change can’t take place, in the absence of a global agreement. Copenhagen may fail to close on a binding deal, but the endorsement of the summit is still meaningful, in part, because of the “race to the top” progression that it has, and continues, to bolster.
As the COP15 unfolds, rather than anticipating a treaty, I’ll be watching for more signs of this upward trend.
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If peer pressure is the answer, world leaders got a dose of it this morning: 56 newspapers published the same editorial, in 20 different languages, calling for action from world leaders on climate change. (Note: the Miami Herald was the only English-speaking U.S. paper to carry the editorial).
