Economics 1, Climate-Change 0

On the second day after Copenhagen, a conclusion came to me…

COP15 may have been titled the United Nations Climate Conference, but the agenda was economics under the guise of global warming; developed countries protecting jobs and avoiding taxation, emerging economies protecting sovereign rights to unconstrained growth and poor countries seeking to protect prior commitments of financial support for development with no strings attached. Yes, there were impassioned pleas for action against climate change and global warming. Citizens of low lying island nations such as Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Maldives are especially vulnerable to sea-level rise and spoke eloquently of the immediacy of this threat and near-term loss of their homelands and extinction of their cultures. While others voiced acknowledgment of challenges to be faced, the future consequences to be endured ny all and the need to act collectively, but without a true sense of a clear and present danger, this was a case of language of climate debate being used to frame the economic discussion.

The Copenhagen Accord, akin to a non-binding letter-of-intent, recognizes the need to keep global temperature rise below 2 degrees centigrade by 2050, provides a means for protecting current rain forests and establishes a $100B fund to support poor countries in the future but does not establish emissions targets for individual countries, does not specify what developing countries will do, nor defines how the financing is to be raised and distributed to poor countries; an important first step, but much less than many hoped for.

Could the outcome have been much different? Could the world leaders really achieve what was hoped for going into COP15? In a word, no. As powerful as they are, the majority of world leaders, had neither the autonomy nor the mandate to act in a way that would give climate change priority over the economy?

Meanwhile the scientists remind us the clock is still ticking toward that environmental tipping point that will ultimately define that clear and present danger that will eventually drive us to consensus and coordinated action.

If you are one to keep score, at the end of the first inning, it is Economics 1 and Climate-Change 0.