An Important and Imperfect Victory

After much arm wrestling between the United States and China at the climate change summit, Obama’s intervention eventually made the difference. The American president said there’s an agreement- though only the initial stage and still insufficient – that reaches the goal of reducing global warming by two degrees. His pressing Premier Wen Jiabao was decisive. Obama got modest but crucial concessions from the People’s Republic, which has now become the number one “carbon power on the planet,” overtaking America in CO2 emissions.

The end of the Copenhagen summit was all about the new “G 2” axis. Beijing is a tough negotiator, though; it was only after full day of very hard negotiations that Wen decided not to completely humiliate the U.S. leader. As soon as he landed in Copenhagen, Obama used unusually peremptory tones to unblock the summit. At the plenary session, the president announced that the time for words is over. He reminded all that there was no more time for controversies- the damages of global warming are proven by science, not science fiction. He urged leaders to reach even an imperfect agreement, for the sake of moving in the right direction. Obama knew he couldn’t go home empty-handed. It would have been terrible for him if he was accused again of being too soft with the Chinese, as he had been after his November trip to Shanghai and Beijing.

Therefore, what was supposed to be a big, multilateral consensus on the last day ended up being a stringent meeting between two superpowers. That morning, Obama held a face-to-face meeting with Wen, where they discussed two crucial issues. The first was the requirement that China adopt limits on CO2 emissions. The promise made, thus far, by Beijing is to reduce the “carbon intensity” of its development, which means to reduce CO2 emissions per unit of gross domestic product (less than 40% by 2020). That would not be a boon for the U.S. president, who has to deal with increasing resistance from both U.S. businessmen and the primarily Democratic unionized working class. If new environmental rules gave a further competitive advantage to Chinese-manufactured goods, Obama will be in trouble.

Even more challenging is the need to limit developing countries’ emissions, which will require financial support from wealthier states. In Copenhagen, Obama offered $100 billion a year for a decade for this effort (even though the U.S. would contribute only 20 percent). However, he can’t give Americans the impression that he’s signing a blank check. How could he justify a transfer of funds to China, without the ability to verifying concretely that measures to reduce pollution are fulfilled? Can carbon emission measurements reliably be left to the same Chinese authorities who refuse to allow free public debate or independent NGOs? In America, both Congress and the American public would consider such an agreement to have too many concessions. The president said it is impossible to make an international agreement without including some form of control ensuring the fulfillment of the commitments.

After the morning meeting with Wen Jiabao, the President will have to negotiate with the Chinese representative that evening; however, this time Wen Jiabao will be backed up by his allies, India, Brazil and South Africa. Wen promised they will increase transparency and commit to dialogue and international cooperation. However, China has extremely sensitive to “external interferences” and an almost obsessive attachment to national sovereignty. It will not be easy to get China to give America or United Nations the right to create controls on its environmental policies.

On the other hand, Obama has limited room to maneuver, as well. In Copenhagen, the Republican delegation, led by Texas Republican, Joe Barton, chased him like his shadow. Barton threatened that they won’t let American jobs be destroyed in the name of some esoteric environmental benefit that will be achieved in a 100 years. The Energy Bill – the reform of environmental rules meant to fulfill Obama’s promises (by 2020, 17 percent less carbon emissions than in 2005) – is languishing in the Senate, due to legislative procedures. The Green economy, a green revolution that was one of the themes of Obama’s electoral campaign, is impossible without the help of Chinese leaders.

Eventually, a compromise was reached by the least common denominator: In extremis, a failure that would have left a heavy mark on the balance of Obama’s first year as president was avoided.