Gwynne Dyer, Straits Times 9 Apr 09;
'WE WANT to be in (the new UN climate pact), we want to be pragmatic, we want to look at the science,' said Mr Jonathan Pershing, head of the US delegation, during the talks on cutting greenhouse gas emissions in Bonn last week.
So how will the Obama administration reconcile political 'pragmatism' with the scientific realities? 'There is a small window where they overlap. We hope to find it,' Mr Pershing explained. But it doesn't really exist.
Signing the United States up to the new climate treaty that will replace the Kyoto accord in 2012 is essential. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol was gutted to accommodate American objections, but even so then President Bill Clinton, who signed it, never dared submit it to Congress. His successor George W. Bush 'unsigned' it.
A dozen wasted years later, the climate problem has grown hugely, so this time everybody else is determined that the US must be aboard - and President Barack Obama also wants the US to be part of the treaty. But we recently learnt what he thinks is 'pragmatic': It is that the US should cut its emissions back to the 1990 level by 2020.
'Pragmatism' is the excuse you use when you do less than you should, because doing more is too hard. Taking a dozen years just to get US emissions back down to where they were in 1990 definitely qualifies as 'pragmatic', but it also qualifies as suicidal folly.
The Hadley Climate Centre in England, one of the world's most respected sources of climate predictions, recently released a study showing that even rapid cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions, turning the current 1 per cent annual growth into a 3 per cent annual decline within a few years, would still warm the world by 1.7 deg C by 2050.
That is dangerously near the 2 deg C rise in average global temperature which is the point of no return. Further warming would trigger natural processes that release vast quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere from melting permafrost and warming oceans. These processes, once begun, are unstoppable, and could make the planet 4, 5 or even 6 degrees C hotter than the present by the end of the century.
At those temperatures, much of the planet will turn into desert, and the remaining farmland, mostly in the high latitudes, will be able to support at best 10 per cent or 20 per cent of the world's current population. That is why the official policy of the European Union (EU) is never to exceed 2 deg C of warming.
The Obama administration's offer falls far short of that goal. Under the Kyoto accord, the US promised a 7 per cent cut below 1990 emissions by 2012. But Mr Bush abandoned that target and American emissions are now 16 per cent above the 1990 level. Mr Obama is only promising to get back to the 1990 level over the next 11 years, and forget about the cuts that Washington signed up to a dozen years ago.
Mr Obama is clearly calculating how much he can get through Congress. As Mr Pershing said in Bonn: 'If we set a target that is un-meetable technically, or we can't pass it politically, then we're in the same position we are in now - where the world looks to us and we are out of the regime.'
But this isn't an ordinary Bill where you settle for what you can get through Congress after the usual horse-trading. If there's going to be a 40-day flood, you either build an ark or you learn to breathe underwater. Building half an ark is not a useful option.
Mr Obama's offer means that the US would be cutting its emissions not by 3 per cent annually, the minimum global target if we hope to avoid more than 2 deg C of warming, but by only half that amount. In the long term, that will lead inexorably to disaster.
The other two major climate delinquents among the industrialised countries are following similar tactics. Australia, which had long been in denial about climate change, ratified the Kyoto Protocol after its 2007 election, but the new government of Mr Kevin Rudd is offering emissions cuts of only between 5 per cent and 15 per cent by 2020. That is a target that makes even Mr Obama's offer look good.
Canada, which ratified the Kyoto Protocol long ago and promised a 6 per cent cut in emissions by 2012, simply ignored its obligations and its emissions are now 20 per cent above the 1990 level. It has no intention of trying to make up the lost ground, and has unilaterally moved its benchmark from 1990 to 2006.
Most other industrialised countries are on track to meet or exceed their modest Kyoto targets. The emissions of Britain and Germany will be 20 per cent below their 1990 levels by 2012, and Germany is promising a 40 per cent cut by 2020. The EU as a whole promises a 20 per cent cut by 2020, but will raise this to 30 per cent if other industrial countries do the same.
Even that would barely meet the annual 3 per cent cut in emissions we need if we are not to sail through the 2-degree point of no return and trigger runaway warming. And we have yet to figure out how to bring developing countries into the regime, for their greenhouse gas emissions, though starting from a low base, are growing very fast.
We are in deep trouble - and 'pragmatism' will not save us.
The writer is a London-based independent journalist.
