Why Americans must march on Washington

12 Oct 2009

The United States holds the key to global agreement on climate change. With strides being made by other nations, and only five more negotiating days to Copenhagen, the US could emerge the spoiler or savior of COP15. On present form, many fear the former. But much rests with the American people. It is time they took to the streets to give their newly-‘enobeled’ President the mandate he needs for leadership on climate change.

The UN climate talks in Bangkok ended on a bizarrely surreal note last week. The US had been fingered all week for back-pedalling on efforts to secure a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. Its lead negotiator spelt out US opposition to the treaty: “We are not going to be part of an agreement that we cannot meet. We say a new agreement has to [be signed] by all countries. We cannot be stuck with an agreement 20 years old. We want action from all countries.”

At the same time in Washington DC, the heads of leading think-tanks, Centre for American Progress and the UN Foundation, issued statements downplaying expectations that a legally-binding treaty with mid-term targets for developed nations would emerge from Copenhagen in December. This went against clear indications to the contrary from the European Union and Japan, and Norway who won thunderous applause in Bangkok for pushing the Annex 1 commitment dial the highest by offering to cut CO2 emissions by 40 percent by 2020 –the first developed nation to do so.

Obama’s Peace Prize surprise

In this situation of the US on the diplomatic back-foot came the incredulous news from Oslo that President Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize. The sound of jaws dropping could be heard everywhere. Granted more in hope and expectation, the official citation referred to Obama’s initiative in ensuring “the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting.”

If one of the secret hopes of the Nobel Committee in awarding the prize to Obama was to entice him to come to Copenhagen in December, the response from the White House has been guarded. The President is keeping his own counsel and even his assistant for energy and climate change, Carol Browner, says she has no plans to attend. Instead efforts to downplay the importance of COP15 are ratcheting up by the White House briefing machine.

US Chief negotiator Todd Stern is openly talking of limited agreement at Copenhagen and the need to continue negotiations into 2010. In March already he had testified before Congress that the US would not meet mid-term targets of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25 to 40% by 2020, adding tartly “I don’t think it’s necessary, and I do know it’s not possible.” Another Administration heavyweight, Larry Summers, has recently said that climate change was the sixth out of the White House’s top six priorities.

If the intent of the Administration is to downgrade expectations of Copenhagen, it is having an effect. The UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon is reportedly scaling down his hopes of a comprehensive climate treaty emerging out of Copenhagen. The Danish hosts of COP15 are aiming for the most ambitious agreement possible but say it must be commensurate to the ambition level that parties want. Bangkok has ended in confusion and uncertainty. The effect has been corrosive. 

Kerry-Boxer on the Senate agenda

The reason for the White House’s timorousness can be found on the far side of town in the Senate Hart Building. There Senators John Kerry (D-Mass) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) tabled an 800-page bill called the Clean Energy Jobs & American Power Act of 2009, or Kerry-Boxer for short, on 30 September.

The bill is the Senate’s answer to the Waxman-Markey bill which passed the House of Representatives in June by 219-212. Both represent climate legislation that would for the first time set emissions caps on greenhouse gases and establish an emissions trading scheme in the US. Kerry-Boxer differs from the House bill in a few respects and would go further than Waxman-Markey by seeking CO2 emissions cuts of 20 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050, compared to the House bill’s 17 percent cut by 2020.

The bill’s fate – and Copenhagen’s – now rests with 100 senators. Regrettably for us most of them are driven not by climate science or the bated breath of 192 nations, but by pork-barrel politics and domestic interest groups. For the United States to lead at Copenhagen, the Administration needs a green light from the Senate. The Administration does not want a repeat of Kyoto where then Vice-President Al Gore brought back a deal that Congress rejected stalling the US climate debate for a decade.

While publically the Administration’s strategy seems to be to manage expectations, behind the scenes officials say they are working to get the numbers on their side. Press reports suggest that officials have met “with more than half the Senate, made calls to nearly 100 mayors in 17 states, and met with numerous governors.” A White House representative is also in attendance at weekly meetings to advance the bill hosted by Senators Boxer and Kerry involving 20 senators.

None of these efforts, however, is geared at fast-tracking the bill in time for Copenhagen. Instead the bill seems to be moving at the pace of the slowest. Neither do any of the Administration’s top officials seem to be putting themselves out to secure legislation that will – in Todd Stern’s words from March – be “signed, sealed and delivered” in time for the US to go with a clear legislative mandate to COP15.

Senate the key to Copenhagen

With domestic political attention focused on health care reform, the Senate appears to have no sense of urgency on climate change or how acutely other nations are watching the US. For long the Senate debate has centred on what emerging nations such as China and India would do. Whether they would play a constructive role. In recent weeks through a series of significant announcements, countries such as China, India and Indonesia have indicated they are willing to act on domestic mitigation. If Senators are skeptical, they should know that in each country constituencies are emerging to ensure that rhetoric matches reality. There are no more excuses to hide behind.

Everywhere one finds the momentum on climate change rising. Only the US is sending out the wrong signals. At a time when scientists are emphasizing the ‘now or never’ significance of Copenhagen, the US President is seeking to play down expectations. Fearing failure at COP15, he is now courting it. His non-committal response to the Danes’ open invitation to Heads of State to attend Copenhagen is making it less likely that other heads of state will attend. The President has refused to use his political capital to elevate climate change higher up the political agenda and move public opinion in a way only his oratory can.

Low-ambition coalition

Instead Obama’s words are giving succor to those who are dragging their heels and do not wish for Copenhagen to succeed. Countries who will use this to form a ‘low-ambition coalition of the unwilling’, rather than the ‘high ambition coalition’ that Europe and vulnerable nations have been seeking to mobilize.

The world cannot wait. Nations whose very survival is at stake cannot wait. Ecosystems on the verge of collapse cannot wait. The cost of delay will not just be felt in remote parts of the world but on Wall Street and Main Street. With every day that passes, the US loses further its competitive edge to other nations whose governments have decided to make low-carbon innovation central to their economic renewal and growth efforts.

These arguments are being waged by Americans in every state of the union. It is time for them to descend on Washington and make their voices heard.

Moving the Senate

Washington pundits say that the Senate cannot be moved. That the political weather is being made by health care reform and climate change will have to take a back-seat. They must be proven wrong. There is no arguing with the atmosphere. The latest peer-reviewed scientific studies tell us the climate impacts are hitting faster and deeper. For the Senate to delay further on Kerry-Boxer will be tantamount to 100 Neros fiddled while the planet burned.

In a year when climate change was expected to be the dominant issue on the world stage, the political wisdom of putting healthcare reform on the domestic legislative agenda is questionable. But it need not, and must not, jeopardize the chances of a fair, binding and ambitious agreement emerging from Copenhagen.

What is needed is for the unmoveable object of the Senate to meet the irresistible force of public opinion. It is time for Americans to march on Washington and call for the Senate to pass Kerry-Boxer. This will give the President the unequivocal mandate he needs to exert leadership Copenhagen. A million people – or close enough – marching in the Mall waving placards bearing every state in the union will send a signal that unconvinced Senators have not heard yet: that Americans are ready to rise to the challenge of climate change and for their President to bring back an ambitious treaty from Copenhagen.

Americans must realize that their continued talk of ‘US exceptionalism’ no longer washes. The world is weary of excuses from Washington that the US political process is too complex. In more than ten years of hearing this we have become intimately familiar with the ins and outs of Congressional debates on global warming. The US cannot continue to ask the world to wait while it sorts out its political system. It is not alone in the need to gain domestic approval for political action on climate change. This is a struggle every democratic nation has to wage.

Making strides in India

In India we have mobilized around the country to win the argument that as a highly vulnerable country, action on climate change is in our own national interest not as a response to foreign pressure. We have succeeded in changing the victimhood narrative that projected India merely as an innocent bystander while our own emissions grew. We have pushed an opportunity-led agenda emphasizing green growth and green jobs – for the many not just the few. We have gained support in important sections of business and industry for a swift transition to a low-carbon, highly competitive economy. We have emphasized the fact that action on climate change is a pro-poor, pro-development strategy – India’s poor are the ones most dependent on natural resources and functioning ecosystems, their lives and livelihoods are most at risk if we do not build a more climate-resilient society.

We have pushed at every argument that suggested that India was too poor and too feeble a nation to take on a pro-active role on climate change. As the world’s fourth largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the third largest economy in purchasing parity terms, and the second most populous nation, we should be the first in line for climate leadership.

We have begun to win the argument. The carapace of India’s climate orthodoxy has begun to crack. With the arrival of the reforming environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, we have seen fundamental shifts in rhetoric. India is no longer to be seen as obstructionist and defensive. We have seen a breathtaking number of initiatives announced on everything from an ambitious solar strategy for India to the establishment of a national climate change mitigation authority. The minister is now openly talking of the need for India to reduce her emissions and consent to international monitoring and reporting of mitigation actions. All this is light years away from where we were just a few months ago. It shows what a difference focused pressure and enlightened leadership can make.

We are not done yet but we have managed to move politics in our country. We can do much more but not without the United States coming fully into the game. Americans must realize that every country has a major domestic political struggle on climate change, not just the United States. In India we have started to make a difference but we still have an uphill task. We know that our emissions will have to peak by 2030, but we also have a deeply unequal society with hundreds of millions still excluded from the basics of a decent life – adequate food, water, sanitation, healthcare, education and energy services. With our per capita emissions less than 1/20th that of the average American, asking India to do more while the US goes AWOL on climate change will cause more righteous indignation and raised blood pressure in the sub-continent.

What we need to see – and what we have not seen yet – is that Americans understand that the world cannot be eternally patient with their domestic political arrangements. We have a deal to make in Copenhagen. We have waited fifteen years for this. We are not going to have it kicked into the long grass of 2010 and a Copenhagen bis just because the US Senate cannot fast track climate legislation. This is not just any year – this is the year on climate change. We have seen what the collapse of Doha round of trade talks did to the prospects of a global agreement on trade. We cannot afford to have a global agreement on climate change similarly shattered. It would take more years to rebuild than time we have left to protect our planet.

Extraordinary times call for extraordinary action. If the world is to conclude a fair, ambitious and binding treaty at Copenhagen, it needs the United States fully on board. If the key to getting the US on board is the Senate, this body must now be the focus of overwhelming citizen action.

We have seen how marches on Washington have been epoch-defining phenomenon in America’s history. From civil rights, to the anti-war struggle to reproductive choice, they have manifested the desire for human freedoms and liberty. Just this past weekend, a march on the capitol for gay rights was met with a Presidential promise to fight to remove discrimination against gay people in the military. For all the engagement of US civil society on environmental issues, there has never been a march on Washington on climate change. Surely the time has come. 24 October – the Global Day of Action – is the date. Washington DC is the place. This is where we need to see America move. Now.