by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger

A year ago, it seemed possible—likely, even—that President Barack Obama would sweep into the international negotiations on climate change at Copenhagen and make serious progress on the tangle of issues at stake. The reality was quite different. This year, the expectations for the United Nations Climate Conference in Cancun are less exuberant.

The conference will be held from Nov 29 to Dec 10 and the same issues from 2009 are up for debate. Countries like the United States, Britain, and Germany are still contributing an outsize share of carbon to the atmosphere. Countries like India and China are still rapidly increasing their own carbon output. And countries like Bangladesh, Tuvalu, and Bolivia are still bearing an unfair share of the environmental impacts brought on by climate change.

A very different set of expectations are building in the climate movement this year. If last year was about moving forward as fast as possible, this year, climate activists seem resigned to the idea that politicians just aren’t getting it. Change, when it comes, will have to be be built on a popular movement, not a political negotiation.

Climate change from the bottom up

Last year, climate activists put their faith in international leaders to make progress. This year, they believe that it’s up to them, as outside actors, to marshal a grassroots movement and pressure their leaders towards decreased carbon emissions.

“There’s a recognition that the insider strategy to push from inside the Beltway to impact what will happen in DC, or what will happen in Cancun has really not succeeded,” Rose Braz, climate campaign director at the Center for Biological Diversity, told Making Contact’s Andrew Stelzer. “What we’re doing in conjunction with a number of groups across the country and across the world is really build the type of movement that will change what happens in Cancun, what changes what happens in DC from the bottom up.” (This entire episode of Making Contact is dedicated to new approaches to climate change, at Cancun and beyond, and is worth a listen.)

Fighting the indolence of capitalists

Here’s one example of this new strategy: as Zachary Shahan writes at Change.org, La Via Campesina, an international peasant movement, is coordinating a march that will begin in San Luis Potosi, Guadalajara, Acapulco, Oaxaca, and Chiapas, then converge on Cancun. The march will include “thousands of farmers, indigenous people, rural villagers, urbanites, and more,” Shahan reports.

After they arrive in Cancun, the organizers are planning an “Alternative Global Forum for Life and Environmental and Social Justice” for the final days of the negotiations, which they say will be a mass mobilisation of peasants, indigenous and social movements. The action extends far beyond Cancun, though. Actually, they are organizing thousands of Cancuns around the world on this day to denounce what they see as false climate solutions.

These actions echo the strategy that environmentalist and author Bill McKibben and other climate leaders are promoting to push for climate change policies in the U.S. All this talk about building momentum from the bottom up, from populations, means that anyone looking for change is now looking years into the future.

The U.S. is not leading the way

Of course, ultimately, politicians will need to agree on a couple of standards. In particular, how much carbon each country should be emitting and how fast each country should power down its current emission levels. The U.S. is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to agreement on these questions, especially due to the recent mid-term elections. As Claudia Salerno, Venezuela’s lead climate change negotiator wrote at AlterNet:

Unlike what many suggest, China is not the problem. China, along with India and others, have made considerable commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and are already working to realize them. Other developing countries have done the same, although we only generate a virtual drop in the bucket of global carbon emissions. The key player missing here is the U.S.

China, the U.S. and Clean Coal

The most interesting collaborations on clean energy, however, aren’t happening around the negotiating table. This week, The Atlantic’s James Fallows wrote a long piece about the work that the U.S. and China are doing together on clean coal technology, the magic cure-all to the world’s energy ills.

In the piece, Fallows recognizes what environmentalists have long argued: coal is bad for the environment and for coal-mining communities. But, unlike clean energy advocates who want to phase coal out of the energy equation, Fallows argues that coal must play a part in the world’s energy future. Therefore, we must find a way to burn it without releasing clouds of carbon into the atmosphere. That’s where clean coal technology comes in. So far, however, researchers have had little luck minimizing coal’s carbon output.

A few progressive writers weighed in on Fallows’ piece: Grist’s David Roberts thought Fallows was too hard on the anti-coal camp, while Campus Progress’ Sara Rubin argued that the piece did a good job of grappling with the reality of clean energy economics. And Mother Jones‘ Kevin Drum had one very clear criticism—that the piece skated over the question of progress on carbon capture, the one real way to dramatically reduce carbon pollution from coal. He wrote:

All the collaboration sounds wonderful, and even a 20% or 30% improvement in coal technology would be welcome. But that said, sequestration is the holy grail and I still don’t know if the Chinese are doing anything more on that front than the rest of us.

On every front, then, the view on climate change is now a long one.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger

In his first State of the Union address, President Barack Obama touched on climate issues only briefly. He called on the Senate to pass a climate bill, but did not give Congress a deadline or promise to veto weak legislation. Nor did he mention the Copenhagen climate conference, where international negotiators struggled to produce an agreement on limiting global carbon emissions.

The Obama administration’s attitude towards climate change still represents a remarkable shift from the Bush years, when global warming was treated as little more than a fairy tale. But in the past year, Congressional squabbling has stalled climate legislation, and international negotiators nearly gridlocked in talks over carbon admissions at the multinational Copenhagen conference. Without strong leadership from the president, work to prevent this looming environmental crisis will stall.

Obama did address global warming skeptics, saying that they should support investment in clean energy, “because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy.”

“And America must be that nation,” Obama said.

No push for climate bill

Despite his combative language,  the president did not challenge Congress to push for real solutions to ballooning carbon emissions and energy consumption. As Forrest Wilder of The Texas Observer notes, Obama “uttered the phrase ‘climate change’ precisely once.”

The Senate has already wait-listed the climate bill: Health care came first. With health care reform now in line behind work on jobs and bank regulation, climate legislation has little chance of passing the Senate in the coming months, let alone making it to the president’s desk.

If Congress lets this work wait until after the midterm elections, the United States will show up at international negotiations in December 2010 as a leader in carbon emissions yet again, but with little in hand to show a way forward.

Clean energy, not renewable energy

When the president did bring up climate issues, he focused on their connection between climate reform and potential job creation. Obama highlighted areas for growth, not in renewable energy fields like wind or solar power, but in nuclear power, natural gas, and clean coal.

Yes, these fuel sources could decrease the country’s carbon emissions. But they are not solutions that will revolutionize energy production. Grist’s David Roberts was floored that the speech omitted renewable energy entirely and kowtowed to a more conservative litany of energy projects. “I suppose it was done to flatter conservative Senators that will have to vote for the bill Kerry, Lieberman, and Graham are working on,” he writes. (The three Senators are working on a version of the climate bill designed to appeal to Republicans.)

“But the SOTU is not a policy negotiation,” Roberts says. “It’s a bully pulpit, a chance to shape rather than respond to existing narratives.”

Roberts argues that progressive supporters would benefit from a stronger message. If activists knew that the White House stands behind a real shift in America’s energy policy, they could use that prompt to drive action on climate change.

What was missing

While touting the virtues of off-shore drilling, Obama overlooked other policies that could broker real change. Although he admonished Congress to pass a climate bill, he did not pressure the legislature on what he’d like that bill to include. He did not mention cap-and-trade, the mechanism the House bill relies on to tamp down emissions and dirty energy use.

President Obama did touch on transportation reforms that could decrease the country’s use of fossil fuels.

“There’s no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains,”  Obama said. He cited a high-speed rail project that broke ground on Tuesday in Tampa, FL, as evidence that America could best the rest of the world in creating new energy-efficient technology.

But one or two high-profile projects won’t be enough to challenge Europe’s network of high-speed trains or China’s investments in solar power. The White House could put the country at the forefront of sustainable technologies, but it’ll take more money than the president has committed. In AlterNet’s ideal state of the union, projects like the railway would merit sustained attention and funding. Funding for the high-speed train came from this year’s stimulus bill, and there’s no guarantee that similar projects will find federal funding in the future.

“Continued support is still needed” for green jobs and clean energy, Alternet’s editorial staff argues. “It’s unclear yet how Obama’s new proposal for a three-year spending freeze will apply to this sector, but a boost is what is needed, not cuts.”

Green jobs

Michelle Chen argues for In These Times that the president is right to subordinate climate issues to economic policy. “The jobs angle is more than sugar-coating,” she says. A recent Pew Research Center poll put climate change at the end of Americans’ long list of cares, and a Brookings Institution study found that they’re no longer willing to pay as much for greener products.

Jobless workers need green in their pockets most of all, and so far politicians’ promises haven’t made up for the slack economy.

“No matter how slick the marketing, confidence in green jobs may wilt even further absent real investments in the beleaguered blue-collar workforce,” Chen writes.

Copenhagen accord losing momentum

The small role that climate change played in the state of the union address only emphasized the downward momentum of the issue since the United Nations conference on global warming in Copenhagen. Grist’s Jonathan Hiskes talked to six leaders in climate change activism, and none of them offered a different strategy than they had last year.

That same stasis is showing up in Europe, as well. Spain, which currently leads the European Union, proposed that the European Union’s negotiating position should remain the same as its position before the Copenhagen conference, according to Inter Press Service.

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), who’s working on climate change legislation in the Senate, offered advice to climate activists at a clean energy forum in Washington, DC on Wednesday. Mother Jones’ Kate Sheppard reports that Sen. Kerry encouraged his audience to get angrier, louder, and more active, in the mode of the conservative Tea Partiers, who have earned plenty of attention. After his speech, he also recalled the tactics that pushed landmark legislation like the Clean Air Act through Congress.

If climate change is going to play a larger role in the next state of the union, the citizens and groups concerned about this issue need to do something to put it on the agenda. Otherwise, next year, the president may find it just as easy to skim over it again.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

By Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger

After two weeks of negotiations for the United Nations Climate Change Conference (Cop15), global leaders produced a limited, non-binding agreement that was noted, but not adopted. President Barack Obama presented the Copenhagen Accord to the summit on Friday night, calling it an "important milestone." The accord promises global cooperation to combat climate change, recognizes the need to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius, and commits funding for developing nations to battle the impacts of global warming.

But on Saturday, after President Obama had returned to Washington, leaders from Europe and the least developed nations announced that the accord was not definitive and represented the views of only a few countries. In particular, Lumumba Stanislas Dia-ping, chair of the Group of 77, which represents the poorest nations in the world, pushed back, claiming that their interests had been abandoned.

As David Roberts reports in Grist: "Since the ... process requires unanimity to move forward, Danish Prime Minister Lokke Rasmussen could only look on, bewildered, as country after country restated its position in increasingly emotional terms."

Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told reporters that the more powerful countries overlooked the interests of their less fortunate neighbors, according to Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!

"I think the countries that can really make a difference have not really got sensitive enough to the plight of the poorest of the poor. I think that's a harsh reality which we have no choice but to accept," Pachauri said.

The accord left out crucial elements that tripped negotiators up throughout the week. David Corn and Kate Sheppard of Mother Jones report that the accord "...contains few specific numbers--beyond "recognizing the scientific view" that a global temperature rise should be 'below 2 degrees.' It dropped language from an earlier draft calling for cutting global emissions in half by 2050. The agreement urges developed nations to implement reductions they have already pledged--without spelling out those numbers or [establishing] baseline years. Developing nations would establish their own emissions curbs."

During the summit, China objected to requirements that would allow outside monitoring of its emissions. That issue remained one of the thorniest points during Friday's negotiations. Corn and Sheppard report that President Obama proposed that instead of "examination and  assessments," countries would commit to "international consultations and analysis."

"A 'consultation' is obviously less intrusive than an 'examination,' Corn and Sheppard write. "But what does "international consultations and analysis"--soon to be referred to as ICA--mean? Asked this, [Brazil's climate ambassador Sergio] Serra shrugged and said, "Ehhhh." He added, "The definition will be negotiated by a panel of people. They will decide what it means, like everything else."

The deal that Obama and major developing nations drafted on Friday represented the best result of a tumultuous conference. Going back to Grist, David Roberts writes that even at the beginning of the summit, leaked draft agreements were more promising than the actual outcome. The final accord, according to Roberts, "achieved only the barest of Obama's aims: One, to draw the major emitters among the developing nations--China, India, and Brazil--into a process that would yield concrete commitments on their part, and two, to get funding flowing from developed countries to developing countries to aid their efforts to deal with climate change."

Throughout the two week summit, activists from around the world gathered to pressure leaders into significant action. But, thanks to Cop15's tepid outcome, some climate change advocates already are looking towards the next major global meeting, which will be held in Mexico, in 2010.

Beverly Keene, the international coordinator of Jubilee South, told Inter Press Service that "the primary challenge is to broaden and strengthen the links between the different civil society movements and networks in the region."

And outside the conference in Copenhagen, activists gathered to broadcast their opinions of the summit's achievements and their continuing commitment to change. As Jamie Henn writes in Yes! Magazine,

"In less than an hour, hundreds of us will gather in a snowy courtyard outside the Osknehallen to stand with candles and torches and form the words "Climate Sham" and then transform into the words "Climate Shame" for an aerial photograph. The image will express the frustration and anger that we want to convey to the world leaders who are blocking progress here at the talks yet still trying to spin Copenhagen as some sort of success.

"Yet, we'll also be forming another message: "Climate Hope," Henn says. "It's a reminder that this fight isn't over."

Although the accord is a small step forward, politicians around the world have their work cut out for them. A few reminders of the consequences, should they fail to stop the effects of climate change on the planet:

   
• AlterNet's Tara Lohan lists eight great things we could lose, including French wines and coral reefs.

   
• At TAPPED, Alexandra Gutierrez posts about the island nation Tuvalu, which is "highly vulnerable to rises in sea level."

   
• For Mother Jones, Jen Phillips writes that "If we don't get emissions on track, fast, it'll be today's babies and kids who'll have to do it twice as quickly in 2050."

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By Alison Hamm, Media Consortium Blogger

The United Nations Climate Change Conference (Cop15) turned ugly today when police officers beat back hundreds of demonstrators, including a group of 50 to 100 delegates that were trying to meet with the protesters.

More than 250 people were arrested, including spokespeople for Climate Justice Action (CJA), a global network of NGOs that organized a walkout at the Bella Center today. CJA's spokesperson Dan Glall told Mantoe Phakathi at Inter Press Service that "as a condition for going back to the negotiations, we demand industrialized nations uphold the Kyoto Protocol, commit adequate funds to adaptation and reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly."

OneClimate has video (below) of today's walkout.

"More than 1,000 people have been arrested, detained and released over the course of the past week,"Jennifer Prediger writes for Grist. "Some were made to sit on freezing sidewalks for six hours in a nasty version of time out. The people who threw rocks and set cars on fire were rightfully detained.  But the droves who were dragged in last night for dancing awkwardly in Christiana?  Seems like overkill to me."

The chaos outside reflects the increasing pressure inside the Bella Center, as delegates turn to the United States and China for leadership in the final days of the summit. Together these countries account for 42 percent of the world's carbon emissions.

In order to finalize a global climate agreement in Copenhagen, both countries need to take a big step forward, as David Doniger and Barbara Finamore report for Grist. For the U.S., this means aid for the world's poorest and most vulnerable people; for China, this means making steady progress to meet the country's carbon reduction goals.

The U.S. has already committed to pay its share of a $30 billion fund to last through 2012. "But to lead in Copenhagen, the U.S. needs to back even larger investments to meet these core needs for the longer-term--2015 or 2020," Doniger and Finamore write. "China has the opportunity to enhance its standing as a responsible world leader by building global confidence in the implementation of its carbon reduction goals."

But as David Corn reports for Mother Jones, China and the U.S. are apparently "stuck in a standoff." An Obama administration official insisted that it's not about the money: "'We have to get the developing nations into an international agreement,' the official said... Yet China has forcefully resisted the idea of incorporating their self-professed emissions goals (essentially, slowing the growth rate of emissions) into a binding agreement. China has also repeatedly said that it will not submit its performance to official outside vetting."

Corn writes, "But with 115 heads of states beginning to arrive, the Copenhagen talks have left some fundamental gaps for the last minute. Even if those gaps are bridged, the resulting agreement could fall far short of what experts say is necessary to redress the dire consequences of rising global temperatures. Just ask the scientists roaming the halls."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Copenhagen today in a last minute appearance. Clinton has booked a full day of meetings on Thursday and will join President Barack Obama in negotiations when he arrives Friday. Like Obama's schedule switch at the conference (he originally planned to be there last week and instead will arrive Friday), Clinton's arrival could indicate the U.S.'s intention to seal a deal by the end of the week.

For live updates of the negotiations and protests, check out The Uptake's live video stream from the Bella Center.

<This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

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By Alison Hamm, Media Consortium Blogger

UPDATE: Negotiations stalled today in Copenhagen when African nations walked out in protest of perceived attempts by rich nations to kill the Kyoto Protocol, Talking Points Memo reports. The talks are back in session now. Watch Link TV's live stream from Copenhagen for more on this story as it develops.

On Saturday, December 12, climate activists rallied to call for a binding climate agreement. Vigils, fasts, and protests were held around the world, and in the largest environmental demonstration in history, 100,000 activists marched in downtown Copenhagen from the Christiansborg Palace to the Bella Center, where the United Nations Climate Change Conference (Cop15) is being held.

Overall, the march was peaceful and positive, ending with a vigil outside the Bella Center, where the demonstrators were greeted by South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu. However, Danish police detained more than 500 activists at the back of the line, where European "black bloc" anarchists were trying to infiltrate, as Jacob Wheeler and Chuck Olsen report for The UpTake.

Kumi Naidoo, the first African leader of Greenpeace, is optimistic and enthusiastic about a deal in Copenhagen--and the role activists will play in making it happen. In an interview with Madeline Ostrander for Yes! Magazine, Naidoo says that the "... summit itself would not be taking place had it not been for groups like Greenpeace and others who have fought for a very, very long time. The fact that we are here is in itself an expression of innovation, courage, and willingness to speak truth to power."

According to Naidoo, activists are putting pressure on leaders by working both inside and outside the negotiations, and "delegations are reaching out to us as they try to figure out what's happening. Sometimes we civil society folks get to know what these countries are doing and thinking before some of the other negotiators do." Without the "sweat of activist groups," Naidoo says, Copenhagen wouldn't even be happening.

OneClimate posted a video overview of demonstrators' work at the Cop15 climate march on Saturday. "People are not in Copenhagen to bury the climate treaty, " said Vandana Shiva, Director of Navdanya, a women-centered movement for the protection of biological and cultural diversity. "They are here to implement it! Let this be the time where, you, marching to the Cop15, tell the leaders, 'We have the power... we will be the change we want to see, and no one is going to stop us.'"

In other news, Tuvalu and other small island nations introduced a proposal that would commit the world's developed nations to reducing greenhouse gas emissions enough to keep their islands habitable. They want Cop15 to produce two binding agreements: One to extend the Kyoto Protocol and make it stricter, and another that would require the United States to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

Tuvalu's lead negotiator, Ian Fry, made an impassioned plea to the U.S. Senate, President Barack Obama, and the entire UN climate conference Saturday, telling them that his country's very survival depends on the decisions they make in the next week, as Jeffrey Allen reports for OneWorld. Fry's speech brought other nations' officials to tears.

"The fate of my country rests in your hands," Fry told the other delegates.

This weekend's action helped set the stage for an exciting second week in Copenhagen, as Geoffrey Lean writes for Grist. "If the conference is successful, then the more than 100 world leaders due to come to the Danish capital this week will initiate the biggest economic change since the Industrial Revolution."

There are still arguments over the details of any final deal, such as how the measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions will be monitored and verified, who will fund it, and how to retain and improve the Kyoto Protocol.

"The likeliest outcome is a toughened Kyoto Protocol, with a linked treaty covering the United States and developing countries (at present excluded from its provisions) and new agreements made in Copenhagen," Lean writes. "... It will be one big package, or nothing. And it may all come down to the last few hours of the last day--or night, since no one wants to move until the last minute. The outcome of the Copenhagen talks is going to be a cliffhanger."

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

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