Major Players: Cancun update

So the major players in climate negotiations are the US, China, the EU, Japan, India, and Russia. Of these, the US refused to sign Kyoto, while the others all did. However, as I've mentioned, Kyoto didn't require any emissions reduction commitments from developing countries (China and India) and to date those countries have refused to discuss making such commitments. Russia did commit to "emissions reductions" but its target was so utterly inflated by "hot air" for a variety of reasons that it's promise was essentially meaningless. Russia signed Kyoto because fulfilling it was no burden, and in return, it got EU support on entry to the WTO.

Where do things stand for the majors after Cancun?

US: got most of what it wants. People were so disenchanted with China after Copenhagen that the US got a bit of a break, I think; and it played its cards very wisely in Cancun, going after a useful procedural goal (measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV).) Not much shift in the US's position. Obama's negotiators continue to maintain that the US can meet the 17% reduction pledge we made at Copenhagen, in spite of complete failure to craft a legislative emissions solution.

China: Softening... I think. In Cancun, China tried to play nice, and made some concessions on stuff like MRV. It also offered a stop-gap solution on reduction commitments: to put a voluntary pledge, backed by domestic legislation, on paper in the Convention. I don't think it would have done even that much a few years back. This makes sense though, because there are two new drivers in China. One is the growin green industry that China has been pushing hard on. That's starting to materialize in a real way, and China has to realize that once it has a green industry, it would be best if the world had a climate treaty to drive that market. Additionally, China has already set and continues to set internal goals to reduce emissions intensity*. Thus far, it's pretty solidly on track to meet them. At the point that it's setting and meeting goals internally, why not garner goodwill by acknowledging them formally in the international arena?

* Near-term emissions reduction goals for developing countries aren't usually proposed as absolute cuts - they're typically downward deviations from projected baseline - reductions in energy intensity per capita or per unit GDP, but not absolute reductions.

EU: Very, very quiet at Cancun, given that Europe has traditionally spearheaded this stuff. I don't know - maybe it felt spanked at Copenhagen? It basically played support on stuff, and was willing to extend Kyoto if other people did, but didn't insist one way or another. I think Europe is taking a wait-and-see-and-do-what-we-can-internally approach right now.

Japan: As noted in my last post, most of the drama around Copenhagen revolved around Japan's steadfast public refusal to consider extending Kyoto. It's in Japan's best interest to support a treaty that drives a market for its green technology industries (particularly efficiency technologies) but it isn't in its interest to have a treaty that effectively includes only Japan and Europe - the two most experienced green-tech players, trying to sell to each other. The market it really lusts after is manufacturing efficiency tech in China; so what it really wants out of a climate treaty is commitments from China. I also can't help wondering what, if any, was the back-channeling with the US on this. It was very convenient for the US that someone was pushing hard for commitments from developing countries without things turning into another round of US vs. China. I don't know enough about the US-Japan relationship right now to have an opinion on that, though. Maybe it was just convenient.

India: Made waves by being surprisingly supportive in this round. Previously India has been pretty adamant that climate change is the developed world's problem. This round it materially helped get MRV fixed, and started talking about maybe making reduction commitments in the future.

Russia: I doubt Russia will under any circumstances commit to a real (not hot air) reduction pledge, unless it's getting something very big in exchange, and Europe already played the WTO support chip. An extension of Kyoto isn't in Russia's best interests and, surprise surprise, they were one of Japan's two big supporters on not extending. Probably more because they thought it would be the best spoiler tactic than because they think a new, more comprehensive treaty could be negotiated if we ditch Kyoto.

Bolivian Drama Coverage: near the beginning of the conference the Bolivian ambassador was quoted referring to climate change as "genocide." Near the middle he was quoted referring to "ecocide." By the end, he was calling it "genocide and ecocide."