If the Jewish sage Hillel were alive today, he might aptly apply his famous line to the climate change conference in Copenhagen. The activities there could, and may, fill volumes. Much of what happens, or is said, will be analyzed and dissected afterward, some of what happens quickly forgotten. But one can argue that there are three big themes playing out. Everything else, of great and small import, derives from these themes.
The world’s developed economies agree to incorporate into their economies the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. More precisely, the United States joins the other developed countries in this commitment and those other countries maintain that commitment in the face of a global recession. With an Obama administration committed to the effort and prepared to set specific targets, a regulatory stick in the hands of the EPA and a Congress that is closer to action than ever before, this can happen.
The world’s emerging economies agree to reduce the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions in their growing economies. A modernizing economy and a growing standard of living have historically been correlated with increasing use of energy.
It’s not hard to see that, for example, millions of Chinese citizens buying their first car are going to have a higher standard of living but are still going to add to greenhouse gas emissions no matter how efficient a car they buy. So it’s understandable that those nations are not willing to forgo the economic benefits that developed nations already enjoy. They can, however, do now what developed nations have taken years to do – reduce the energy intensity of their economy. Energy intensity measures the BTUs of energy required to generate a dollar of GDP. If China or India, for example, can do what the US economy has done in the last 20 years, they can grow their economy much faster than they grow their use of energy, thereby contributing to stem the upward rise in greenhouse gas emissions.
The world’s wealthier nations provide funding that helps the poorer nations mitigate the impact of climate change on their vulnerable countries. Low-lying countries like Bangladesh or the Pacific Island nations will be devastated by increasing sea levels. In countries with subsistence-level farming, food production does not have the flexibility or the resources to cope with changes in crops necessitated by changing climate patterns.
While a weak economy and a reluctance to transfer wealth on demand could hinder the response of developed nations to this problem, a sense of equity coupled with self-interest – economic devastation and the resulting flow of refugees to developed countries – will work toward finding a solution.
If a satisfactory consensus is reached on these three big issues, the world will have made substantive progress at Copenhagen – and everything else done there will be the commentary that explains, fills out and expands upon those three fundamentals.