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With December's United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP15) rapidly approaching, the Senate is under pressure to release and pass a climate bill, as the House of Representatives did in June. On September 10, 2009 the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a hearing with the Obama Administration’s top climate negotiator, Todd Stern, to discuss the progress and remaining challenges to garnering international consensus on climate change action.
Committee Chairman and Alliance Honorary Vice-Chair Edward Markey (D-Mass.) opened the hearing, asserting that the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) will demonstrate America’s commitment to resolving the issue of climate change. He emphasized that developing clean energy technologies will be “the great race of the 21st century,” and that the climate bill will help the U.S. reclaim its worldwide technical leadership.
Representatives Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), and Emmanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) reiterated this message. However, Representatives Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) voiced concerns about the inherent difficulty of forging a strong international agreement between developed and developing countries.
Stern first acknowledged the difficulty of achieving strong international commitments. He observed that developed countries view climate change as a problem that cannot be solved without the participation of all large emitters, while developing countries view it as a problem not of their own making.
Yet the former Clinton administration official was quick to emphasize that despite these disagreements, there remains a strong international consensus on the need to act. According to Stern, most countries recognize the dangers of continuing the status quo, including large emitters like China and India, who are taking steps to address the issue. Stern expressed optimism about the potential for the United States to become a leader in green technology development, supplying low-carbon technologies to the world and helping countries in need to adapt to changing climates.
Discussion then turned to China’s commitment to addressing global warming. Stern acknowledged that China is a unique case in that the country is a “huge economic juggernaut”, though most of its population lives in poverty - a situation which may deter the nation from taking action on emissions. Nevertheless, said Stern, the only way to create a meaningful consensus at COP15 is to treat China as an emerging market that must take action.
He also stressed that the policy mechanism used to achieve emissions reduction was not important so long as each country achieved its emissions goals. Moreover, China is interested in dominating the green technology market. "The real competitive issue," he warned, "is that we might spend five years thinking we will push China [to develop low-carbon technology] - and then the next years chasing them.”
In addition to issuing questions about key emitters, several representatives also raised concerns about the accuracy of carbon dioxide reduction verification programs and the high cost of providing financial assistance to developing countries seeking to implement low-carbon projects. Stern responded by noting that the technical expertise needed to develop an accurate verification program that isn’t overly intrusive already exists. He countered rumors that developed nations would need to devote as much as 1 percent of their GDP to help developed countries lower their carbon emissions. “We need to work with the EU, Japan and other developed countries to develop an overall financing package,” he asserted.
Stern’s optimism about the progress of climate negotiations on the international stage raises the stakes of the debate over a U.S. climate and energy bill. In the coming weeks and months, the Alliance hopes that Congress will leverage that optimism to push for a strong national climate bill, one that emphasizes energy efficiency as a primary cost-containment measure.
We are carefully tracking the Senate’s progress toward climate change legislation and we will continue to update our Associates, Board members and friends as it advances. If you have questions or comments about the developing legislation, please don’t hesitate to contact us at policyinfo@ase.org.
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