Obama’s on to something: No, actually, it isn’t America’s job to lead.
Bill McKibben at 350.org, David Waskow at the Guardian, Matthew McDermott at Treehugger.com, indeed a broad swath of the green media are Missing the Bear by criticizing Obama for “failing to step up and lead” at Climate Week at the UN. (Lord Stern, to his credit, has it right.) As an economic empire in sunset and politically limited in its domestic sphere with what it can do about climate change, Obama’s step away from leadership is (surprising from an American President) right and proper.
He said:
“But make no mistake: this cannot be solely America's endeavor. Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world's problems alone. We have sought - in word and deed - a new era of engagement with the world. Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.”
Full text from HuffPo
He also said:
“Those wealthy nations that did so much to damage the environment in the 20th century must accept our obligation to lead. But responsibility does not end there. While we must acknowledge the need for differentiated responses, any effort to curb carbon emissions must include the fast-growing carbon emitters who can do more to reduce their air pollution without inhibiting growth. And any effort that fails to help the poorest nations both adapt to the problems that climate change has already wrought - and travel a path of clean development - will not work.”
Full text from HuffPo
The “fast-growing carbon emitters” to which Obama is referring are China and India (and Brazil and South Africa). Helping the poorest nations that will suffer first and most quickly from climate change is a duty that will fall not only to “developed” countries but also to China as it innovates clean technology. Obama isn’t considering China like a developing country here, he’s calling China developed.
The pre-circulated draft text (from the NYT) supports this:
“We must also energize our efforts to put other developing nations – especially the poorest and most vulnerable – on a path to sustainable growth. These nations do not have the same resources to combat climate change as countries like the United States or China do, but they have the most immediate stake in a solution.”
Though this passage wasn’t used as such and any reference to China as a developed country was not made in the speech Obama actually gave at the UN, he knows what he’s on about. China will surpass the US as the global economic powerhouse by 2035. India will as well, by 2045.*
China is already leading the way on green technology according to a report by the Climate Group. President Hu Jintao has vowed that China will generate 15% of it’s power from renewable energy by 2020 and will plant a forest “the size of Norway.” Nicholas Stern recently said that China’s current carbon footprint is probably higher than estimated: the economically more productive provinces already have carbon footprints higher than France and Britain.
Rest assured if there is any country that “gets” climate change, it’s China. And any criticism leveled at China for not making exact commitments in the run up to Copenhagen is highly unfounded, as is any leveled at “uncooperative” India. (India is more likely being sly like a fox.) Both countries will need green technology intellectual property rights and trade negotiations to go their way. China and India have the wherewithal to dominate the global economy in the near future. This will happen. The question is how quickly-- this is what’s at risk in the Copenhagen negotiations.
What Obama has done is acknowledge the role the next economic superpowers will play on the world stage and the waning of American superspower. China already wields a great deal of soft power and is poised to wield a great deal more in the future. Like other global economic powers it has begun to guarantee its future food security by buying up land in Africa. Reforming the global financial system will be impossible without China, especially because global growth will be determined by consumption and savings in China and India (leaving the issue of growth as a strategy aside here). But China (likewise India) has a lot of soft power to gain by developing as cleanly as possible, soft power it will be able to wield in the future with both the old developed world (Europe and the US) and with the developing world. The period in which it will set the example is now until 2050 at the latest, when both economies will overtake the US as the global economic leader.
The upshots are these: The developing world can be pressed to cooperate on climate change based on the extent to which emerging markets cooperate. China and India have a real chance to set an example for developing countries to grow clean and green. And later, spread economic benefits through green tech proliferation.
China can hold the US to account for cutting its carbon intensity: The US is currently bogged down in the domestic politics of climate change. It’s doubtful legislation for adequate emissions cuts will pass the Senate. John Kerry said this summer that it’s doubtful any Cop15 agreement will be ratified by the Senate. Healthcare is easily perceived by both the public and the administration as a more pressing concern than climate change and odds are that ballsy climate change legislation is where the administration will sacrifice in favor of its health care plans. China can wield soft power in the future to pressure the US do what it should about climate change. Mentioning China the way the Obama administration did in the pre-circulated draft may indicate that the Obama administration is counting on this external pressure later to take a second run at stronger domestic climate change legislation and even make certain the Cop15 agreement is passed.
For the future, the US isn’t the country that needs to lead the world on climate change. The West should stop looking to the US to lead and acknowledge, as Obama has done, that for a green clean future it’s up to China and India to show the way.
Update, 17.58pm 24 Sep, 2009: as it turns out I may not be very far off the mark on China's ability to help the Obama administration exert pressure on the Senate to pass climate legislation. I just read this article on Climateprogress.org.
"The bottom line, though, is that it is getting harder and harder for Senators to hide behind China as a reason for US inaction. Quite the reverse. It is increasingly clear that absent passage of the clean energy and climate bill, we have little chance of competing with China and, at the same time, we are pretty much the last hold out for serious global action. If we get a bill, we will get an international deal."
*Granted this estimate is from Goldman Sachs in 2007, pre-financial meltdown, but it’s reasonable to expect that all the crisis has done is put off Chinese and Indian global economic dominance by a few years.
Bill McKibben at 350.org, David Waskow at the Guardian, Matthew McDermott at Treehugger.com, indeed a broad swath of the green media are Missing the Bear by criticizing Obama for “failing to step up and lead” at Climate Week at the UN. (Lord Stern, to his credit, has it right.) As an economic empire in sunset and politically limited in its domestic sphere with what it can do about climate change, Obama’s step away from leadership is (surprising from an American President) right and proper.
He said:
“But make no mistake: this cannot be solely America's endeavor. Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world's problems alone. We have sought - in word and deed - a new era of engagement with the world. Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.”
Full text from HuffPo
He also said:
“Those wealthy nations that did so much to damage the environment in the 20th century must accept our obligation to lead. But responsibility does not end there. While we must acknowledge the need for differentiated responses, any effort to curb carbon emissions must include the fast-growing carbon emitters who can do more to reduce their air pollution without inhibiting growth. And any effort that fails to help the poorest nations both adapt to the problems that climate change has already wrought - and travel a path of clean development - will not work.”
Full text from HuffPo
The “fast-growing carbon emitters” to which Obama is referring are China and India (and Brazil and South Africa). Helping the poorest nations that will suffer first and most quickly from climate change is a duty that will fall not only to “developed” countries but also to China as it innovates clean technology. Obama isn’t considering China like a developing country here, he’s calling China developed.
The pre-circulated draft text (from the NYT) supports this:
“We must also energize our efforts to put other developing nations – especially the poorest and most vulnerable – on a path to sustainable growth. These nations do not have the same resources to combat climate change as countries like the United States or China do, but they have the most immediate stake in a solution.”
Though this passage wasn’t used as such and any reference to China as a developed country was not made in the speech Obama actually gave at the UN, he knows what he’s on about. China will surpass the US as the global economic powerhouse by 2035. India will as well, by 2045.*
China is already leading the way on green technology according to a report by the Climate Group. President Hu Jintao has vowed that China will generate 15% of it’s power from renewable energy by 2020 and will plant a forest “the size of Norway.” Nicholas Stern recently said that China’s current carbon footprint is probably higher than estimated: the economically more productive provinces already have carbon footprints higher than France and Britain.
Rest assured if there is any country that “gets” climate change, it’s China. And any criticism leveled at China for not making exact commitments in the run up to Copenhagen is highly unfounded, as is any leveled at “uncooperative” India. (India is more likely being sly like a fox.) Both countries will need green technology intellectual property rights and trade negotiations to go their way. China and India have the wherewithal to dominate the global economy in the near future. This will happen. The question is how quickly-- this is what’s at risk in the Copenhagen negotiations.
What Obama has done is acknowledge the role the next economic superpowers will play on the world stage and the waning of American superspower. China already wields a great deal of soft power and is poised to wield a great deal more in the future. Like other global economic powers it has begun to guarantee its future food security by buying up land in Africa. Reforming the global financial system will be impossible without China, especially because global growth will be determined by consumption and savings in China and India (leaving the issue of growth as a strategy aside here). But China (likewise India) has a lot of soft power to gain by developing as cleanly as possible, soft power it will be able to wield in the future with both the old developed world (Europe and the US) and with the developing world. The period in which it will set the example is now until 2050 at the latest, when both economies will overtake the US as the global economic leader.
The upshots are these: The developing world can be pressed to cooperate on climate change based on the extent to which emerging markets cooperate. China and India have a real chance to set an example for developing countries to grow clean and green. And later, spread economic benefits through green tech proliferation.
China can hold the US to account for cutting its carbon intensity: The US is currently bogged down in the domestic politics of climate change. It’s doubtful legislation for adequate emissions cuts will pass the Senate. John Kerry said this summer that it’s doubtful any Cop15 agreement will be ratified by the Senate. Healthcare is easily perceived by both the public and the administration as a more pressing concern than climate change and odds are that ballsy climate change legislation is where the administration will sacrifice in favor of its health care plans. China can wield soft power in the future to pressure the US do what it should about climate change. Mentioning China the way the Obama administration did in the pre-circulated draft may indicate that the Obama administration is counting on this external pressure later to take a second run at stronger domestic climate change legislation and even make certain the Cop15 agreement is passed.
For the future, the US isn’t the country that needs to lead the world on climate change. The West should stop looking to the US to lead and acknowledge, as Obama has done, that for a green clean future it’s up to China and India to show the way.
Update, 17.58pm 24 Sep, 2009: as it turns out I may not be very far off the mark on China's ability to help the Obama administration exert pressure on the Senate to pass climate legislation. I just read this article on Climateprogress.org.
"The bottom line, though, is that it is getting harder and harder for Senators to hide behind China as a reason for US inaction. Quite the reverse. It is increasingly clear that absent passage of the clean energy and climate bill, we have little chance of competing with China and, at the same time, we are pretty much the last hold out for serious global action. If we get a bill, we will get an international deal."
*Granted this estimate is from Goldman Sachs in 2007, pre-financial meltdown, but it’s reasonable to expect that all the crisis has done is put off Chinese and Indian global economic dominance by a few years.
Hi Ann, (part one of two)
This week the following has been moderated several places, including (twice) at Climate Progress and, today at Krugman's NYT's opinion piece. Given the assertion that China must lead, China describing itself as a developing nation at the UN's Climate Summit this week, and that much of China and India's footprint is due to US consumption and investment (something we do not charge to ourselves), I would be interested in what your take is, relative to the energy-equivilent slaves dynamic, for creating both power and responsibility relative to why it isn't our responsibility to lead. For me this view of energy hegenomy is a moral issue and not relevant to the analysis offered in this post.
Since you apparently read Joe’s blog too, some of the background for this analysis is likely shared. As CP reported, the CBO analysis of ACES was augmented (see the CBO’s website for the blog and report). AP ran a story on this update last weekend by Josef Herbet. It got published in a number of papers. The cost reflected in Krugman’s opinion piece today likely predates the CBO’s updated analysis. Even so, the “postage stamp” a day cost that CP has championed, and is in play in the popular press, blogosphere, and used by the President, has been less than the whole story, even with the first CBO analysis. And this week, the UN has issued an updated report on the trends in GW data that makes the US’ exercise of being “responsible” and our choice to use 2005 GHG emissions levels, anything but responsible.
The cost utilized to assert the low cost as of 2020 of ACES only referenced the shortfall in government revenues between taxes and subsidies that the public would have to cover. eh “postage stamp a day cost does not include the costs of the impacts to the economy outside this narrow measurement. Factor those costs in and the postage stamp thing starts to appear duplicitous. The new analysis says ACES will negatively impact the GDP of the US by .25 - .75% by 2020.
(part two of two)
I have used the lower figure in this analysis. Before concluding a transition from a fossil carbon economy to a green one is as it is being marketed to be, I feel one should update any previously limited understanding one has of the earlier CBO analysis to include the non-governmental revenue impacts of ACES as well as question the assumption that the national economy will quickly return to its previous exponential growth pattern (as the CBO _assumes_ in its rescent report to be 2.5 times by 2050). This assumption of a 2-3% annual growth Joe misrepresents as a prediction through his selective quoting used in his reporting. And, in my analysis, I am stetting aside, for simplicity’s sake, the systemic impacts that a switch from fossil carbon to renewables (and/or peak oil) will have on the value of US dollar. (My bias is that it has the value it has due to OPEC’s choice, since the early ‘70s, to denominate the sale of that petroleum in the US dollar. The US dollar owes much, if not most, of the strength, in lieu of sound domestic economic practices (like saving), due to the Saudi’s promise to afford the US dollar this support.)
Using today's GDP figures and population data, the per capita hit of a .25% decline in GDP in 2020 averages out, to be about $10 grand annually (this .25% decline in GDP today would also be a little under $29,000 per household—using the numbers McCullagh/Beck do for the number of households). For such a loss of GDP to "modestly" impact households, don't households need to create a means of increasing what they provide for themselves (and decreasing what they consume) such that, in the aggregate, the impact of the loss in GDP is mitigated and, thereby, such costs could be considered "modest"—without lying?
When I was in high school some teacher stated that the oil provided the equivalent of 100 slaves per person to our economy. This past week, I think I found out where this statistic came from. It is a simplified application of the human energy equivalent of the per capita use of oil in our economy. My recent research turned up that—and I think this data now includes all fossil fuels—Europeans, on average, have reached that 100 energy-equivalent slaves we in the US were at in the late ‘60s. We are now up to 200 slaves per person. As I understand modern "civilized" sensibilities, a loss of even 1% of such a workforce (i.e. adding to each person's weekly work load the physical exertion of 2 people working full time in agricultural work), such would hardly be felt to be "modest."
While "figures lie, and liars figure" is the truism, is there any truth to any assertion that the loss of any of our so-called energy-equivalent slaves is going to be felt to be anything other than immodest?
=)
Greg
All good points. Thanks for taking the time to comment. On China as an export economy and letting China and India off the hook for ghg emissions: China and India have used the export development model. However, both are home-growing consumers as we speak. Both countries have expanding middle classes (yes still lots of poverty, but nevertheless) and both governments are encouraging increasing domestic consumption. China and India do export to more places than just the US and there is no reason to think that in the future they will not export more to each other and increase intra-regional trade as the region increases it's overall level of development. Media Asia has recently run an article (http://www.media.asia/newsarticle/2009_09/MediaTV-Shanghai-Tangs-luxury-strategy/37282) about China's new class of luxury goods. The article shows just how adaptable the Chinese economy is to changes in the global market. So sorry, but your argument doesn't hold water on that count.
As to US energy, you've misread my post or I've not explained it well. What I'm saying and what many in the green media and the report I've cited have asserted is that China in and of itself is already leading the green energy revolution. Not sure why you're spending so much time on the ACES bill...
thanks for the discussion. a.