India Points to "Crisis of Credibility"
China and India do not get a pass in the upcoming negotiations as they did with Kyoto. U.S. carbon emissions have stabilized, yet the Center for Global Development estimates that China surpassed the U.S. in carbon emissions from power generation facilities in August 2008, and that country now emits a fifth of the world’s carbon. India, in third place behind the U.S., is rapidly closing the gap.
There are widely disparate views about which countries should share the economic pain that would follow from the binding reductions in carbon emissions sought in Copenhagen. The July 20 Washington Post reported on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s three-day tour of India, during which she tried to arm-twist Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh into agreeing to a binding limit on carbon emissions. First to speak to the reporters was Clinton during the post-meeting photo op. She described the meetings as "very fruitful" and so on. Next, as dozens of cameras rolled and Clinton looked on, Ramesh played his trump card: "India’s position, let me be clear, is that we are simply not in the position to take legally binding emissions targets." Ramesh characterized his statement as India’s official position on the subject and as "not a debating strategy."
China Says, "You Buy, You Pay"
China’s position on capping carbon emissions is similar to India’s, with a slight twist. China released a position paper on May 20 that describes its views on any future climate change agreement. The paper called on the richest countries in the world to reduce GHGs by 40% below 1990 by 2020, give up to 1% of their GDP to help poorer countries implement climate change mitigation measures, and announced their opposition to any binding limits on its emissions. The paper also adds a new twist to the discussion: "Countries that buy goods from China should be held responsible for the carbon dioxide emitted by the factories that make them."
Rock and a Hard Place
So where does that leave the U.S. going into the Copenhagen negotiations? If the negotiations were poker, then the U.S. is all-in, and China and India are calling our bluff. It looks to me as if we’re likely to draw a pair of eights to go with ACES.
-Dr. Robert Peltier, PE, Editor-in-Chief
Email
Comments
Print
Reuse
