Tuesday’s United Nations climate summit looks likely to have about as much impact as a climate change demo on a snowy day.
Some 120 heads of state, including President Obama, will gather in New York although their meeting is not a formal part of the negotiating process.
The dignitaries will forge relationships and foster goodwill before haggling starts next year in Paris. That’s where nations will try to agree to cut their carbon emissions sufficiently by the end of the decade to prevent world temperatures rising 2 degrees Celsius by 2100.
“It gives a direction of travel for the next 15 months,” Jennifer Morgan, energy and climate director with the World Resources Institute, told the Washington Examiner. “I see it very much as the beginning of the heads of state conversation on climate change.”
But few commitments are expected from powerful nations to combat climate change, which many climate scientists say is driven primarily by humans burning fossil fuels.
Slow economic growth underlies the reluctance to take action. Hopes that the European Union would offer new carbon-cutting targets have dwindled, and slowdowns in China, India and southeast Asia also have lowered expectations.
There is also apparently greater skepticism about the need for drastic action.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently said that the climate had not changed, which called into question his commitment to taking concrete steps on climate. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper isn’t attending the New York gathering, which is seen by some as a deliberate snub. He is instead sending his environment minister and will attend a dinner given by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
There will be other absentees, too. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who in July repealed his nation’s carbon tax, won’t make the trip. Nor will Chinese President Xi Jinping, although he will will send a high-level official to represent the world’s top greenhouse gas emitter.
U.N. officials and climate advocates claim these no-shows shouldn’t hurt the conference, but they have knocked the wind out of its sails.
Experts also expect the meeting to be long on fanciful rhetoric from national leaders but short on action. Some real work might occur in the hallways and back rooms — Obama already has several meetings lined up, White House adviser John Podesta said.
“We are taking this summit seriously,” Podesta said.
Any agreement on action is likely to fall short of the hopes of the green lobby, though there could be progress on “adaptation,” which is preparation for adjustment to current and future effects of climate change.
“There is going to be the most to share on the solution side,” said Deborah Gordon, director of the climate and energy program with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “But you can’t solve climate change on adaptation. You can only hope to slow it for the moment.”
The administration is in the difficult position of needing to offer something substantial if it wants to convince other nations it can take the lead on climate issues.
“The hope is that President Obama will be able to bring something new. The question is what that might be. Other countries will be looking for something to show his seriousness,” Morgan said.
Obama won’t be laying out a carbon-cutting commitment beyond 2020, Podesta said. That will come by the first quarter of next year. Instead, many of the actions Obama will announce aim to help other nations cope with the effects of climate change. Some private-sector efforts, such as controlling methane emissions from hydraulic fracturing, also will be announced.
Schisms between traditional allies are likely, Gordon noted.
The European Union, whom are seen as a natural partner with the United States, is increasingly worried about the vulnerability of its energy supplies because so much of its natural gas and oil comes from a Russia. Harper’s absence is also concerning.
Some developing nations, particularly those in Africa and and low-lying islands most at risk of being inundated by rising sea levels and changes in agricultural productivity, could try to shame developed nations responsible for most emissions to act. Middle-income countries such as Peru and Vietnam, which have new leaders, also will be worth watching, Morgan said.
But it will still be a slow process, said Raymond Kopp, a senior fellow and director of the center for climate and electricity policy with think tank Resources for the Future.
“Don’t expect a ‘kumbaya’ moment at the summit. Rather, expect to see a very public display of [countries] negotiating positions and an equally public display of reaction to those positions,” Kopp wrote.
Ban has grand ambitions. He wants corporations to pledge to become more environmentally friendly and is working to develop financial instruments, such as “green” bonds for clean energy projects, for investors, universities and foundations to park their cash. He wants to give policymakers certainty about shifting toward lower carbon energy sources. He wants to “decarbonize” certain economic sectors and improve land use.
Perhaps most importantly, Ban wants the summit to “lay the framework” for a carbon price.
Global acceptance of carbon pricing could help pull in countries that fear handicapping their economic competitiveness. That’s the logic the U.S. used when it blocked ratification of the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty in 1997, as India and China weren’t required to make cuts.
It will be difficult to get countries to agree to price carbon, but Gordon said there needs to be a global component if nations are to be successfully locked into keeping their climate promises.
That’s because participants will probably be concerned about their economies more than by anything else, Gordon said. China’s economy is growing more slowly than it was, and Gordon worries about this deceleration spreading to southeast Asia. India’s once-promising boom is moribund. The EU is also in a rut.
“It’s unfortunate, but I think it’s fair to say the economy is number one, [and] has been number one for several years,” Gordon said. “The big question mark from here as we move to Paris is how can Ban Ki-moon stop that from derailing global governance on climate.”
