I probably don’t even need to provide a link to “How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room,” Mark Lynas’s recent Guardian article that has found itself at the center of so many a post-Copenhagen conversation. Chances are you’ve read it. Just in case: Of China’s role in this month’s round of UN climate talks, Lynas says, “China’s strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world’s poor once again.”
Interestingly, the rest of Lynas’s analysis hinges on assessing China’s behavior in the final hours of negotiations. Likewise, little of the deluge of external analysis since has focused on China’s behavior earlier in the Copenhagen negotiations. It would be helpful to see a detailed play-by-play analysis of China’s interventions, press statements, internal strategy etc. during and in the lead-up to Copenhagen as well as during those final few hours. When, exactly, was the moment where China went from reluctant US “ally” to reinvigorated adversary? How much of the behind-the-scenes camaraderie had been an act all along, and how much was genuine? And if it had once been genuine, where did it break down? If anyone knows of such an analysis, please point me to it. In the meantime, I will focus for the moment, as Lynas does, on what happened (or didn’t) on that fateful final Friday, what we can learn from it, and equally importantly, what we can’t.
Lynas emphatically conveys a very important message: Global geopolitics have changed, and advocacy groups’ strategies need to change, too. These days, he points out, “developed countries bad, developing countries good” is too simple and outmoded a paradigm. Message received, loud and clear. But to focus singly on China’s “bad guy” role in closed-door climate negotiations with the US and a handful of other countries is problematic as well, and neglects to account for a whole host of factors and actors which could have prevented a down-to-the-wire-emergency-closed-room-China-decides-so-much situation in the first place. Allowing that China’s position was problematic, and that moving forward, we need smarter strategies for current geopolitics, there are at least four other big picture lessons here about what absolutely must go differently in the future:
1. Don’t leave everything to the 11th hour
Copenhagen marked the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties, and two whole years since the Bali Action Plan supposedly put the world on the path to agreeing the next global climate treaty. In the Copenhagen fallout, pundits have become very focused on debating the implications of a few maneuvers made by a few actors in the final days and hours of the negotiations. It seems the question we really should be asking is: with so much at stake, why was so much left to those hours—and for that matter, those few individuals—to decide?
2. You can’t wreck a wreck
“I saw Obama fighting desperately to salvage a deal,” says Lynas of Friday’s closed-door meetings. Which begs the question—Was President Obama trying to salvage a deal, any deal? What exactly was the substance of the deal he was trying to save? Elsewhere, Lynas applauds: “The US put serious cuts on the table for the first time (17% below 2005 levels by 2020).” Serious cuts? Really? A 17% cut below 2005 levels translates roughly to a paltry 4% below 1990 levels by 2020…that’s significantly less ambitious than what the US would have committed to had it ratified to the Kyoto Protocol. More importantly, whatever your take on what countries should be responsible for what portion of a shared global goal, a short-term reduction of 4% on 1990 levels from the US clearly falls far short of what the latest science demands. The oft-cited IPCC recommended range for developed country cuts is some 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020. Coupled with significant deviation from business as usual in the developing world and action over the long-term, a short-term developed country cut of 25-40% would give the global community a chance, but by no means a certainty, of avoiding catastrophic climate change. Unfortunately, at a time when our national leaders and most brilliant brains should be working out how to make short-term cuts even more aggressive than that range, they seem to be busy figuring out how to sell sub-par (and for many countries, sub-survival) ambition instead. Surely that’s the bigger tragedy here?
3. Negotiate in the open
Anyone familiar with the international climate negotiations knows too well that albeit with some notable exceptions, the large, publically accessible plenary meetings often turn into a sort of public theater or an exercise in forgone conclusions. By the time a particularly substantive or contentious issue comes up in a plenary meeting, most of the discussion and confrontation has already happened in smaller informal meetings closed to press and civil society, with the deals being struck in these closed-door informals and bilateral meetings and in phone calls bouncing between the negotiations and key players at home. Admittedly, there are sometimes very valid reasons to pursue small closed-door meetings: smaller group can work through difficult issues more quickly, a private setting allows for necessarily frank conversations, etc. However, in Copenhagen, a key opportunity was lost to use a more transparent and inclusive process, open to civil society observers and the media, to arrive at the final agreement language, and in so doing expose or prevent obstructionism by using the powerful presence of other nations, civil society, and press to keep parties accountable for their behavior. Whatever China did or didn’t do, they had the cover of a closed-door meeting in which to do it. Lynas argues that many civil society and environmental groups have missed the boat and misinterpreted the Copenhagen story. Having access to the conversation would surely help ensure we get it right next time—not only for our sakes, but for the sake of the process and the sake of the climate as well.
4. Climate negotiations are rarely just about climate change,
aka understanding and communicating national needs in cross-cultural contexts
Lynas rightly notes, “Above all, Obama needed to be able to demonstrate to the Senate that he could deliver China in any global climate regulation framework…” What about China? What did China need? I imagine China needed to assert its power and show it could stand up to the US, not dissimilar to the way in which the US needed to show its people it had stood up to China. I recognize that the US team likely felt blind-sided by China’s aggression in the second week of the climate talks, but I can’t help but wonder—up until that point, what, if anything, was the shared US-China strategy to ensure both countries got the public image they needed to help deliver the agreement the world needed? Was there a mutually choreographed scenario in which the US team would get to say domestically—however disingenuously—“Hey Senate! China’s taking more action because we told them to!” that would simultaneously allow China to say that it had shown itself a power to rival or exceed the US and had affirmed its rightful position on the world stage? If there was no such strategy…why not? And if there was…why did it fall apart?
So yes, China’s role in Copenhagen was hugely important, and China’s importance moving forward cannot be overstated. But please, let’s recognize that that observation alone does not absolve anyone else of responsibility for their role in Copenhagen or for their future actions. Obstructionism by China or no, frantic 11th-hour closed-door negotiations for a scientifically and legally inadequate deal drafted largely outside the agreed process was never likely to provide a feel-good conclusion for countries, much less the climate. So please, let’s get done with the finger-pointing, absorb the four (plus) bigger picture lessons here, and get on with building trust back into the negotiating process and using what precious little time we have left to work long and hard and in the open, on the basis of science and survival and legally binding commitments. And together, let’s take some action and get some satisfaction.
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hey meg – word on building trust and bringing negotiations out into the open / light of day.
but let’s also make sure we also do everything we can to bring this fight onto the streets, and to put the power back into the hands of people. this year has shown us more than ever that we might not be able to rely on the UNFCCC for anything, let alone everything. so let’s create situations in all of our home countries where COPs become more of a formality; where they are for ‘internationalizing’ all of the awesome domestic actions we’re already undertaking / forcing our governments to undertake.
your bigger picture lessons are immensely important, but lets not forget the biggest picture lesson of all: we have to make every possible effort to build this movement at home, and make our leaders here us loud and clear for the other 350 days of the year (great numerical coincidence). even with a fair, ambitious and legally binding treaty, we would need fair, ambitious and legally binding domestic action. lets make that happen and leave the rest to the talking heads.
Except for your fourth point, I don’t see how the other points would help in negotiating with a country that claims transparency is an intrusion on its sovereignty, which practically means you can forget about point 3 anyway.
But transparency is not an issue of “culture”, as you clearly agree with me with your point 3. It is simply the right way to do things.
So we then come one full circle and yet nowhere, you see now how difficult it can be?
Let’s separate transparency in terms of a country’s actions and emissions reductions (whatever transparency does or doesn’t mean– such a legally vague term) and transparency in negotiations. As for the former: China’s not the only country concerned that a global climate agreement would infringe on its sovereignty, just the loudest and most influential. The sovereignty issue is a timely and extremely interesting one, and the UNFCCC has yet to really address it. It’s all part of point 4–it’s rarely just about the climate. While transparency might be the “right way to do things,” it’s also completely understandable that some countries with relatively little power or protection for their interests in the current economic and political system would be reticent to do anything that could infringe on what little they have left…isn’t it? Whether China is one of those countries who need to pull the sovereignty card I’ll leave up to discussion.
Let’s face it, who else could the UK blame? Its closest ally or itself? This have the same complexity of behavior that’s you’d see in an 8 years old who just lost a video game match. China is the other side, so much jobs has been outsourced to China its easy to get the public emotion going by blaming that country, its simple politics. What we do know is Obama, without congress aproval, went into the talks knowing full well he has no capacity to make any commitment whatsoever, its simply impossible for him to sign any sort of legally binding deal to begin with.
Its very easy to judge who’s serious about the climate and who’s not by just looking at what each country does regardless of Copenhagen, the EU do not need China’s approval to make all the cuts and China do not need EU’s approval. What’s happening on the ground is China is leading and will dominate the renewable energy industry, already making a bulk of the world’s solar cells and wind turbines, and have intenal target of 45% reduction of carbon intensity. The EU too, from Spain to Germany already installed a sizeable amount of renewable energy and France’s main energy source is already nuclear. The only ones left behind when it comes to action are, ironically the US and the UK, both seem to be trying to make up their lack of action with a spam of words.
though the article u cite is a bit dramatic, china really did seem to act like jerks at this conference.
from andrew light’s article:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/12/showdown_copenhagen.html
“At the beginning of last week Chinese negotiators—who clearly knew about the possibility of this agreement from both the APEC meeting and Beijing summit—began decrying the idea as a surprise worked out behind closed doors. These protests over the Danish text continued into Wednesday of this week when Rasmussen assumed the role of president of the meeting—as is customary in advance of the arrival of other global leaders—with an entire morning of negotiating wasted with speeches from the floor from the Chinese and other parties that the Danish text (there were actually several versions of it) had been “parachuted” into the meeting.
After those events several parties in the know assured me that the Danish compromise was dead and that, at best, the meeting might go back to discussing the LCA text as a possible but very improbable move forward.
I think part of the Chinese objections to the Danish compromise was Kabuki theatre, just part of the atmospherics that commonly plague these meetings where parties rarely talk directly to each other but negotiate in large blocks. By and large China negotiates with the G-77.”
of course mr. light does feel the process is to be blamed, but many people involved with international law are feeling that the UN in general is a miserable place to get anything done, cuz, well, nothing gets done. corruption, or arcane procedural process? or a bit of both? i personally am not ahead of this learning curve, i’m better sorting out the bureaucratic mess holding us back on these shores than brokering with the world’s most corrupt/inept leaders…
speaking of which, y is it we apparently voted for president of the WORLD? is there no real leadership outside the US? y is that?
anyways, the “china excuse” i always thought had to do with our senators at home…u know, china won’t reduce emissions so y should we? some have explained china’s behavior by pointing out that they had nothing to lose…or gain. nothing was being offered to them to do anything. this is where our negotiators have to get serious, cuz while the US needs to do its fair share, we are not just handing out money to china, and they still need to do their share.
i mean, we can pay brazil for them to NOT burn down their rainforests, cuz we all use the rainforest for oxygen…but china is just as capable as we are, to using alternative energy to coal, and they can fund it too. no one should get incentive money for not polluting.
the comment about sovereignty–i don’t think any country can discuss infringement upon sovereignty–that’s a conservative right talking point brought up to downplay the importance of this agreement to the skeptic public, and continue to derail the legislation here at home in the US.
we have entered into all sorts of treaties, we do it all the time. treaties are law at the same level as our constitution. we should be more concerned that we follow them, u know, like not torturing people…oh, as abe said “Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws?”
If we don’t shame China over their destructive role in the climate talks the next effort will get nowhere. If China thinks they can get away with crippling emission controls behind the scenes and blame the failure on others then that is exactly what they will continue to do.
While not looking to belabor the blame game, you may find the following statements about the events on Friday December 18th from the governments of the US and China an interesting comparison.
China: http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/zxxx/t648096.htm
US: http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=574&topicId=25188&docId=l:1095618065&start=10
thanks Ellie Johnston, that were really interesting articles. a communist Chinese English version against a democratic American English version. Chinese English is easier to comprehend if you would agree.
the problem is that the developed countries have polluted environment since the industrial revolution. the emerging economies like India and china, only did for last few decades. so logically the developed countries should pay and assist developing countries in aid and technology. so the developing countries won’t have to go through their development path which is polluting the environment as those developed countries did for over hundred years.
however, developed countries have a lot of obligations like social welfare payments which developing countries have none of them, and with the financial crisis, in deed, developed countries have no money.
but what about technology aid? for too long, the developed countries use their media, shifting blame to others but themselves, like their own countrymen, it always blame their government.
it is time for developed countries do something. as of now, it is still largely the developed countries polluting the environment, so action, any decency from developed countries are needed.
thanks for this – i have been so dismayed at the amount of attention and play the anti-china counterspin has been getting. its also turned into a pretty obcene and racist “africa is a puppet of china” type analysis that is also shocking. perhaps its true that the “developing = good / developed = bad” binary is outmoded, but what has emerged instead is a shockingly naive lack of understanding of power and capacity. its true – you can’t wreck a wreck.
Joshua, thanks for raising the very important point that there’s a definite racist undertone to all the China-bashing going on right now. There are valid reasons to criticize China’s behavior in Copenhagen (though in my own opinion the US behaved even worse), and lots of people out there are confining their criticism of China to well thought-out and reasonable arguments. However, I can’t escape the feeling that much of the US population would be less quick in their “China-bashing” if we were talking about a country of white folks. Poland and Australia have also both presented roadblocks in international climate negotiations, but it’s hard to picture either of these countries triggering the kind of knee jerk bad-mouthing that we’ve been seeing over China lately. The US environmental movement has long had a poisonous element of classism and racism that needs to be rooted out (we’re making progress on this already, but need to go further). I say all this as a white guy environmentalist who’s proud of many, many accomplishments of the environmental movement; but obliterating racism from the climate dialogue is going to require getting an awareness of the racist element out in the open. People who criticize China (or any other developing country) in a well-reasoned and fair manner have every right to do so. But when the arguments start devolving into a racist rant against “those people” over in China, we need to jump in and call the perpetrators out on it.
I applaud China and India for defending their sovereignty against a tyrannical supranationalism premised on a scientific con job.
Contrats on VinceP1974 on completely missing the point of the discussion. The issue here for the US, China, and India is not whether global warming is real (all three countries are finally more-or-less in agreement with the scientific evidence confirming that it is), but rather who’s to blame for a global failure to address the problem.
I’m form China .When I see the heading of this article ,I feel glad to know that China id not bad in your minds.I just have one question.”Have you come to China?”