Obama's Global Warming Pragmatism, Cont'd In Italy

Posted by Michael Scherer Wednesday, July 8, 2009 at 5:28 pm

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In the early hours of Wednesday morning, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked to define success in international global warming negotiations. "Well, look," Gibbs said, as he braced himself through a patch of rough turbulence on Air Force One, which was at the moment crossing Europe on its way to Rome. "I think in many ways success for us is going to be getting something through Congress and to his desk that puts in place a system, a market-based system that lessens the amount of greenhouses gases in the air. Look, that's going to be the true measure of things." It was a classic statement of Obama's governance style: Success was defined as passing a broad concept through Congress. The details, as in the exact rate of greenhouse gas reduction, did not matter as much.

Around the same time, Greenpeace activists in South Dakota were preparing to scale Mouth Rushmore to protest this very pragmatism that has so far characterized Obama's time in office. "America honors leaders, not politicians," read the banner, which ran the length of Abraham Lincoln's stone face after it was unfurled. By day's end, the Greenpeace Activists had been arrested, and President Obama had helped negotiate an agreement at the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy, that was very politic, all but embracing the leadership style that Greenpeace was condemning.

"[The G8 countries] pledged to confront the challenges of climate change and committed to seek an ambitious global agreement," explained Mike Froman, Obama's chief negotiator at the summit. "They agreed to join with other countries to achieve a 50 percent reduction in global emissions by 2050 and a goal of 80 percent reduction by developed countries by 2050." But there was a hitch. The 50 and 80 percent reductions did not all refer to the same starting number, as Todd Stern, Obama's special envoy for climate change went on to explain. "The language in the G8 declaration is that it's an 80 percent reduction from 1990 or later years," he said. In other words, nations would pick their own starting point. In the U.S., emissions have increased nearly 16 percent since 1990, so there is quite a bit of room to fudge. And even with the fungible details, China and India did not sign on to the statement.

For the Obama administration, the G8 statement was yet another incremental success, pushing forward on a difficult issue where there is no international consensus, and an untested consensus in the U.S. Senate. It was, for the White House, a success. For the same reasons, the Greenpeace rock climbers consider it a failure.