Red, Green, and Blue

[Originally published at ecopolitology] More than one hundred wind energy representatives are traveling to Washington D.C. this week for a special lobbying effort to push for a national renewable energy standard.  Industry representatives will hold over 70 meetings with lawmakers on Wednesday, March 10 in an event dubbed, “Wind Power on Capitol Hill”, to urge passage of a national renewable energy standard that will give the wind energy industry the kind of stable policy foundation for long-term industry growth.

At the state level, the renewable energy standard has become the preferred policy mechanism in the U.S. for spurring commercial-scale wind energy development, with states like California and Colorado showing that setting high requirements on renewable energy generation for investor owned utilities can be a significant driver in new facilities coming on line. Yet while most states have some sort of renewable energy standard on the books, the lack of a national standard means that a  handful of states are way behind the curve, having developed few renewable energy projects of any considerable scale.

“We need to drive demand in a stable, predictable way,” said Vic Abate, Vice President for Renewables, GE Energy, the largest supplier of wind turbines in the U.S. “For the jobs to grow the renewable electricity standard is critical.”

But, as Chris Madison points out at the American Wind Energy Association’s Into the Wind Blog, it won’t be smooth sailing for the wind industry on Capitol Hill this week. Madison writes: “Armed with a series of specious and superficial reports, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York—the home of GE and a state that is eight in total wind installations—has called on Congress to suspend any stimulus funds to companies that use foreign parts in their turbines.”

The report found that as much as 75% of clean energy grant money in the economic stimulus package passed in 2009 will not go to American companies.

In a letter to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Senators Charles E. Schumer of New York, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Jon Tester of Montana asked the secretary to put a ‘buy American’ provision on the clean energy grant program because it is doing very little to create jobs here–and now–in the U.S.

“We cannot sit idly by while China races to the forefront of clean energy production at the expense of U.S. manufacturing, U.S. jobs, and U.S. energy independence,” said Senator Sharred Brown (D-Ohio).

But both the wind energy and federal government are not taking the criticism lying down, rather, they are insisting that the renewable energy grant money creates the kind of long-term market infrastructure and industry stability that the renewables sector needs to take root in the U.S.

Denise Bode, CEO, American Wind Energy Association said, “A national RES will result not just in new installations, but also in new manufacturing. The RES is the most important buy-American policy we can do.”

And the feds are taking a similar position. “The Recovery Act has doubled the pace of investment in America’s wind industry — including helping attract more than $10 billion of foreign investment to create U.S. jobs,” Stephanie Mueller, news media secretary at the Energy Department, recently told the New York Times.

“Manufacturers are chomping at the bit to come to the U.S.,” said Donald Furman, Senior Vice President, Iberdrola Renewables. “And it would be a tragedy if this investment were to stop. The RES is the missing link.” Furman added that the discussion about the ‘buy American’ clause is having “a chilling effect on existing American jobs.”

What do you think? Should there be ‘buy American’ clauses in these clean energy grants or do you buy the argument that the long term result will be more wind industry jobs in the U.S. if there is no such requirement?

Tim Hurst is the former editor of Red, Green and Blue and current executive editor of LiveOAK Media. Follow him on twitter @ecopolitologist.

The Obama administration is struggling to follow through on promises with regard to health care and climate change because of a Republican party that seems to have no interest in constructive efforts to solve problems for the American people.  But the Republicans are not the only “Party of No” that will make it difficult for Obama to deliver on his promises.  Soon after he came to office, the President gave a speech to the National Academy of Sciences pledging to have an administration that supports and listens to science (something that was notably lacking during his predecessor’s term). The scientific community was very encouraged, but we also knew that many of Obama’s supporters are themselves highly selective in their support of science,  and so it would take some real courage to follow through on the pledge.  Nuclear power is the most prominent ”test case” underway, but there is a much less publicized ”politics vs science” test underway right now for the USDA.

The Question Before The USDA

The question is: will the USDA authorities allow a permit for Arborgen to conduct field tests including flowering for a GMO Eucalypus hybrid?  These are trees that have been genetically engineered to be tolerant enough to frost to someday become a new bioenergy and pulp crop for the Southeastern US.  The purpose of the test is to get real-world data on an important question: does this new crop have any potential to become an invasive species?  Invasiveness is a very real phenomenon, but what we already know about these trees suggests that invasiveness is very unlikely.

This particular hybrid is widely grown in Brazil and has shown no tendency to spread outside of the plantations on which it is grown.  This tree has also been modified so that it does not make pollen.  The hypothesis that this tree will be a well-behaved crop is quite reasonable, but in science you test your hypothesis.  That is what these field tests are intended to do – on a small scale (300 acres over 7 states) and with close monitoring.  If the trees show a tendency to spread, it would not be hard to get rid of them on this scale. The USDA is not being asked to make a final determination about whether to allow this to become a commercial crop, it is just being asked for permission to do the next logical scientific step.  The second public comment period on this question recently closed, so now it is up to the regulators to decide.

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In what some view as a harbinger of the difficult political task of relicensing the aging stock of 1970s era nuclear reactors nationwide, Vermont’s state Senate exercised its uniquely-held state relicensing authority to reject a plan to keep the Vermont Yankee plant open beyond 2012.

The vote came at a time of controversy for the plant itself, after recent concerns about tritium leaks have gone public and as activists, protestors and lawmakers expressed concerns over the plant’s safety. By contrast, the vote came just one week after President Obama announced the first $8 billion in an expected $50 billion of government-guaranteed loans for new nuclear reactors, a plan the White House said was essential to help meet America’s growing energy needs from sources that do not emit carbon dioxide.

The confluence of events has made the question of nuclear power’s future a hot political and media item throughout the northeast in recent weeks. The Boston Globe has been the battle ground for some partisans, as a nuclear advocacy group’s comments on the leaks were met with return fire in letters to the editor citing a history of deception and misleading comments as justifying continued concerns about nuclear safety.

The issue continues to divide the environmental movement, with some groups seeming to resign themselves to grudging acceptance of the president’s plan and the fact that nuclear power may be here to stay. The concession continues a trend that began with a considerable watering down of energy legislation in the House and the introduction of a proposed Senate bill that encourages expanded offshore drilling and investment in clean coal. Still, with $11 billion in 2009’s stimulus package directed to clean tech, some green groups and Democrats on the Hill were willing to make the compromise.

Others, however, continue to vehemently oppose the idea of expanding nulcear power (or even relicensing the existing stock) on several fronts: safety of plant operation, national security, proliferation risk, unsolved waste disposal issues, and now, the financial gamble of guaranteeing loans to an industry that has a history of cost overruns and project delays.

The financial battle will be one that President Obama will have to weigh in deciding how hard to push his loan proposal. After all, if he is in for $50 billion in new stock, does not that commit the White House to the battles over relicensure by the Nuclear Regulatory Council? It would be a difficult messaging move to propose $50 billion in taxpayer-funded loans and then not weigh in on free relicensure of existing nuclear capacity. Still, the political players on his staff, with a wary eye toward 2010’s mid-terms and the 2012 election will surely be loathe to get too involved in what are destined to be nasty, emotional, local political fights over relicensure.

Of course, all renewable power sources in play today (unless you include large-scale hydro, which most greens and the federal energy bills do not) require heavy subsidy to meet parity with conventional power. All proposals at the federal level (and all existing state RPS, feed-in tariffs, etc.) put the burden of subsidy on ratepayers with some kind of add-on to the utility bill.

The difference is that nuclear requires those subsidies up front, for the capital-intensive build out of new plants, as opposed to on the back end where subsidies equalize the cost of capturing sun, wind or water on projects that have already been developed by entrepreneurs, investors and utilities. Customers (also know as taxpayers) are going to pay the freight one way or the other. But, with capital loans, the risk of default is dramatically increased.

Still, even as opponents stake claim to a new line of attack on the finance side, safety concerns remain nuclear’s number one bugaboo. The tritium leaks at Vermont Yankee do not help, and with relicensures looming, more stories about more of those kinds of problems will inevitably emerge. It also does not help that while few Americans actually know the story of or understand the meaning of Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, those phrases have become bywords for a very vivid kind of catastrophic nuclear fallout.

Nuclear advocates are trying to change that perception. It will be a hard-won fight. If they can continue to attract hard-bitten greens with credibility in the movement that makes their most persuasive line of argument on safety a possibility. The argument goes that while there may be a small risk of a catastrophic meltdown event, that rationale assumes failure of the plant, its staff and regulatory oversight. While such an event would surely have tragic results, it would be mostly-local.

By contrast, climate science is nearing consensus on the fact that the use of GHG-emitting fuels like coal is globally cataclysmic in its very essence, when used properly as designed and planned. So, why should America write off any future for nuclear given the relatively small risk of major local damage, when the country is currently committed to a track that ensures worldwide harm? Another Globe letter layed out the framework for this variation of the Bush-Cheney “one-percent doctrine.”

It is an interesting argument to make. It is a tough one to sell. After all, these plants have to sit somewhere, and it will be difficult to find a local community where parents are willing to subject thier own childre to that risk – however small – in the name of the greater good. But, just like in the Revolution, the first shots in a major battle have come from New England, this time from the Green Mountain State. And, again, the repercussions will resonate all the way to Washington. But, who will emerge as the heroes? Only history will tell.

Eventually, Congress will get around to “Immigration Reform.”  The process will be all too predictable.  There will be a lot of huffing and puffing from angry old white men trying to conflate the issue with “National Security” and using “invasion” imagery and thinly veiled racism.  There will be lots of posturing about “getting control of our borders.”  Anyone who puts forward reasonable ideas will be subject to attack from the Right and Left. What will probably be missing from the discussion will be the perspective that in the not too distant future, we will need to be actively competing for immigrants.  We will need to shift from talking about how to limit immigration to how finding ways to encourage it.

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When Scott Brown’s Senate win in Massachusetts brought the forty-first vote against health care to the Republican caucus, Washington shifted its focus to other items that started high on the legislative agenda in 2009, but found their way to the back burner in the health care battle royale. A comprehensive energy reform and climate change bill climbed right to the top of the list.

After all, the House already passed the Waxman-Markey bill in 2009, and the Senate has its own promisingly tri-partisan gang of three (Democrat John Kerry, Republican Lindsey Graham and Independent Joe Liebermann) who seem to have the makings of a compromise bill. Now, as the White House makes it clear that the State of the Union will mark a shift in focus from deeply-detailed and controversial policy reform to bread-and-butter middle class issues (like daycare subsidies, student loan reform, and middle class tax relief), the path to Senate appproval of a climate and energy bill seems to lie in adoption of the same central principle that will drive the Obama SOTU message: JOBS!

Post-Copenhagen: Redefining Climate Progress

The jobs-first focus will inevitably push a lot of the more aggressive green tech/clean tech proposals to the side. To get a bill this year, Kerry and Graham are looking to a few trump cards that most people probably did not expect to see as the big beneficiaries of a climate change bill in this session: oil, coal and nuclear.

Their compromise bill – pitched by Graham not as a climate bill, but as a path to “energy independence” – would “provide subsidies to kick-start construction of nuclear power plants, encourage the development of technology that would bury carbon emissions created by the burning of coal, and promote offshore drilling,” according to a Boston Globe story.

How did these technologies – anything but new or green – get back on the agenda and get in line for huge government investment?

Three Words: Oil, Gas and JOBS

First, the ambitious green plays that led the Obama and Democratic agenda for a climate bill back in spring 2009 do not offer enough brisk stimulation to the economy, something that advocates of a climate bill will need to get the bill through this year. The legislative environment has been tough and bitterly-divided all year, but now – with the Massachusetts special Senate election still ringing in the perked-up ears of Democrats in vulnerable 2010 seats – even the Democratic caucus is likely to be more divided and less willing to take risky votes as an undivided whole.

Put simply, there are certain job gains to be had in established industries and with well-known companies in the more conventional fossil fuel programs. Green jobs have been – and remain, in large part – a centerpiece of the climate bill, and they hold a lot of promise for the future in even many conservative economists’ projections, but it is unclear exactly how many real and sustainable jobs those programs could create today.

The problem with going after a full-blown green bill is that 1) the technologies and companies are largely still research and development plays, and 2) too much of the the money that would be set aside for renewable energy would be eaten up by subsidies for the increase in costs for renewable energy, rather than going to coal, oil or nuke incentives, technologies and subsidies that would create jobs instantly.

Greens and Their Envy

Proponents argue that the research and development has to get underway to begin to address both the cost and capcity concerns around renewable energy conversion. Further, they add that there are plenty of nitty-gritty, not-overly-technical, still very green investments that would create immediate jobs and offer instant stimulus.

In other words, investments in places like utility efficiency programs and energy efficient retrofitting are the the equivalent of the famous “shovel-ready” projects, and would mean jobs and energy savings right now. No doubt, some money will still find its way to utilities and community-based organizations for smart grid programs and other efficiency programs, but much will be diverted to the fossil fuel projects.

Finally, as to the cost of green power, supporters of a progressive, comprehensive bill point out that the higher kWh price for green power is reflective of the true cost of a unit of energy, once cost to the environment, for clean-up and other externalities is included.

Can Compromise Appease?

It is hard to say how hardcore greens will react to this compromise. Groups like Greenpeace came out in opposition to a weakened House bill; but, as Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett noted on Meet the Press this Sunday, the White House is stepping back to take stock of its whole agenda, noting “it is the art of the possible.” Part of that calculation has obviously been the roll-out of less wonky policies and programs that will be more accessible to the disenchanted middle class voter, but will inevitably deliver less in pure policy power for industry insiders and hardcore greens.

Still, with that shift in focus by the White House and bipartisan leadership from Senate heavyweights like Kerry and Graham, Ms. Jarrett and her boss may find that as their art applies to energy and climate progress, possibilities are improving.

Flickr photo used under CCL, credit Ekey84

Fertility rates are declining around the world and most of what is written about this trend casts it in a positive light.  The cover story of last November’s Economist magazine carried the headline: “Falling Fertility – How the Population Problem is Solving Itself.”  It claimed that countries like China are enjoying a “demographic dividend” over the coming decades.  As positive as an end to human population increase might be for the planet, the question that is not getting much attention is, “what next?”  After population reaches an inflection point and begins to decline, what will society be like?  I won’t live to see this, but my grand daughter who was born last month certainly will.

My good friend John sent me a link to the IIASA website (International Institute for Applied System Analysis) where it is possible to download data from their models of global demographic trends (I’ve made some graphs of that data).  Most such models stop at 2050 but this one goes out to 2100.  If these models are correct, there are some major challenges ahead for humanity.  The most immediate is how to feed the population that will continue to increase until about 2060.  The next is how to deal with a population that is getting very old.  If you are an American, the trends in the following graphs should be seriously unsettling.  We have a dysfunctional, hyper-partisan-dominated, political establishment that is chronically unable to find reasonable solutions to the challenges of medical costs, Social Security insolvency or immigration reform, and yet addressing these very issues will become even more critical in the future pictured in these graphs.  

Fewer and Fewer Children

The first thing that strikes me (see graph above) is the declining proportion of children.  This global trend is well under way in the developed world and is only slightly less so in North America because of immigration.  I wonder at what point colleges will start competing for the few remaining students?

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Don’t look now, but true to the cliche, the Baby New Year that Greens first met with hope (maybe even “HOPE”) nearly a year ago is now a haggard old man shuffling for the exit. Looking back to January 2009, the baby looks increasingly childish for having harbored a genuine – if now decidedly naive – belief that “this is the year, and Copenhagen is the place” for global action on climate change.

Yesterday’s announced agreement should not have surprised any moderately-close observer, neither should its vagueness nor its weakness. COP-15 was doomed to failure months ago when it became clear that the US could not even get a serious comprehensive climate bill through to the president, in spite of liberal supermajorities in both chambers and a White House believed to have “soft power” to spare.

Still, fallout is difficult to assess prospectively. But, now that the thing is actually done, it is time to tally the political score. What does failure in Copenhagen mean for US diplomacy in the context of China’s ascendancy and in the overall context of geopolitics? How will the agreement that Obama spearheaded play out in domestic politics for the rest of this session and into the mid-terms? Here are a few possibilities.

Geopolitics

Carbon is not the Issue – Cash Is

Climategate cannot claim much credit for derailing Copenhagen, the cake was already baked. But, the controversy over climate change science is sure to rage on in 2010, in part reinvigorated by the emails from East Anglia. Still, even if that fight does escalate, it will be too meager to derail the push for “environmental justice” that came into full flower in Copenhagen. Developing nations may no bones about their need – indeed, their expectation – for the West to cough up cash. Further, in part driven by domestic political pressure to “act,” developed nations like the US are committed to ponying up.

End of an Era?

With the question of dollars at the center of the table, the world is preparing to transition from the geopolitical “post-9/11″ epoch into a new one: Eco Cold War. If developing countries are to be taken at their word, the effects of climate change promise to be as problematic for security and human rights as they are in pure climate change terms. Whether those come to pass in fact is irrelevant, with no solid global agreement on climate change, regional agreements will proliferate and help to forge significant 21st century partnerships that will a) supplant the pacts that have become outdated since their creation in the post-WWII scrum, and b) fill vacuums in significant regions that were left unstable – in part – by the Cold War machinations of receding empires.

Domestic

Obama’s Shrinking Tent

Watch closely as reaction to the Copenhagen agreement plays out to see which US green groups wish to stay in the White House’s good graces. Establishment greens like Greenpeace were already angry about Waxman-Markey, and some grassroots groups like Friends of the Earth have already come out with disapproval for the two-and-a-half page pact. NRDC has stayed by his side through thick and thin this year, along with some others, but try as the White House might, this is going to be tough to spin. Obama simply cannot beat the drum for an entire year touting the existential significance of meaningful climate action and then try to reel it back when efforts fail. It won’t fly, and if they try to keep making it soar, it will only attenuate the damage.

Big Trouble in 2010’s Mid-Terms

Without a doubt, President Obama and the Democrats would have liked for something more to have come from Copenhagen – and not just philosophically, but also politically. With this agreement, they may have struck the most discordant note possible. The base is not pleased with the results on the global stage, but the deal might still be enough for the GOP to make some bones with moderates around the country who are looking at over 10% unemployment and starting to wonder just why Obama and Congressional Dems seem so concerned with a few degrees Centigrade over the next century. Brown Dogs are duking it out over the Senate climate bill and you have to wonder whether – as elections come ever closer – that bill ever even makes it to the floor now. With the Democratic house badly-divided, it could mean big trouble for Dems and a big mid-term swing in both chambers.

Climategate’s Encore

Climategate is not going to stop the global momentum for action. Too much is at stake. And, yes, I’m talking dollars. But, if the GOP does regain some footing in 2010, and the global trend toward conservatism (as evidenced in the last round of European elections) continues, this conference and this agreement could be leveraged to motivate an offensive against climate action. Until now, skeptics have been content to continue with business-as-usual and allow fringers and talking heads to fight the “junk science” fight. But, Greens have seen the first signs of more proactive cohesion from the opposition in 2009’s climate fights. Conservatives are preparing the first concerted backlash – as a movement – against energy and environmental reform.

Waxman-Markey, the Senate climate fight and Copenhagen all failed in 2009, due to the continuing legacy of ignorance, inertia and in-fighting that have marked the past thirty years of the fitful progress for the green movement. But, if they thought 2009 was a tough year, watch what happens now that the other side is actually spoiling for a fight.

Photo credit

In this space last week, I wrote a column that I thought might draw the ire of some greens for its cynical outlook on Copenhagen. Instead, it drew a fair amount of attention from readers concerned that I had glossed over the significance of “Climategate.” Like that column, this one is not about Climategate in the broader sense, but about its impact on the goings-on this week in Denmark. And, as we look back at week one of COP-15, last week’s column looks to have been borne out in that context. Join me for this more complete review of the political freeze that has taken over the warming talks.

Climategate is Good as Gone…For Now – As expected, Climategate disappeared as fast as it rose to the top of Google’s search rankings. Worldwide, media reports are focusing on the very compelling, very well-packaged stories about climate change impact and emerging technologies that were in the can as this conference approached. The email controversy may well reemerge at the conclusion of the conference; and, as I noted in comments responding to reader comments to last week’s piece, Climategate may ultimately be seen as the sort of watershed moment that was needed to reignite some passion in this debate. But, at least in the world-within-the-world at Copenhagen this week, Climategate-stoked doubt about climate change is not the issue.

US Fizzles- After months of pressure and rhetoric in US politics, marked by doomsday scenarios that would befall the world should the US not have a climate change bill on the President’s desk before Copenhagen, the US delegation arrived with the following: an EPA declaration that was inevitable and had been dramatically undersold in favor of pushing for legislation; and, a December 10 announcement by a tri-partisan (including an independent) group of Senators, which purported to “outline the basics” for a domestic climate bill that might come to the floor in the spring. In a week when the President of the United States delivered what has to be the most impassioned defense of war in the history of Nobel Peace Prize acceptances, his delegation at the climate conference tried to claim leadership in a very tricky geopolitical negotiation after having failed to clear the relatively less complex partisan, political and special interest hurdles at home.

China Sizzles, But Where’s the Steak?- China is the Donald Trump of climate change action. Big promises, high-dollar investments. Big, big, big! 800 turbines in three gorges? Bring it on! Planting enough new trees to cover all of Norway? Why not! Just don’t ask them to cut emissions. First, it is not practical to do so, their growth makes it impossible. Second, they don’t have the money to pay for it (probably because it is all on loan to the US, but that is another column for another blog). And, the reports coming from state-controlled media do not offer much comfort. Long term, China looks like a promising green partner for the world. They are going to continue to develop clean energy technologies domestically and will continue to flood the global market with low-cost, Chinese-fabricated panels, blades and batteries.

Right now, the Chinese would be foolish to have fabricators sell those products to domestic buyers and capture the revenue in yuan when they could be sold overseas for more valuable dollars, Euros and pounds. Will they ever reach a tipping point where some of those items will stay in country instead of being produced exclusively for export? That tipping point appears to be approaching for jeans, TVs and other Chinese-made goods, but clean energy technology? Don’t hold your breath.

For signs of success in week two, watch the tail numbers of planes at Copenhagen Airport – It will be interesting to see who actually shows up in Copenhagen next week. We know President Obama is en route, but will the Russians, Chinese or Indians keep their dates to have heads of state make the trip to town? Probably. Will it move the needle? I doubt it.

In the end, the problem with Copenhagen cannot be solved by next week, no matter who is at the table. That problem can best be discerned in the verb tense most-often used in speeches, discussions and negotiations there: the future. For thirty-five years, the public (including skeptics) have been hearing about what WILL happen to the planet and about the technologies that WILL emerge to make clean energy affordable. The urgency has not come yet. The world is not ready. Let us hope that by the time we are, it is not too late.

President Obama outlines his administration’s economic accomplishments, hurdles it faces, and plans to overcome those hurdles today at the Brookings Institute. Among Obama’s economic plans are to continue to provide funds for small businesses – especially those that are creating jobs in energy efficiency, weatherization and clean energy manufacturing. Grab some popcorn, put your feet up and click play: (28 mins.)

In the week leading up to the Copenhagen climate change conference, skeptics and political opponents are seizing on the emails leaked from the Climate Research Unit in an attempt to short circuit global action on carbon emission reductions. Given that COP-15 is a conference that brings together lead CLIMATE NEGOTIATORS from around the world, it is unlikely that all this noise on the “climate change racket” will have a discernable impact on what kind of agreement emerges.

Alas, Copenhagen is destined for a spot near the top of the ever-lengthening 2009 squandered opportunities list, but it will not because of efforts by climate change deniers who have nary a seat at the negotiating table. Sure, opponents may be able to queer domestic adoption of any deal that comes out of Copenhagen, but that fact was never in doubt — even before Climategate.

So, why will a compromise deal inevitably emerge before the need to compromise is present? Why is it that even with the world’s most passionate climate change honks all together in one room, the world still will not agree on collective action that takes us much beyond Kyoto?

Answers are found in these three persistent, irresolvable conflicts among those parties that are at the table:

Green In-Fighting – Is clean coal legitimate or a lark? Should we subsidize solar? If we do, can Chinese-fabricated PV claim the cash? Questions like these continue to dog greens in US legislation.

When the House passes a climate bill that is opposed by Greenpeace, that is all the evidence one needs to illustrate the fissures that have deepened in the clean energy and conservation communities. With no consensus, the US never got the comprehensive climate change bill that everyone insisted was a necessary prerequisite to Copenhagen – IF President Obama wanted to claim a credible mantle of leadership.

Those divisions only broaden on the global scale. There remains very public disagreement on the growth and sharing of civil nuclear technology. Other differences informed by national interest will mark the discussions and hamstring any chance of adopting hard targets that are actually backed by unified global strategies on renewable generation.

Developed versus Developing – China and India have mouths to feed – more every day. And, increasingly, those traditionally agrarian, subsistence economies are not only becoming energy-intensive manufacturing and service economies, but their citizens are expecting a higher quality of life. To deny these growing economies the chance to blossom is both hypocritical of the West and unrealistic, since reducing emissions in Asia would stagnate Western economies that rely on consumption of goods produced there.

China, India and others also argue that the West owes a “debt of pollution” that should be paid not only by reducing their own emissions, but also by directing resources to fund developing world emission reduction efforts. Proposals call for aid to come in the form of cash and transfer of emergent technologies. An extension of either is really politically palatable on a large scale for the US.

At What Cost? - One of the more compelling storiesthat will inevitably emerge in the mainstream media from the Copenhagen conference is that of Maldives. The tiny nation – an archipelago barely above sea level – not only faces cataclysmic consequences if global warming persists, it faces the possibility of total annihalation in the next century. While nations have been conquered and carved up throughout history, changing names and changing shapes frequently even in the years since World War II, humankind has never had a sovereign nation wiped off of the map. For Maldives, the question of Copenhagen is: “at what cost do we delay bold action on climate change?”

Maldives may have a compelling story, but it will not have much influence in Copenhagen. Ultimately, whatever agreement emerges will be the work of large countries that are only beginning to feel the hurt of climate change. Rich Western nations, emerging industrial countries in the former Eastern Bloc and Africa, and booming economies throughout Asia. If one of these countries were looking at climate change impacts manifest so vividly, there might be movement; but, for now, they are left to ponder ”at what cost to growth and consumer prices can we justify bold action on climate change?”

Not Enough ‘Energy’ in the ‘Environment’

“Climategate” will fade from the front pages — the emails won’t mean much once COP-15 gets underway. And, knowing that they are going home to face certain opposition from some factions anyway, you might think that delegates would show up in Copenhagen prepared to do something splashy. Especially given that much of the action needed will be undertaken at the national level, the more progressive states should be pushing for an agreement that will give them good aspirational benchmarking for domestic legislation, even if they know it cannot get ratified back home by some other attendees.

But, neither Western European noblesse oblige nor US self-interest (take your pick: green jobs, national security, environment) will be enough to overcome the competing interests that will confound consensus even among the climate change evangelists assembled in Copenhagen. And, from uncertainty follows inertia. It is not a hopeful holiday sentiment, but it is a realistic one. And, without some action soon, Christmas may not come to Maldives at all.