Confusion and Anxiety Over Climate Change Negotiations

Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council and co-chair of the AFL-CIO Energy Task Force, sends us this report from the climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, where 40 U.S. union members are part of a 400-member global union movement delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). Read our previous blogs on the climate change talks here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Confusion, anxiety and despair have taken hold over the past few days here in Copenhagen as posturing continued and debates about process reigned over substance. One of the few bright spots was our ongoing fight to keep just transition language in the agreement.

After meeting with the U.S. negotiator who accepted our suggestions on new language, our attempt to get Argentina to promote the compromise failed only to have a new version show up in the next draft. That survived until India objected to the language. Then, we are told, Argentinean delegates approached the Indian delegation and said they wanted the language kept in and India agreed. We’ll see what happens when the next draft comes out.

If only it was as easy to reach agreement on other issues as it has been on our just transition language. No kidding. There are many critical issues on the table that should have been resolved before now.

When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton addressed the summit this week, she said the United States would participate in a $100 billion a year fund by 2020 to help the poorest, most vulnerable developing countries. This was a much welcomed message and other nations have stepped up as well. She did however say it was contingent upon those nations also agreeing to meaningful mitigation efforts and reinforced the need for transparency..        

Clinton closed her speech by quoting form a Chinese proverb, which says:

When you are in a common boat, you have to cross the river peacefully together. 

She urged delegates to take a constructive and creative approach toward a workable solution and said “we need to void negotiating approaches that undermine rather than advance progress toward our objective.”

Following her speech, Clinton lived up to her words with back-to-back meetings with key developing and developed nations. She and others are back at the negotiating table with the clock ticking. When the more than 117 heads of state meet at the end of this week, the betting is they did not come to Copenhagen to declare defeat. The challenge is to see what they will achieve.

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