UK pushing new global climate trade agreement

As the need for a new global climate change agreement gets ever more urgent, the British government is leading the way in trying to get countries together to replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012.

I spoke recently with the British ambassador to Washington, Sir Nigel Sheinwald (who was Tony Blair’s chief foreign policy adviser), about the UK’s global climate change strategy. (see photo with Florida Governor Charlie Crist during a recent visit to Miami).

I asked the ambassador to look forward to the upcoming Group of Eight meeting in Japan this July where climate change is going to be a major part of the discussions. He sounded optimistic that the stars are realigning in favor of a global agreement. Blair may no longer be prime minister, but he continues to play a key role in the overall UK strategy. He says the key is finding a way to bridge the gap between developed countries that have traditionally been the major greenhouse gas emitters, and the emerging economies such as China and India, which are growing fast and increasing their emissions. Sheinwald also argues that attitudes in the United States are changing, and he expects things will change even more after the November election.

 

The Fueling Station: How closer are we today to reaching a global climate change agreement?

Sheinwald: The issue is how do we get the United States and the rest of the world engaged and ready to agree a new climate change deal when Kyoto runs out in 2012. That’s the issue we’ve been struggling with now for a few years. This is an absolute priority for Gordon Brown’s government and we are unapologetic in making it one of the focal points of our foreign policy.

The Foreign Office has four policy priorities and objectives, and climate change is one of them. An increasing amount of our resources both human and financial are going to be placed in this during the years ahead, including in the United States. That’s because of the importance of the issue but also because we see it in the medium and long term very much an issue of international security, as well as in the short term as one of key international negotiations, where diplomacy, dealing with an absolutely central global issue, is very important. So, we have no apology for putting it center stage.

So, what is the task? To bring the United States, as well as China and India and the emerging economies which are increasingly major emitters in their own right, to bring them into a new global deal.

We have been talking about that for a while. Under Tony Blair’s premiership we invented this new international process called the ‘G8 plus 5’, pulling in China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico, into discussion of those issues, precisely because we knew that we wouldn’t get the United States back on board unless these other countries were willing to make parallel commitments to an international deal.

That’s what Tony Blair is doing in his position as a distinguished former prime minister. He’s working with something called the Climate Group, to mobilize international opinion on this ahead of the G8 meeting in Japan (July 7-9), and again next year – he’s going to doing this over a two year period.

For our government this is absolutely central. Attitudes in the United States are changing. At the business level, at the local level at the state level there’s been a transformation in recent times.

In this state, in Florida, the UK has been cooperating with the Governor. We signed an agreement between the UK and state of Florida, with Governor Crist last year. We have a similar agreement with California, and we will be signing agreements shortly with a couple of Mid Western states as well. We have a network of these understandings increasingly around the country.

The question is what happens at the national level. I think things there are on the move.
We haven’t agreed with president Bush’s initial decisions on Kyoto, but increasingly this administration has been getting closer to world mainstream on this subject, which is good. But of course it hasn’t got to the position that the European Union and the UK individually has taken.

Now what’s going to happen after the elections?
One thing we do know about the position of the next American president, whoever it is of the three people left in the race, is that they will have positions very similar to the European Union and other mainstream international opinion. All three support American leadership in this area. All three support an international cap and trade system.

So I think there are grounds for hope that the United States will want to be in the next negotiation seriously. President Bush has said he wants the United States to be in.

And our task is to bring China and India and the others in as well, with what we call common but differentiated commitments. We can’t expect them at their stage of development to take on precisely the same commitments as a country like the United States or the European economies. But they have to be brought into this as well, otherwise is won’t be sustainable economically and politically for the others.

But our belief is that we, the United States, the European Union, and the other developed countries, have to show leadership, have to take the first step. We can’t expect China and India to take all the pain themselves.

So that’s the broad balance we have to get. Exactly how is has to be done is going to be the subject of what I am sure will be a marathon negotiation in Copenhagen at the end of next year. (editors note: Copenhagen is the host of the next meeting of the United Nations framework convention on climate change which is the international forum which decided Kyoto ten years ago and which will decide the successor to Kyoto.) 

Our hope is the next administration will work with the next U.S. Congress in 2009 and really develop a forward United States position on this so that United States leadership can be restored in this area.

- David Adams