Dawn of the Energy Climate Era

While the negotiations going on this week in Poland often seem plodding and diffuse, when one considers the magnitude of exactly what is happening, they are an exciting moment in history.

After World War II, the victors created a set of institutions (United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund) and treaties (United Nations Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights) that collectively defined the world order for the ensuing 60 years.

As Fareed Zakaria said (audio) in his talk earlier this year at The Commonwealth Club, those institutions are ill-equipped to deal with the challenge of climate change. And, as the carbon muscles of India and China illustrate, the industrialized West will not get to dictate terms this time around.

Next year, developed and developing countries will negotiate a new treaty on climate change that will impact every person, industry and organization in ways that we are just starting to comprehend. That treaty will rank up there with the pillars of the post-war era and its implementation will be accompanied by the creation of new international structures that don't even exist now. In 20 years they will be household names. Thomas Friedman is calling this new chapter the Energy-Climate Era.

The centerpiece agreement of this carbon-conscious era could be built on several architectures, says Rob Stavins, co-director of the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements.

1) It could be centralized under one mega-treaty with a set of targets and timetables for each signatory country to reduce carbon in the atmosphere;
2) It could consist of harmonized national policies, which could include a portfolio of various treaties or a system of national taxes.

Whichever emerges, it is going to be a very busy year in 2009. While the Obama administration re-engages the international negotiations, there will be a flurry of activity in Congress on domestic legislation to create some kind of cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions. Lorrie Schmidt, a Congressional staffer , says, “Congress and the executive [branch] will go in parallel; neither will get too far ahead of the other.” With good reason. During the Kyoto talks in the 1990s, the Clinton administration negotiated a deal without sufficiently including Congress. The treaty was dead on arrival at the U.S. Senate.

This time around, Congress will be much more involved, as demonstrated by the bi-partisan staffers here representing chairs of key committees such as House Energy and Commerce (Waxman), Senate Environment and Public Works (Boxer), and Foreign Relations (Kerry).

Can the United States approve a cap-and-trade law before the international treaty negotiations next December in Copenhagen? That will be a stretch, to say the least, given the complexity of measuring, trading and verifying an entirely new market and political opposition in some states. One possibility is for the U.S. Congress to approve a set of principles next fall that empower the U.S. negotiating team to cut a deal that can get through the Senate.

However they do it, they need to get it right. A lot is at stake. As Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says. “This is our defining moment.”

Post from Poznan

The first thing I noticed upon arrival in Poznan, Poland, for the United Nations Climate Summit was the acrid smell of coal in the air. Coal, among the dirtiest of fossil fuels, accounts for 95 percent of Poland's electricity and the hazy skies here evoke sooty images from a Dickens novel. This heavily industrialized part of central Europe is so polluted it is called the Black Triangle.

One of Europe's largest coal mines is just a few miles down the road, and there is a smokestack right across the street from the sprawling Soviet-era conference center. That's a fitting reminder for the 11,000 people who are gathered to discuss pathways to a low carbon global economy.

If the dreary setting, and the massive magnitude of the climate challenge, were not enough, the UN conference opened as the global economic crisis continues to deepen. "The bottom line is we are not going to be in the position we were two years ago" to provide technology and financial resources to tackle climate change, U.S. Senator John Kerry said in the United States before the conference opened here December 1st. Kerry is head of the US Congressional delegation arriving here next week and chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, which will consider the treaty expected to emerge at the next annual summit in Copenhagen next December.

Despite the dark horizons and modest expectations of this year's gathering, there are bright spots. A briefing by the World Resources Institute, a Washington think tank, noted that much of China's $586 billion economic stimulus package is geared toward improving energy infrastructure and efficiency. China realizes that juicing the economy can be done while making smart investments in a new generation of energy infrastructure and efficiency. Other countries are seeing the same double play and the amount of capital being pumped into alternative energies and sustainable economic development is now many times greater than it ever has been.

Still, much more needs to be done. There is a broad international consensus on that. How much more? Some energy advocates and NASA's climate pioneer James Hansen say the end goal should be an atmosphereic carbon concentration of 350 parts per million. Others say 450 ppm is the number that will avoid catastrophic disruptions in our climate and way of life.

Many companies and politicians don't want to commit to a specific target. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development, a London-based association of corporate titans such as Dupont, IBM, and mining giant Rio Tinto, dodges the sensitive question of a hard figure. But it does say significant cuts are necessary. "The current economic crisis reinforces business interests in a clear, comprehensive framework" for cutting carbon emissions after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, council member George Weyerhaeuser, Jr., told the conference.

What will the new global climate deal be? That won't be known until next December, but if it has any hope of solving the climate crisis it must dramatically cut emissions from coal plants such as the ones that power (and choke) this town. Poland's prime minister, Donald Tusk, says he supports fighting climate change, like just about every politician these days. And like nearly every politician, he thinks his constituents should get a special break, arguing Poland should be exempt from European Union plans to curb carbon emissions. Multiply that attitude by 160 participating countries and one begins to gauge the enormity of what must happen. Fast.

Greg Dalton, Commonwealth Club vice president and head of its ClimateOne program, is attending climate talks in Poznan, Poland.

Michael Crichton, 1942-2008

Author Michael Crichton passed away on Tuesday, dying of cancer at the age of 66.

Best known for his science fiction novels such as Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain, and Congo, Crichton was also a film and television creator/writer/director, having given the world the blockbuster medical drama "ER" and having written and directed 1973's Westworld. And if his writing wasn't necessarily great art, Crichton's writing in the worlds of science fact and science fiction were immensely popular, with his books selling a mind-boggling 150 million copies around the world.

Crichton's biggest professional success might have been that he was not categorized as a science fiction writer, despite the fact that he wrote about robotic societies, dinosaurs brought back to life, and communication with intelligent gorillas. A traditional definition of science fiction is a story extrapolating the effects of some scientific advance. (There's a never-ending dispute, of course, between purists who stick to that definition and others who want to include under the science fiction banner everything from a space fantasy such as Star Wars to magical fantasies such as Harry Potter. We'll spare you that discussion.)

Crichton, despite escaping the definition of a science fiction writer, stuck pretty close to the traditional definition of SF, producing stories exploring how people reacted individually and en masse to scientific developments. He certainly wasn't correct all the time in his predictions, but his career suggested a serious attempt to meet head-on the challenges that come about from our scientific progress (and occasional scientific transgressions).

In a famous speech delivered to The Commonwealth Club on September 15, 2003, Crichton attacked climate-change theorists as adherents of a new religion. (Read the entire speech.) Delivered as a defense of sound science and a critique of emotion-fueled pseudo-science, his speech has long been a milestone in the debate between people worried about the effects of man-made climate change and people who questioned the assumptions behind the other group's claims.

Crichton is survived by his wife and other family members.

Complete Video: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Climate Change, Finance Crisis

Above, courtesy of our video partners at Fora.tv, is the complete video of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's sold-out speech to The Commonwealth Club. He spoke on the anniversary of AB32, the state's landmark global-warming legislation, and in a wide-ranging Q&A with Club Vice President Greg Dalton he discusses the global financial crisis, dealing with Detroit, his expectations for the next president, and much more.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Global Warming

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tells The Commonwealth Club that people need to take a serious look at the global warming problem.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Tells Club Credit Crisis Can't Stop Climate Change Initiatives

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger told a Commonwealth Club audience this afternoon that budget battles and financial crises should not be used as excuses to back away from the leadership position the state has taken to reduce greenhouse gases.

Touching on some of the hot-button issues of the day, he also promised to uphold his pledge to resist oil drilling off the coast of California. Part of the solution, he said, would be better, more fuel-efficient cars from Detroit. Schwarzenegger said Detroit complains about his moves to get a federal exemption that would allow California (as in years past) to set its own fuel economy standards; he recommended that the rest of the country adopt California's higher standards and that Detroit stop complaining and begin innovating and rolling out alternative energy cars.

Speaking on the second anniversary of AB32, California's landmark Global Warming Solutions Act, the Republican governor told a packed audience of more than 500 people that the state has benefited greatly -- and will continue to do so -- from investment in green technologies. He praised the bipartisan state leaders who created the bill, and he said his administration will continue to focus on areas ranging from cleaning up its shipping ports to building the hydrogen highway.

In a wide-ranging audience question-and-answer period moderated by Club Vice President Greg Dalton, Schwarzenegger responded to the ongoing talks in Washington, D.C., aimed at crafting a large-scale government intervention into the markets to try to calm worldwide credit and investment markets. The governor offered his support for government intervention in cases where the markets have failed, but he urged that the government "not try to pick the winners" when it invests money or tries to direct economic development.

Keep visiting this Commonwealth Club blog for more reports from the governor's speech, press reaction, and photos and videos.