Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
2/6/2015
As world leaders prepare for the 21st Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Climate Change Conference being held in Paris in November, nations are watching the actions of the United States carefully, a panel of policy experts said at last week’s National Conference and Global Forum on Science, Policy and Environment. The COP21 meeting will bring world leaders together to develop a legally binding universal agreement on climate change wherein nations will announce their intended contributions to the efforts. “I think the President has shown enormous leadership on climate change in his second term and … other developed countries are going to judge the U.S. global effort and set their ambitions accordingly,” Nigel Purvis, president and CEO of Climate Advisors, said during the panel discussion.
Purvis said there are three things that the world needs to see from the United States going into the COP21 meeting. “They need us to reduce emissions at home and the President has to be given credit for laying out an ambitious plan that’s far more ambitious than any of his predecessors to actually reduce emissions from major sources,” he said. “The second thing the world needs from the United States is to help design and be part of an international system or regime and, again, I think the Obama administration deserves enormous credit for really figuring out a politically realistic system that would work not only for the United States but also for China and India,” Purvis said.
Where the United States is failing at this point, tough, Purvis said, is in assisting developing countries in reaching emissions reductions abroad. “Many of the low cost emissions and mitigation opportunities are in some of the poorest countries that don’t have capacity, nor the historic responsibility, for investing in climate change. So to truly lead, developed countries need to not just reduce emissions at home but they need to be partnering with developing countries to help finance low cost emission reductions in other countries,” he said.
U.S. Has Taken Notable Action
Last year’s U.S.-China agreement will prove paramount to negotiations in Paris, the panelists said. Under the deal, the United States has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions and China has vowed to peak its emissions by 2030. This is important, Purvis explained, because as developed countries are looking to the U.S. for guidance, developing countries are closely watching China. “Developing countries are looking at China, ranking themselves compared to China’s level of development and setting their ambitions. So the deal that President Obama cut with the Chinese not only shows that you’re in the new era where developed and developing countries can find common ground and both can take action but also is a benchmark that others will be using.”
Yet another important action by the United States leading up to COP21 will be the finalization of the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed carbon emissions standards for existing coal-fired power plants, Mindy Lubber, President of Ceres, a national coalition of investors, environmental organizations and other public interest groups, said during the discussion. The proposed regulation sets state-specific emissions reductions goals and requires states to develop action plans to meet those goals. The regulations are due to be finalized mid-summer. “One of the important things that can happen and must happen is these EPA regulations … have to be adopted by each of the states moving through and being adopted,” Lubber said. “There will be opposition. There will be litigation. The United States has to show clear and real action. We’ve done a lot. We’ve doubled fuel economy standards , there are many things this President has done, but I would argue over the next four, five, six months … we need to make sure those EPA regulations don’t get challenged and beaten up at the states.”
