Obama's Copenhagen stopover

The US president's cameo appearance at Copenhagen's climate summit might make more of an impact than his critics realise

Kate Sheppard
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 26 November 2009 14.00 GMT
The White House has announced that Barack Obama will travel to Copenhagen for the beginning of the UN summit on climate change next month. Obama will make an appearance at the negotiations on 9 December, a pit stop en route to pick up his Nobel prize in Oslo the following day. There, he plans to tell delegates that the US will commit to cutting emissions to 17% below 2005 levels by 2020.
The move that comes after months of lobbying on the part of citizens concerned that global warming has not gotten due attention. And while many are cheering his decision to attend the summit, the development should be put in its appropriate context. Obama is not planning to return for the end of the summit, which runs until 18 December. That's when approximately 65 other heads of state and government are expected to attend. He's coming early, a visit that will be more geared at setting the tone of the summit rather than sealing a deal at its conclusion – an important distinction.
This shouldn't be seen as a problem; it was already clear that there's not going to be a final treaty in Copenhagen, so the presence of heads of state is not quite as important as once hoped. The real work is still to be done by negotiators, who spend those two weeks in December hashing out the litany of specifics that must still be hashed. If Obama were to show up at the end it would merely be symbolic anyway.
Though it would be nice to see him there alongside other world leaders, his presence would not change the outcome. So while groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, the most aggressive of the United States environmental organisations, are basically calling Obama out for treating the summit like a photo-op, that would probably be more true if he showed up at the end to shake hands and pose with other leaders, declaring victory over a non-binding political agreement.
Appearing later – when it wouldn't influence the conversation one way or another – might only lead to a repeat of October's Olympics debacle, wherein Obama showed up in the very same city to much fanfare. His presence didn't change the outcome, and only created bad press. Remember the conservative glee at that failure?
Instead, he is showing up early to set the tone and, for the first time, putting a solid target on the table for emissions cuts. Obama will promise that the US will commit to cutting emissions "in the range of 17% below 2005 levels by 2020," according to a White House official. His presence demonstrates high-level engagement on the issue in the US (even if he should be doing more), and perhaps even shows a desire to go on and earn that Nobel he'll receive the following day.
Let us not underestimate the influence of a real commitment on near-term emissions cuts – a commitment for 2020 that, for the first time, involves actual numbers. That alone is expected to help move the climate talks along. Of course, the 17% figure is not nearly as high as the reductions called for by the European Union, Japan, developing nations, and basically everyone else in the world. It's far from the 25%-40% below 1990 levels that many science and other world leaders acknowledge is necessary. But the hope is that if the US puts out real figures, other key players like China and India will also start talking in real numbers.
And it looks like it might have already prompted that. Today, the Chinese government made an announcement about its ambitious climate policy and action plan (China plans to slow emissions growth by up to 45%). Of course, it was a big deal back in September that China was even willing to talk about specific climate goals. Their announcement will likely be another major development for both the country and international negotiations – and the announcement helps that along.