If Obama signs anything at Copenhagen it should be seen as a bonus

Giles Whittell: Analysis

Belching carbon but laden with good intentions, Air Force One will take off tomorrow night for Copenhagen on one of the most delicate and daunting missions of President Obama’s first year in office.
His tasks divide into essentials and desirables. He must be able to argue on his return that the trip was worth it, and he must resist committing America to emissions targets that prove impossible to enforce. Those are the essentials. He would like to be hailed as a world leader on climate change, and the signs are that he would also, on a personal level, like to do what he can to stop global warming. Those are the desirables.
In the Obama bubble American politics comes first and the state of the planet second. That is not how he or most of the 20,000 delegates would wish it, but it is his — and their — reality.
It is a truth that Britain recognises. The deal being brokered by the British delegation would accept Mr Obama’s pledge to cut US emissions by 17 per cent relative to 2005 levels even though it is much less ambitious than European targets, but it is about much more than numbers: it recognises that if the President cannot turn his undertakings into law they are worth nothing.

By committing the US at Kyoto in 1997 to a carbon reduction scheme to which the US Congress was opposed, Al Gore raised expectations that were then dashed when the Senate refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. The UN climate change talks have taken 12 years to recover.
Mr Obama may already be promising more than he can deliver. Three powerful senators — John Kerry, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman — have put their names to a proposal that could lead to a grand bargain between environmentalists and industry, and US participation in a global cap-and-trade scheme.
However, their proposal is not yet a Bill. When it becomes one, it will struggle mightily to win the 60 votes that it needs to pass.
A growing majority of Americans are sceptical about climate change science. An even larger number consider their floundering economy a far more urgent priority than atmospheric carbon levels, especially as they dig out of an historic snowstorm.
Mr Obama deserves credit for showing up in Copenhagen. If he signs anything, the world will have to regard it as a bonus.