Is the Bush moving?

You may remember the play by Shakespeare and how the witches tell Macbeth that he will remain in power until the forest moves? He finds this prophecy very reassuring for his future, until he eventually discovers that it is true when Macduff's troops move, camouflaged with branches from cut the trees. Are we now witnessing the end of the climate sceptics when even "the Bush" seems to move?

A coalition of the un-willing?

Last week, George Bush called a climate summit in Washington composed of some of the countries that emit the most greenhouse gases in the world. Some of them have not signed the Kyoto-protocol - a sort of coalition for the unwilling, so to say.

On the one hand, it looks real when the U.S. president calls a climate meeting of his own and announces intentions to take action, but on the other it looks to be a way of disguising himself, rather than moving. The latter interpretation seems to have been adopted by many of the countries summoned since they were not represented by heads of state, but rather by lower levels of power. Even, considerably lower, Italy was represented by a government official with the rank of a "sous-Sherpa"!

It is good that the U.S. president has finally got the message that there is something strange happening to climate and that something has to be done about it. The organisation for decentralised energy, WADE, has taken note that Condoleezza Rice even mentioned decentralised power as an option in her speech, but most others have heard the president speak mostly about nuclear power. Probably without reflecting over how nuclear, if it should be the panacea for the global GHG-emissions, should be made available to, for example, Iran and North Korea.

A pledge that does not commit.

The main reason for the cold reception is probably that the U.S. alternative for climate actions, called “Pledge and Review”, P&R, is without binding targets. It basically means that you could cook up any programme you like, claim that it has effects and get away with it. No one is there to call their bluff, and no one has the power to enforce a change.  (See an example here that shows how weak the P&R-format is.)

Some claim that the P&R can be used for developing countries without huge emissions and without administrative capacity, but should not be used for the "supersized" emitters well above the world average.

For most of us, it is difficult to decode all the proposals that fly around in the discussions for the post-Kyoto agreement. There is help, however. The Pew Center has made a survey of different approaches that helps us to understand why some are preferred above others.

Missing the point

It seems quite obvious that Mr Bush is warming up, but he still misses the point. His message that every country should have the right to choose its own strategy is not contradictory to binding targets. Within such a target, there are huge opportunities for a choice. He also misses the point, so eloquently elaborated in the Stern review, that economies that embrace the need for change and do it early may benefit from the change itself. He is not alone in missing this point. The discussion about the Porter Hypothesis shows that quite a few still do.

The most cynical say that the processes now ongoing are just a way to cover the last part of Mr Bush's presidential period. According to The Economist, one observer said that: "It's better than a sharp stick in the eye."

But Mr Bush's predecessor, Clinton, looks to be of opposite disposition. Together with the governor of Florida and the energy utility there, he has announced support for a huge programme of solar power, 2.4 billion USD.

The bottom line is that it is time to move, and the time is now. We could check with another president, to add to the presidential authorities - the former Soviet, Mr. Gorbachev – “History will not forgive the one who is late!”