Cancun Climate Talks and U.S. Position

It turns out at the end of this November there will be climate change talks among the U.S. and many other industrialized nations.  The topics will of course be how the world should deal with carbon dioxide emissions.  The U.S. of course will be there, but it appears that now with the Republicans taking control after this past mid-term election, the ability of the President to push through anything substantive to show the world the U.S. is truly serious about climate change issues may be quite hampered.  The ability of the U.S. to do a whole lot in the realm of climate change and reducing carbon dioxide emissions has been hampered because of the political differences on the issue the Obama Administration has with the Republican controlled House of Representatives.

As a result, what is likely to happen in terms of passing legislation to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is for the administration to "negotiate an agreement with major utilities to lower their emissions, emulating a similar pact with automakers last year." As a result, what is likely to happen in terms of for the Obama Administration is that they will "negotiate an agreement with major utilities to lower their emissions, emulating a similar pact with automakers last year." Furthermore, given the realities in terms of getting legislation passed in the U.S. to deal with climate change and the difficulty of getting international agreements enforced, there is not likely to be a "grand global deal" at Cancun, "but rather a series of small agreements on how to pay for measures such as reducing deforestation or how to help poor countries adapt to a warming climate."

Consequently, the Obama Administration is likely not going to get a climate bill through the Congress given the political realities.  Nevertheless, it appears that some small, albeit good measures can come out of the Cancun conference at the end of November such as reducing deforestation.  That is significant given that deforestation removes forests which act as a carbon sink and take excess carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, which is clearly necessary to solve the problem of climate change.  The fact that the Obama administration is attempting to negotiate with major utility companies to lower emissions is a good step, but certainly not as helpful if congress enacts legislation for this endeavor, but sometimes the President has to take what he can get given the political realities.  If the only thing that can happen is small, incremental steps for the U.S. to reduce carbon dioxide emissions with negotiating with major utilities or with a small international agreement to reduce deforestation, those are small steps that would be welcome in dealing with climate change.

Photo Credit: Flickr