Hesitate No More, It’s Time to Lead

Posted on 06. Nov, 2009 by Ben Jervey in U.S.A.

The week wrapped up not with a bang, but with a whimper. Anyone hoping for measurable, significant progress head into the weekend disappointed. If there was any solace to be taken, it would maybe be that the delegates themselves seem to be getting impatient with the roadblock caused by U.S. inaction.

I wrote that at the end of Bangkok’s first week, but every bit of it still rings true today. While there were plenty of small dramas (many coming from back on Capitol Hill), US leadership was essentially missing-in-action this week.

Back in Washington on Wednesday, US Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern told a House committee that “The world is watching our legislative progress closely.” It was a relief to hear that he recognized that fact. “The more progress that’s made by the time of Copenhagen, the better off we will be,” he explained to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. “What we do or don’t do domestically is hugely important; it is, in a word, central to our credibility and our leverage.”

He couldn’t be more right.

Even with the flurry of activity on the Kerry-Boxer bill at the end of the week (after many-including myself-wrote it off as impossible before Copenhagen), it strikes me as far too dangerous to leave this any long to the whim and dysfunction of the US Senate. In our country, the legislative branch doesn’t decide foreign policy-the executive branch does. Ultimately, how the US approaches the talks is the State Department’s decision, not’s Congresses. We keep hearing that bringing an international agreement home risks creating another Kyoto-like situation. Obviously nobody wants that. But this is not 1997. The science is far more evolved, now entirely bulletproof. The public is certainly better informed, and the resources and will are available to organize a truly massive “ratification” campaign to support whatever treaty comes home (within reason). And there is a movement built. There weren’t 10,000 people marching on Washington or hundreds of local events in support of strong climate action ten years ago. This is not Kyoto.

The time for wavering is passed. The time to wait for Senate is passed. The best chance for a fair, ambitious, and binding deal to be achieved in Copenhagen is for Heads of State to now engage. Our President being the most important. Over 40 Heads of State have already committed to coming to Copenhagen. It would be both an international embarrassment and a grave diplomatic liability if President Obama stayed on the sidelines. (Or worse-crossed the Atlantic to receive the Nobel Prize and then stood up the talks a mere 100 miles away.) America has been a world leader in the past, and the time for America to lead again is now. The talks need it, the world needs it, and our country needs it. I shudder to think of a simmering future wraught by floods and droughts and spreading disease and massive migration, with the catastrophic blame falling squarely on the shoulders of the United States.

This is a future nobody wants. But it’s a future that our American leaders hold the key to avoiding. Mr. Obama, give your negotiators the numbers then need to work, and then tell the world you will see them in Copenhagen.

Tags: Bangkok, Barack Obama, Jonathan Pershing, Obama, UNFCCC