"We want to launch a process that is open and does not predetermine or preclude options."
This innocuous phrase represents the key fault line here in Bali - symbolising an ongoing tussle between the Europeans and North Americans.
It represents US willingness to talk about a deal, but only if concrete numbers are stripped out of the Bali declaration.
At their press conference a few minutes ago, the Americans again made it clear that their bottom line hasn't changed. Start negotiating and hope to finish by 2009, sure, but keep the agenda for those negotiations as open as possible.
And the US team was also unambiguous about what it would, and would not, be prepared to offer in those forthcoming negotiations. A global goal for 2050 would be fine, but anything specific for the short term should be left to countries to negotiate at a national level.
The US is proud of its record on combating climate change. Its emissions may be well above 1990 levels (the benchmark for the Kyoto protocol which it signed, but didn't ratify), but they fell last year.
That was largely down to mild weather and high oil prices, of course, but it is helping the US meet its primary target - not to cut emissions, but to have them grow more slowly than its economy (its goal is to reduce greenhouse gas intensity by 18% by 2012).
We reported yesterday Harlan Watson's criticism of the target of cutting emissions 25-40% from 1990 levels by 2020. The IPCC findings were based on too few studies, he suggested (more discussion of this here).
This is clearly becoming a United States talking point. Paula Dobriansky tried it out today, but seemed not to have grasped the detail. Her attempts to question the IPCC findings on mitigation pathways thus ran into the sand.
(Let's be clear, the US is only criticising this one part of the of the IPCC report - not the rest of its findings on the likely consequence of manmade climate change.)
Here's a verbatim transcript:
[quote]One of the issues here is...If you look at what came out of the IPCC report, I believe there were some six sectors and some 177...actually... [Dobriansky is prompted] Sorry? Scenarios thank you. On this, there needs to be some discussion here. In that sense, different countries are looking at: how does this have ramifications for them.[/quote]
Usually, as is conventional, I clean up recorded speech, but this is one of those quotes that cannot really be edited. Here, though, is what she meant to say. Harlan Watson's words from earlier in the week:
[quote]I want to remind you that 25-40% figure came out of the IPCC third assessment report, working group 3.
That analysis involved six scenarios out of 177 that were examined. It is a small subset. Many uncertainties are surrounding that and, obviously, there's going to need to be a lot of analysis done over the course of the negotiations.
To start with a predetermined answer is not an appropriate thing to do.[/quote]
Speaking soon after, Ban Ki-Moon defended the robust nature of scientific guidance on pathways for reducing greenhouse gases. The IPCC's guidance should be listened to, he insisted.
But his position on the Bali roadmap was hard to read. Take this comment:
[quote]It may be too ambitious if delegations expect to be able to agree on a target of greenhouse gas emissions reduction [in Bali] - but some way down the road, we have to agree on that.[/quote]
I expect some journalists will get an eye-catching headline out of this: Ban-Ki Moon says forget 25-40% at Bali. I'm not convinced that's what the SG meant to imply. I think he was probably saying that binding targets for countries weren't on the table; not that the broad 25-40% goal for 2020 should be dumped. The ambiguity was definitely there, however.
From Ban, it would have been interesting to hear some specifics about whether he plans to involve heads of state in tackling climate change on an ongoing basis. He convened a high level meeting for leaders last September, but I wonder what comes next.
I would be gob smacked if we don't get some kind of agreement to launch negotiations coming out of the Bali. But whether or not the 25-40% target is included in the Bali text, the fight over this ‘guideline' figure is instructive.
Let's simplify dramatically. Post-Bali, the negotiations on emissions need to go through two stages, before the 2009 deadline. First, what should total emissions be on a global basis? Second, who gets what share of the available (emissions) cake.
The first of these negotiations will be extraordinarily difficult. The second one will trend towards the impossible the smaller the cake that is on offer. Bali's bitter rows make that abundantly clear.
That's where the SG and his access to leaders comes in. Environment ministers are never going to be able to do this deal on their own. The G8 brings the big guns in, but only covers a few countries.
Ban can reach out much more widely. How exactly does he plan to continue doing that, I wonder, as he pursues a miracle between now and 2009?