The signs are that expectations for the Copenhagen climate conference are being seriously downgraded. There is so much disagreement still, and so much uncertainty about when and whether the USA will make substantial commitments, that a binding global deal at COP15 seems out of the question.

The summit is being redefined as a way-station en route to a proper binding deal with targets and funding attached, sometime next year or 2011.

The evidence and modelling of climate change indicate the great urgency of action now to enable GHG emissions to peak in the coming decade. If not, we risk very major climate disruption and mounting costs at best, and calamitous disruption to economies and societies at worst.

The main barrier to a deal has been the USA, for many years now.

Why has the USA been such a block and drag on the process of taking meaningful action to avert climate dangers? One obvious reason is the massive dependence of the economy on fossil fuels, and the presence of many vested interests in oil-propelled business as usual. But there are other factors, constitutional and electoral.

The USA was designed by proponents of ’small government’, determined to avoid over-mighty executive agency and to put in place checks and balances to prevent emergence of any authoritarian power. This system could well be dysfunctional in dealing with challenges on the scale of climate change and low-carbon transition.

To a large extent, the fate of ecologically viable civilisation now could hinge on the workings of the US Constitution and the ability of US legislators to rise above the vociferous and often fiercely irrational lobbying from vested interests and right-wing media.

There are grounds for real alarm:

1) The Constitution was designed by C18th century liberal federalists to hinder ‘big government’ and makes the passage of radical nationwide changes in law extremely hard. American legislators and Presidents have been trying to pass healthcare reforms for a century and are still floundering. The New Deal of the 1930s was the exception that proves the rule, but that faced vicious opposition and got through only because the economy and employment had collapsed and the US was in deep crisis.

If we take the view that climate disruption demands coherent and radical action led by states – ie it is a Big Government task – then the last country you’d want to rely on to take the lead is the USA. The evidence is that the USA can only rise to this kind of challenge and overcome its own legislative self-hindering if crisis is completely unignorable. Yet if we wait for that in relation to climate, the chances are that it will be too late for meaningful action.

2) The US polity is now split very evenly between Right and Centre/ Centre-Left on a national and (in many cases state and local) basis. So competition for marginal votes becomes very strong. Many of these are on the Right, and over decades the Right has developed a formidable mass media machine.

Hence the utterly disproportionate influence wielded by far-right radio voices such as Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck, who would attract perhaps 10% of the vote, if that, but who can make fearful Republican politicians dance to their tune.

There is a risk that Obama has just a year left to get his health and climate laws passed, because he could lose the House to the Republicans in the atmosphere of ‘culture war’  created by the talk show hosts and Fox News etc.

There are grounds for hope for more enlightened self-interest, rationality, civic virtue and less extremism in US politics. First, the demographics of the USA mean that the Right cannot hope over the medium to long term to win with the extreme, confrontational agenda it now advances, and probably someone like Sarah Palin could not win even if Obama is fatally undermined in the next few years. Second, federal failure on climate policy in the medium and long run is probably ruled out, as so many US cities and states and corporations will be pressing for action and taking steps unilaterally, as they did under Bush. Third, Obama’s political capital and clout are very far from being exhausted, and even the Republicans in their present desperate state are capable of some bipartisanship and good sense.

 

I expect there will be a Climate Act in 2010 – wholly inadequate in the near term, but a lot better than nothing, and maybe enough to help secure a belated post-Copenhagen deal.