The past week has marked Barack Obama’s first State of the Union address, where the president traditionally outlines his agenda and priorities for the coming year, as well as reporting on the condition of the United States. As far as climate change is concerned, Obama seems to be continuing the approach we have seen him taking in the past months – while it is probably important to him, there are apparently many other issues that are more pressing and deserve a larger share of his attention.

In fact, he did not even mention climate change per se, other than referring to the (energy and) climate bill that was passed in the House over the summer, and even that, only as it relates to clean energy. Clean energy by the way – as far as Obama is concerned – is apparently nuclear (Obama’s proposed budget for 2011, to be sent to Congress on Monday, contains a tripling of government loan guarantees for nuclear power), offshore oil and gas, biofuels and clean coal. There was no mention of solar nor of wind, and the word ‘renewable’ was never used throughout the 71 minutes speech.

Once again, Obama skirts around the issue of climate change, referring only to clean energy, energy security and jobs. High speed rail is not a matter of moving away from dirty fuels used in planes and cars, but rather a way to create jobs. And it does not seem to take higher priority than building new highways. Apparently the Recovery Act should be enough to prevent “Europe or China [from] hav[ing] the fastest trains” (it’s not), as there was no mention of continuing investing in rail infrastructure beyond the one off investment in the Act.

Obama continues not to show strong leadership when it comes to climate change. He says he is grateful to the House for passing its bill last summer and that he is eager to help advance the bipartisan effort in the Senate, yet he does not mention what he would like to see in such a bill, he does not use this rare platform to move the discussion forward.

This was not the case in other issues – he used the SOTU to give quite a talking to to Republicans, especially in the Senate, for being continually obstructive and for focusing only on the next election rather than on governing the country. He made a gentle veto threat “if the [financial reform] bill that ends up on my desk does not meet the test of real reform”. Why then didn’t Obama even mention what a good climate bill should contain in his opinion? Why is there no mention of cap-and-trade or some other mechanism to reduce carbon emissions? Pandering to wavering Democrats and potential Republican allies is all very well, but what about showing the way? What about using this opportunity to outline his plans and his vision, as he has done with financial reform or Afghanistan?

Already, in the aftermath of the SOTU, business leaders such as Tom Donahue, President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a well known antagonist to the House climate bill, and John Rice, a vice chairman of General Electric Co. pointed to the fact that America has a lot on its plate, and therefore a cap and trade bill is not likely to be passed in the coming year.

This is how momentum is brought to a halt…

It started the previous Friday, when President Obama paid a visit to MIT and gave a speech on clean energy and climate change. Without going into policy details, Obama emphasized the innovation needed to respond to the climate challenge (which was very appropriate to the location) and reminded how such innovation is part of what helped shape the United States and how it can place the US back in a leadership position. He also attacked those who appose any attempts to move towards a low carbon economy, saying that “There are those who will suggest that moving toward clean energy will destroy our economy — when it’s the system we currently have that endangers our prosperity and prevents us from creating millions of new jobs.”

As if to prove that last point about creating new jobs, Vice President Biden went to Delaware on Tuesday to announce the reopening of a former General Motors factory by Fisker Automotive. Only now the factory will produce plug-in hybrid vehicles. Like other members of the administration, the vice president noted the importance of such projects to the American economy as a whole - “we’re on our way to helping America’s auto industry reclaim its top position in the global market.”

That very same day, Obama was in Florida where he announced an investment of $3.4 billion of Recovery Act funds in projects aimed to start the transition to a smart energy grid. Out of the three this is by far the biggest development – not only is it the largest single energy grid modernization investment in U.S. history, it is also a huge push towards making America more energy efficient and more reliant on alternative energy. And of course, another opportunity for new jobs. This is a very important point when garnering support for climate action within the US, alongside direct economic benefits to the public, which is why Obama once more emphasized that “Such an investment won’t just create new pathways for energy — it’s expected to create tens of thousands of new jobs all across America… It’s expected to save consumers more than $20 billion over the next decade on their utility bills.”

These are just the most public and high-level of the administration’s involvements this past week in supporting a clean energy future. There were also the testimonies of several cabinet members and the head of the EPA in front of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works committee (which held three days of hearings on the Kerry-Boxer climate bill – the bill’s markup is expected to start today, assuming the Republican boycott of the meeting won’t prevent it from happening) and Energy Secretary Chu published a piece about weatherisation and energy efficiency in the Huffington Post.

It seems then, that now that the climate bill is being discussed in the Senate, the administration is publicly showing its support for climate action, something that was sorely lacking during discussions in the House (though behind the scene the White House did apply pressure on Democrats to support the bill). And though the main target is domestic, this is probably also suppose to serve as a demonstration of the administration’s commitment in the international arena in the run up to Copenhagen.

The UK’s Department for Energy & Climate Change (DECC) this week announced a £20m injection of government-backed venture capital support, for the deployment of recent advances in innovative, low carbon technologies.

Whilst private funds for early stage commercialisation and technology development have fallen significantly as a result of the economic downturn, this investment demonstrates the rising priority and commitment of the UK government to the climate change agenda. The funds will level the playing field for new and emerging technologies, to support capacity building, develop skills and demonstrate capabilities of renewable energy sources to meet the insatiable needs of the global economy.

This announcement complements initiatives announced in the UK’s Low Carbon Transition Plan in July 2009, aimed at reducing the UK’s emissions by 34% by 2020 (18% of 2008 levels); and ultimately 80% by 2050, as set out in the Climate Change Act 2008. At the heart of the Act and the Low Carbon Transition Plan lies the carbon budgets, which have been assigned to all Government departments responsible for regulating different sections of the UK economy; with a requirement to produce a plan to demonstrate how they intend to stay within the assigned budget. If the Government fails to ensure that the UK can live within its carbon budgets, it will have to purchase carbon credits from international emissions trading schemes.

The UK has committed to procure 40% of energy needs from low carbon sources by 2020; an extension to the legally binding commitment in the EU Renewables Directive, which obligates the UK to generate 15% of total energy (electricity, heat and transport) from renewable sources by 2020.

The Low Carbon Transition Plan introduces a range of efficiency measures, including the ‘pay as you save’ insulation scheme, as well as a Clean Energy Cash-back Scheme, which aims to incentivise the generation of green power by individuals and organizations by providing a fair structure to sell green energy back to the National Grid. Ed Milliband, has talked about the inspiring communities by encouraging the UK’s top 15-20 cities, towns and villages to compete at the forefront of green innovation, to initiate the UK’s green revolution. Whilst climate change is a driving force, significant policy drivers include resource and national security, as the race to limit dependencies on finite resources begins.

The UK is keen to cement its position as a leader in the run up to the 15^th Conference of Parties (CoP-15) in Copenhagen in December, and Ed Milliband has called for the same decisive approach to climate change as the G20 demonstrated earlier this year on the global economic downturn (McLachlan, 2009).

Discussions held at the UN’s climate change summit last week, and the Pittsburgh G20 summit; provide a broad practical framework of what may constitute a succinct ‘Copenhagen treaty’, but Jeffery Sachs argues that the climate change issue may be too complex to solve in a ‘Kyoto II’ type agreement in December. Instead climate negotiations should aim for an interim agreement on general principles, financing and technology transfer, with practical programmes and steps, which can be introduced and further developed for immediate action. Sachs (2009) adds

“There is still time for a three-part package: a political framework, a financing package, and a series of practical steps announced by all major regions to tilt the trajectory on emissions.”

The political framework would outline the fundamental agreement - that all countries have “common but differentiated responsibilities”, and that drastic quantifiable emissions cuts are required to stay under a 2C rise. A financial package from the most developed nations should support the least developed countries to invest in clean technologies, and adapt to the disastrous impacts, especially since the majority of poor populations reside in tropical regions vulnerable to the major effects of climate change.

In addition to all the negotiations, Sachs adds that governments should announce a meaningful set of immediate practical programmes to reduce emissions on a large scale. The initiatives introduced by the UK Government in its Low Carbon Transition Plan do just that, but the bigger challenge remains to encourage the fundamental participation of the US, Europe, China, and India to do the same.

© Laura Padgett

Following two days of high-level discussions held in Washington at the beginning of last week, the U.S. and China signed an agreement to increase cooperation on climate change and energy.

These discussions were the first meeting in the China-U.S. Economic and Strategic Dialogue which was launched by Hu Jintao and Barak Obama at the G20 meeting in London in April, and are set to continue later this year. They consisted of two parallel tracks – an economic track, co-chaired by US Treasury Secretary Geithner and Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan; and a policy one, co-chaired by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo

In the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which was signed at the end of the meeting the two nations agree to “strengthen and coordinate our respective efforts to combat global climate change, promote clean and efficient energy, protect the environment and natural resources, and support environmentally sustainable and low-carbon economic growth”. The countries agree that cooperation between them is crucial to reaching these goals, and that they both have an important role in global negotiations. The document also states that this future cooperation will also strengthen and improve the relationship between China and the US, something that will benefit both countries in areas other than climate change as well.

As far as practicalities, the MoU doesn’t contain a whole lot of those. There are no exact targets and no detailed plans for cooperation other than stating that the two countries will “establish Climate Change Policy Dialogue and Cooperation as a platform for the United States and China to address global climate change and to identify and resolve areas of concern.”

So this agreement is no more than a general outline for future cooperation, which while it is definitely a step in the right direction, as US Senator John Kerry pointed out “the fully defined mutuality of effort between our two countries—did not materialize.”

This does not mean though that the improved relationship between the US and China since Obama took office has not yielded more concrete developments. These came two weeks previously when - during secretaries Steven Chu (energy) and Gary Locke (commerce) visit to China - the two countries agreed on several joint projects including an agreement between the U.S. DoE and the Chinese Ministry of Urban-Rural Development to foster collaboration in the development of more efficient building designs and sustainable communities; and an announcement of a joint Clean Energy Center to which the two countries pledged $15 million in support of initial activities.

These increasingly closer ties with China also provide opportunities to expose the US public and members of Congress to the progress made within China in fields such energy efficiency, renewable energy and clean energy technologies. This is important as the perceived lack of progress in other major emitters, especially China, is often used as an excuse to oppose and water down the US climate bill.

Yesterday, the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), representing more than 180 corporations engaged in carbon trading, released its GHG Market Report (pdf) at Poznan. In the preface, IETA president notes that “the success of the CDM has expanded over the last year, with almost 4000 projects now in the pipeline.” Yet, it laments the fact that market growth is hindered by a slow and unpredictable approval process, increasing risks to investors.

Last month, the IETA’s State of the CDM 2008 (pdf) suggested five guiding principles for improving CDM governance; effectiveness, predictable, consistent, measurable, and standardized. How about credible ? Recently, DNV, the Norwegian firm dominating the CDM validation and accreditation market, had its license to do so taken away by the CDM Executive Board. (via Climate Progress) The report was pretty damning (pdf), identifying five “non-conformities” in its auditing. DNV is no small fish, having verified almost 40 percent of all the more than 1,000 projects that have put before the CDM Executive Board for final approval.

The suspension is the culmination of a long-standing disagreement between the parties on the verification of projects. In response to the suspension, DNV lamented the “strong reaction by the CDM Executive Board” but accepted that it had to make improvements. It predicts it will regain its license within 1-2 months. But even if temporary, the decision to suspend DNV is nevertheless a blow to the credibility of the nascent CDM market and will give added credence to claims that it has until now been a huge money-making machine that has done little to promote real, additional, and measurable emissions reductions.