Is the Obama administration giving up on reaching a comprehensive international climate change agreement this year? A statement

released on Friday by John Podesta, who headed Barack Obama's

presidential transition, is a big hint that the White House is looking

to dramatically downplay expectations.

In the statement, Podesta, the head of the Center for American

Progress, and Rajendra Pachaur

i, the chair of the UN's

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, declare, "The world's

leading economic powers remain inactive in preventing an increase in

the serious impacts of climate change." The pair do not explicitly

criticize the United States and the Obama administration. But their

statement suggests that the Obama administration has not succeeded in

leading the major global powers toward effective action:

While current impacts of climate change may not have reached

alarming proportions, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on

Climate Change, that will happen soon enough if we do not take early

action. What is causing increasing concern, as the December UN climate

summit in Copenhagen draws ever nearer, is the continuing deadlock in

political action to deal with this challenge.

Podesta and Pachauri note that the commitment reached last July by

G-8 countries-including the United States-to reduce global greenhouse

emissions by 50 percent by 2050 is not sufficient and that the ongoing

negotiations in advance of the Copenhagen conference do not "reflect

this imperative."

The two paint a bleak picture of the road to Copenhagen:

SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT Never Miss a Beat. Get our best delivered to your inbox.





The interim U.N. meetings over the summer leading up to Copenhagen

have not gone well. Still unresolved are fundamental differences

between developed countries about whether the Kyoto Protocol should be

continued or be abandoned altogether for an entirely new treaty. The

document under discussion at the U.N. is some 200 pages of

contradictory provisions from a variety of submissions from different

countries. Practically every sentence contains bracketed language still

needing debate and revision. The prospect of shaping this up into a

coherent document by December, with only two more interim meetings to

go, appears grim.

They conclude that the negotiations have reached an impasse, with

the developing and developed countries disagreeing about how far each

side should go to reduce emissions: "While it is true that developed

countries carry the burden of historical responsibility, and must prove

to be the first movers in mitigation, developing countries will become

bigger emitters in the future; this intractable dynamic is proving

unconstructive."

Looking for "a more positive track," Podesta and Pachauri urge the

G-20 countries meeting in Pittsburgh-nations that together produce 80

percent of global warming emissions-"to focus on a series of

mini-agreements that could be reached at or before Copenhagen." Their

wish list includes measures that set-up multilateral collaborations to

develop low-carbon technologies and that create financing arrangements

to assist developing countries in meeting energy-efficiency goals and

in slowing deforestation.

For enviros holding out hope for Copenhagen, the Podesta-Pachauri

statement is a major downer. The two are dramatically depressing

expectations-and plotting out an alternative track to the Copenhagen

process. What makes Podesta's pessimism especially noteworthy is that

for years he was a mentor to Todd Stern,

who is now the senior US negotiator for Copenhagen. The two are close

friends, and it is unlikely-make that, unimaginable-that Podesta, an

experienced political player in Washington (who was a chief of staff

for President Clinton), would express such a discouraging position on

Copenhagen without consulting Stern.

Given that Podesta is quite well-informed on these matters, this

appears to be a strong signal that the Obama administration-as the Senate puts off acting

on climate change legislation-is giving up on achieving any grand

accord to redress climate change this December. It's a stinging vote of

no confidence in Copenhagen-and a sign that Obama administration

officials, believing they cannot steer the nations of the world toward

a meaningful treaty, are looking for a Plan B.