We have seen the future of international politics and it is Copenhagen. That future holds for monster issues like global warming as well as most bilateral negotiations. Too bad for all of us. The next decade portends at best small accomplishments in world diplomacy; at worst, stalemates festering into disasters, as well as torturous leadership days ahead for the United States, with China increasingly lying in wait as a successful spoiler.
For more than two weeks (it seemed much longer), 192 nations (it seemed like many more) met in Copenhagen under United Nations auspices on climate change. They produced not an elephant nor a donkey, but a three-page mouse. It wasn’t a bad mouse. After much predictable wrangling, China, India, Brazil, South Africa, and the United States, led by a desperate President Barack Obama, prompted a nonbinding commitment to limit the increase in world temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius by 2050. There was also talk of rich nations providing $100 billion over 10 years to help poor ones reduce their offending carbon emissions. Most diplomats were glad to go home, except those whose nations could be under water from rising sea levels in 10 or 15 years.
Copenhagen’s unhappy moral could become the hallmark of future world affairs, from huge global diplomatic orgies to major nations bickering over economic sanctions to most bilateral encounters.
The moral was not that international conferences couldn’t please everyone. That goes without saying. The moral was that no one seemed pleased, save for Mr. Obama’s aides. Sure, Copenhagen was big, unwieldy, and more complicated than most international tugs of words. Nonetheless, its unhappy moral could become the hallmark of future world affairs, from huge global diplomatic orgies to major nations bickering over economic sanctions to most bilateral encounters. There already is lots of pulling and tugging all over the map with little to show for it. Here’s why, and what can be done about it:
First, every nation, from major to the most minor, now possesses some level of veto power. It’s as if the world is brimming with the likes of Senators Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman. These guys can say no to the Senate bill on health-care reform and kill it, much as blocs of even the most inconsequential of nations can say “no” and thereby slow or perhaps even stop the train. Poor nations always want more money to pay for the past sins of the rich. Their never-ending quest is reinforced by the United Nations' fiction that all nations are equal. All their leaders get a chance to speak, and by the time they’re finished, there’s three minutes left in the conference and no time to get anything consequential done. Besides, it’s become far too expensive to buy the poor nations off with bribes; there are now just too many of them. In the Senate, it’s only Nelson, Lieberman, and Bernard Sanders. And further, most governments are too weak politically and financially to make concessions and compromises. Everything has tightened up.
Second, African nations in particular seem to have gotten religious about bloc power. At Copenhagen, and for the first time, all of them banded together to pressure rich countries to pay for and save them from the scourges of global warming. Instead of taking the conditions of Western economies into account and pocketing the $100 billion offer of the United States, they insisted on more and risked all. When an Ethiopian leader tried to broker a compromise with the West, his colleagues slapped him down. And the Sudanese leader certainly revealed where many African heads were when he compared climate change to the German Holocaust against the Jews. And African voices are made louder by their new alliance with China, the richest poor nations among them.
View as Single Page 12 Back to Top December 20, 2009 | 10:49pm Facebook | Twitter | Digg | | Emails | print World Power, Copenhagen, United States, International, Politics, Barack Obama, International Conferences, African Bloc, African Nations, World Diplomacy, China Power, China Spoiler, Copenhagen Summit, South Africa, Britain, Climate Change, Global Warming, Hillary Clinton, China (–) Show Replies Collapse Replies Sort Up Sort Down sort by date: JoshyD
Perhaps more evident, but not necessarily new. I think a lot of the dynamics on display at COP15 were also apparent in the 2005 NPT RevCon. For example, it was primarily Egypt that acted as the obstructionist, illustrating the 'veto power' that one holdout state can possess. Further, not just African nations, but the entire Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) wanted to make the meeting a referendum of Bush's 2002 Nuclear Posture Review. Valuable insight nonetheless, Mr. Gelb.
If the era of: "the big lie" is bringing us: "Climate Catastrophe"; Then the main stream media is Pinocchio! EnvironMentalist are invariably people that want OTHERS to use less energy! If Obama/Gore really believed global warming, they would talk non stop about lowering speed limits to 50 and demand that Americans stop jack rabbit starts and stop racing to lights that are red. Virtually no Americans believe it either; just look at the fuel wasting driving habits; that also fund the other sides war against us! If you believe the hurricane may kill you/your family: you leave. The driving habits proves no one believes it. The congress/press are selling a scam, for profit, not seen since the middle ages; The cap and trade scam is a variation of the "indulgences scam" used, among other things, to man the crusades/get bad people to go somewhere else! Post the data showing the randomly selected locations where temperature and snow pack are documented for 1 million years and that will tell the tale. Selecting locations that meet your agenda: liars figure but figures do not lie!
Except in national elections and spurious invasions of sovereign nations.
The US is weaker because the banks and financial institutions have been allowed to run completely unfettered. They continue to rape and pillage the American people to feather their own nests, to use your terminology. If our own banks can screw us, why should China think differently? About Copenhagen, all these people just had to travel to another country and could not attend via the computer? That really irritates me. And how, exactly, are they going to ensure the Earth doesn't rise by 2 degrees? They have full control of the universe?
Bitter much, Mr Gelb?
The whole premise of this Conference is preposterous. The idea of bringing 190 nations together, from the most disparate backgrounds, filled with grievances, resentments and demands, and expecting some sort of "can we all get along" moment is ludicrous at best, and quite frankly, stupid at worst. The fiasco was quite predictable. No reasonable person could expect anything from this circus. As for giving money to poor countries, especially Africa, where exactly do the "rich countries" expect this money to end? Just take a good look at how most countries on that continent are run, (or aren't run, to put it better). And this goes for the rest of the so-called developing world as well. I live in it, Corruption is as rampant as french fries are in America. The money is going to line the pockets of greedy opportunists, make no mistake. We'll be lucky if 10% of it actually goes into some environmental projects. This is hypocricy at its worst, playing with the future of the planet. And this ridiculous notion that somehow rich countries have to support the brunt of their polluting, and have to pay "reparations" to poor countries, is baloney. If your house is burning down, you're not going to argue with your room-mate that he's the one who has to put out the fire since he started it. While both of you argue who's to blame for the fire, the house burns down and takes both of you with it. These are the world's leading political figures behaving like children. Tom Friedman is right: it's up to each individual country to put into place environmentally-friendly policies. Ultimately this issue will be resolved by individual governments acting wisely and technological innovation. I hope, for the sake of all our nerves, that this Copenhagen mess of a model doesn't repeat itself.
HEY!!!! Here's a novel idea. Let's all stop fighting until after Christmas. Can it be done?? If nothing else if we can hold off that long we may something new to fight about. Any other of you empty headed turkeys willing to try????
Thank you. As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.
Please log in to leave comments.
The Best of the Best Book Lists
The Daily Beast is dedicated to news and commentary, culture, and entertainment. We carefully curate the web’s most essential stories and bring you original must-reads from our talented contributors.
December 19: The Week in Viral Videos
The Daily Beast Video curates the most essential and entertaining video, and brings you original and exclusive productions from our talented contributors.
How the Fed Blew It
Bernanke up for reappointment.
Senate Clears Crucial Hurdle
Party-line vote moves bill forward.
Murphy Was Ill Before Death
Was vomiting; "a lot" of meds in home.
Is Obama Really a Hawk?
Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (HarperCollins 2009), a book that shows how to think about and use power in the 21st century. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Read Full Article »