In a post entitled “Five lies they’re telling you about the Mayflower pipeline spill,” he said: “What I thought I’d talk about today are the top five inaccuracies being spread by anti-fossil fuel activists seeking to capitalize on this unfortunate event.”

Nevertheless, let’s have a look at what Ken Cohen has said we’re lying about.

First, he writes of a…

“bizarre charge…that ExxonMobil is relying on a law that exempts diluted bitumen from taxes that support the Oil Liability Trust Fund and thereby will avoid paying for the cleanup.”

What Cohen is referring to here is a loophole that makes tar sands oil exempt from an 8-cent-per-barrel tax that supports the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.  Oil Change International, along with NRDC and Earth Track, released a report last year on this loophole, entitled “Irrational Exemption”, and the Democrats of the House Natural Resources Committee also have a report out on this as well (not to mention a bill that’s been introduced to close the loophole).

So in that context, I’m not sure why it would be bizarre to suggest that ExxonMobil, or any oil company, would do whatever it can to avoid paying taxes. After all, it spends millions lobbying Congress and contributing to campaign coffers every year to do just that.

But in any event, it’s good to see that we’re all on the same page about the loophole that allows companies to avoid taxes on tar sands that would otherwise help fund the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. The oil industry often says they don’t receive subsidies from the government, but yet as Mr. Cohen admits, apparently they do.

One wonders, perhaps Exxon will agree that this is an unacceptable loophole and announce their support for closing it?

Next, Mr. Cohen writes:

“Let me start by saying ExxonMobil will pay for the cleanup. Period. Full-stop.”

Desmogblog lays out the facts in stark detail, but the long and short of it is we’d be fools to take Exxon at their word on this. The history of their actions after many oil spills shows otherwise. To highlight just a few:

Exxon Valdez, 1989:

“The Exxon Valdez spill was in 1989, they still, 21 years later, have not paid the [full] amount awarded in court (a mere $500 million) to those affected and in fact over 8000 people have died while waiting for compensation.”

Jacksonville, MD, 2006:

“Exxon Mobil Corp has won the reversal by Maryland’s highest court of a $1 billion punitive damages award stemming from an underground leak at a gas station, and also won the reversal of portions of nearly $650 million of compensatory damages awards.”

Yellowstone River (yes, THAT Yellowstone) tar sands spill, 2011:

“Still pending against the company is a lawsuit from a group of riverfront property owners who are seeking tens of millions of dollars in damages over allegations that the company failed to properly clean up after the spill…Attorneys for Exxon have asked U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull in Billings to dismiss the case. A decision is pending.”

Further along in his post, Cohen says:

“The second inaccuracy here is that oil spilled in Mayflower is diluted bitumen from the Canadian oil sands. The crude that spilled is Wabasca heavy oil and it’s from Alberta near the area where there is oil sands production.”

Our friends at NRDC have already torn apart this name game in great detail. Check out the details in this blog post from Anthony Swift.

Sorry Mr. Cohen – as the saying goes: If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. Although, tragically in this case the tar sands spilling in Arkansas is tarring ducks and preventing them from swimming, quacking and in a lot of cases even really looking like ducks.

Cohen then writes:

“So, as a result of the fact that the crude that spilled in Mayflower is conventionally produced heavy oil, it is considered taxable under the Oil Liability Trust Fund.”

Now, let’s allow Cohen’s assertion that Wabasca heavy oil is not tar sands – even though it is, as CrudeMonitor lays out on its website and in the screen capture below – and therefore Exxon is being taxed on it.  Frankly, we’d love to be proven wrong if this is the case.

So here’s a challenge to ExxonMobil: Show us the proof that ExxonMobil is paying taxes into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund for all of the Wabasca heavy crude (aka tar sands) that ExxonMobil is shipping in pipelines around this country.  Prove us wrong.

Seriously, we would be happy to be proven wrong here…but I’m afraid given Exxon’s history of spreading misinformation, we’ll need to see the proof.

Cohen ends, saying:

“So to sum up – We’re paying for the cleanup. The oil is conventionally produced heavy crude. And it’s considered taxable.”

To sum up from my end, I’d simply say:

1. I’ll believe they’re paying for the cleanup when I see it. But folks in Valdez, Maryland, and Yellowstone may not be so kind.
2. Wabasca heavy crude is tar sands by a different name. If tar sands isn’t so bad, why the name game to avoid calling it what it really is?
3. If ExxonMobil is paying taxes on Wabasca heavy crude (aka tar sands), show us the proof.

In short: Prove us wrong, Exxon.

But while Exxon is proving us wrong would make me a temporarily happy “anti-fossil fuel activist”, the truth would remain that Exxon is spilling dangerous oil all around the country, raking in buckets of government subsidies every year, and imperiling our futures every single day.  I wish we were lying about that, but unfortunately the proof is all around us.

This analysis didn’t come as a surprise to us at Oil Change Internatonal — every single time a grouping of Senators or other Members of Congress have come together to push for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, those groups have followed the same pattern:

January 23rd: Pro-Keystone XL Letter Dripping in Fossil Fuel Money:

Senators who signed this letter have received – on average –340% MORE in campaign contributions from fossil fuel industry interests than those who had the sense to stay away.

January 29th: Latest pro-Keystone XL letter from Congress once again awash with oil money:

 Those Representatives that signed the letter received roughly 250% more money from oil and gas interests compared to those Representatives who did not sign the letter.

February 26th: Senators send pro-Keystone XL letter, once again drenched with oil money

The Senators who signed the pro-Keystone XL letter have received roughly 236% more in donations on average from fossil fuel interests than those that did not sign the letter.

March 7th: Latest pro-Keystone XL effort comes from oil-fueled Congressmen

The co-sponsors have, on average, received over $662,000 in fossil fuel-related campaign contributions in their careers.  That’s over 410% more than the average member of the House of Representatives.

Now we come to today’s news. Once again, a group of Senators has decided to push for approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, this time with a bill spearheaded by Senators Hoeven and Baucus.  And, following the clear pattern set by their colleagues in recent months, the co-sponsors of this new bill have enjoyed massive contributions from the fossil fuel industry through their careers.

The facts, from Oil Change International’s Dirty Energy Money database:

• In total, the 14 Senators who have co-sponsored this bill have received nearly $10 MILLION in contributions from the fossil fuel industry, some $6.6 million of that from the oil industry alone.
• On average, the 14 co-sponsors have received over $708,000 each from the fossil fuel industry in their career, over half of that from the oil industry.
• Compared to the rest of the Senate, the co-sponsors of today’s pro-KeystoneXL bill have received 227% more in fossil fuel-related campaign contributions on average than their counterparts.

Consistency is sometimes a trait to be admired. But just once, we wish these Senators would break the trend and listen to the thousands upon thousands standing up against this pipeline, instead of the Big Oil benefactors lining their campaign war chests.

Afterall, as our recent analysis shows, this pipeline is not going to benefit US energy security — the oil the Keystone XL pipeline would transport would be largely destined for export.  As my colleague Steve Kretzmann said today in the Wall Street Journal: “If the national-interest determination is about figuring out what is going to make Valero the most money, then sure, maybe we should approve Keystone. But I don’t think that’s what the national-interest determination is supposed to be.”

These Senators are clearly looking at oil industry bottom lines in order to protect their campaign contributions, when they should be looking at what’s in the best interests of the public.

At this point, you likely know the drill. Every election cycle, Big Oil pays into campaigns heftily in order to try to curry favors and influence in Washington, and the Senate is not immune to this fact.  Unfortunately the figures surrounding those Senators who have signed this latest letter once again show that these investments pay dividends in the halls of Congress.

Let’s look at the numbers, drawn from our Dirty Energy Money database:

• On average, Senators who signed the latest pro-KXL letter have received $680,176 from dirty energy companies (oil, gas and coal) in their careers since 1999.
• In total, the Senators signing the letter have received a whopping $13,603,515 in dirty energy money since 1999.
• Meanwhile, Senators who had the sense to not sign this pro-Keystone XL letter only average $288,337 in contributions from dirty energy money companies in the same time period.

In other words, the Senators who signed the pro-Keystone XL letter have received roughly 236% more in donations on average from fossil fuel interests than those that did not sign the letter.

As this is a (tar sands) oil pipeline, after all, it also makes sense to dig deeper and look at Big Oil contributions in isolation.  Unfortunately, looking at these contributions only makes the picture even clearer.

• On average, those Senators who signed the latest letter have received roughly $434,393 from oil interests in their careers since 1999.
• Meanwhile, Senators who had the sense to stay off the pro-Keystone XL letter only average $165,968 in lifetime contributions from oil interests.

That amounts to an impressive 262% more in contributions from oil companies to those Senators supporting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline than those that did not sign the letter.

No matter how you look at it, it’s clear whose interests these Senators are looking out for in sending letters to the Obama Administration in support of a dangerous pipeline that would threaten our communities and climate in order to send dirty oil overseas.

Secretary Kerry spent a career in the Senate pushing for policies that address climate change and protect the environment. He must stand firm in those principles by rejecting the Keystone XL, and listen to the people and not Big Oil.

Note: The figures used, taken from Oil Change International’s Dirty Energy Money database, include contribution amounts for currently sitting Senators in the 113th Congress. These contribution totals are likely lower than reality, as data for some freshman Senators is not yet fully available.

Or perhaps they’re looking ahead to the wave of people planning to descend upon DC in opposition to the pipeline and in favor of strong climate action on the 17^th of February.

In the latest attempt to influence the Obama administration, supporters of the project in the Senate have sent a new letter urging the President to approve the problematic pipeline.

This shouldn’t actually be news, however, given the signers of this letter are largely the same Senators who have supported the project all along…that is, minus at least a few (who we hope have come to their senses).

Why would these tar sands pipeline supporters send another letter to the White House?  Well, as usual, one possible answer lies in their political contributions.  Sometimes, facts paint the picture quite starkly.  Consider the following, taken from our Dirty Energy Money database*:

• Total lifetime contributions from dirty energy money interests to Senators signing the bill from dirty energy money interests: $27.5 million
• Average lifetime contributions from dirty energy money interests to Senators signing the letter: $551,051
• Average lifetime contributions from dirty energy money interests to Senators NOT signing the letter: $162,720

That’s right: those Senators who signed this letter have received – on average –340% MORE in campaign contributions from fossil fuel industry interests than those who had the sense to stay away.  Nearly three-and-a-half times more dirty money went to the signers of the letter than to those who didn’t sign it.

It’s no wonder some Senators are getting antsy – it’s their supporters who stand to benefit the most from our continued reliance on fossil fuels. Who stands to be impacted the most by the threats to land, water, communities and our climate, on the other hand, is a different story…

*Note: This data was compiled from Oil Change International’s Dirty Energy Moneydatabase. Data for six Senators – Elizabeth Warren (MA), Angus King (ME), Heidi Heitkamp (ND, signed the letter), Deb Fischer (NE, signed the letter), Ted Cruz (TX, signed the letter) and Tim Kaine (VA) – is not yet available as they are new to both chambers of the Congress and campaign contribution data is still being compiled and analyzed.

William Koch – the “other” Koch brother along with David and Charles – was recently sued by a former senior executive at his Oxbow Carbon & Minerals Inc. for false imprisonment.  The allegations are that Koch lured the former executive to his Colorado ranch and then held him against his will to intimidate him.  The executive was allegedly being pressured not to go public with concerns over an illegal tax avoidance scheme being pursued by Oxbow.

Of course, Koch denies that such an event took place and, rather, claims that the lawsuit is intended to draw attention away from another scandal at the corporation involving the executive in question.  Koch claims that the executive was part of a scheme to defraud Oxbow, by taking bribes from competitors and participating in various other unsavory business practices.

So let’s get this straight:  Either William Koch held an executive hostage in order to intimidate him from exposing an illegal tax scheme…OR…a substantial number of Oxbow executives were taking bribes and colluding with competitors.  Or, perhaps both stories are true.  Either way, there’s some shady business going on at Oxbow.

Now, other than being shady, what kind of business is Oxbow in, you might ask?  Well, it’s about as dirty as it gets. Oxbow hails itself as “the largest distributor of petroleum coke in the world with annual shipments of nearly 11 million tons.”

What is this petroleum coke (or “petcoke”) that Oxbow is distributing all around the world?  Petcoke is a byproduct produced through the oil refining process that is coal-like in composition, yet dirtier and more carbon heavy than coal. In other words, when you refine really dirty oil such as tar sands oil (aka bitumen), what’s left over is petcoke. And it’s extremely dirty.

As the tar sands industry in Alberta, Canada has heated up in recent years, many citizens, communities, and advocacy groups have raised strong concerns about the intensive nature of its extraction and the dirty oil that comes from the tar sands.  Tar sands extraction is destroying huge swaths of pristine and sacred land, and the oil that is produced from the tar sands is as dirty as it gets.  Meanwhile communities in both Canada and the United States are standing up to try to stop the transport of dirty tar sands oil through their backyards and waterways.

But that’s actually only part of the tar sands story – with tar sands oil also comes petcoke, and this stuff is ugly. When it is burned in power plants or factories, it emits 38% more carbon by weight than conventional coal and significantly more toxic pollutants as well.  Essentially, wherever petcoke is used as fuel it generally is making a dirty process even dirtier.  And Oxbow makes its millions in moving this dirty fuel around the world.

Aside from dealing in dirty fuels, Oxbow also deals in dirty politics as well. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Oxbow and its executives have contributed over $3 million this election season – the second most of any energy company, more than $1 million more than even Exxon.  Add that to the $1.6 million in lobbying this Congress, and Oxbow is clearly one of the Beltway heavyweights buying votes and favors left and right.

While David and Charles Koch have received much of the notoriety in recent years due to their overt attempts at co-opting our democratic process, the other brother, William, is no saint either.  For years, he’s been standing in the way of progress up in Massachusetts as one of the key financiers of anti-Cape Wind efforts, to the tune of several million dollars.  It’s no surprise, really, given his stake in dirty energy.

So, what does this all come down to?  Unfortunately it’s the much of the same old story that we’ve seen time and again in the fossil fuel business. We see a picture of a corporation that is profiting from both the destruction of the planet and also our political system.  The product it sells is the dirtiest of the dirty; its business practices are unsavory at best, dangerous and illegal at worst; and they use their money to buy politicians to allow them keep making obscene profits doing all of the above.

It’s time for a cleaner future – one that takes us off of these dirty fuels and separates dirty energy money from our politics.

I learned that if you stacked one trillion dollar bills on top of each other, they would go a third of the way to the moon.  That’s insane. Do you realize how thin a dollar bill is?

I read something about how the system we use for writing numbers is both incredible and challenging because of how easily you can represent incredibly huge numbers. It’s true — 1,000,000,000 looks not all that much less than 1,000,000,000,000 if you just glance at them.  And even if you look at them more closely, the billion vs. the trillion don’t look allllll that much different, right?

Well, turns out they are. 1 trillion dollars is really really big. No, it’s really really really really really really big. When you think about it as an amount of money it’s truly mind-boggling.  You think one billion is big, per chance?  Well one trillion is a THOUSAND of those!  Maybe you’re more modest and think a million dollars is a pretty large sum of money. Well, a trillion dollars is one million million dollars. Or, a million squared. Confusing? It should be. It’s nearly incomprehensibly huge.

So that’s why the new fact sheet just released by Oil Change International is so scary and infuriating at the same time. It shows that on an annual basis, the fossil fuel industry now receives something on the order of $1 trillion globally from government subsidies (aka handouts).

That’s right…that mind-boggling amount of money? It’s going to the industry that is both raking in record profits and also destroying our planet with dirty extraction, oil spills and toxic air, and of course global warming-causing greenhouse gases.

Generally, subsidies are on either the production side (making the cost of production cheaper), or the consumption side (making the price of fuel cheaper to the consumer). In the US and the rest of the industrialized world, we generally have production subsidies, which also serve as corporate welfare to the oil, gas and coal industries, who return the favor with lavish campaign contributions.  But in the developing world, consumption subsidies, which in theory should make access to energy and fuel affordable to the poor, are far more common.

The problem is…the theory is wrong.  Those consumption subsidies don’t generally end up helping the poor.  So we need to eliminate them, replace them with real policies to ensure energy access for all, and of course we need to stop giving the world’s richest companies more incentives to make even more money.

The public is starting to wake up to the absurdity of these wasteful subsidies.  In just the few days since its recent launch, over 600,000 people (and growing) have signed an Avaaz petition calling on leaders to make progress on this important issue.  Key figures are speaking out on the need to eliminate these subsidies.

In 2009, G20 leaders committed to phase out these subsidies. But unfortunately, their commitment hasn’t turned into action, so it’s time to help light the way. Over 75 NGOs have recently come together outlining a few key steps that should be taken in the coming months at the next G20 and also at the upcoming Rio+20 summit to move forward in eliminating fossil fuel subsidies.

1. First, governments should set themselves a deadline for getting rid of these subsidies. Seeing as it’s been 3 years since the G20 committed to phasing them out, 2015 seems to be a good date — that’d be a good 6 years after these 20 leaders committed their governments to doing so.
2. Second, folks like Oil Change International and other NGOs shouldn’t have to spend lots of time and investigative skills to discover this trillion dollars sitting out there being spent in bad ways. It’s a huge amount of money and governments should be willing to admit they are sending it in support to fossil fuel industries around the world.  So, it’s time for governments to be more transparent and consistent in their reporting of fossil fuel subsidies.
3. Thirdly, support needs to be provided to developing countries and protections established to ensure the poor and vulnerable are safeguarded from unintended consequences to removing these subsidies.  While some suggest that fossil fuel subsidies are aimed at providing energy access to the poor, studies have shown that less than 10% of these subsidies actually benefit the poor. Nevertheless, it’s important that poor countries and communities are supported while these subsidies are phased out.
4. Finally, governments should work together to shift these subsidies from fossil fuels to more useful endeavors. We and other NGOs are calling on governments to create a way to encourage this cooperation — a center of excellence for fossil fuel subsidy removal, if you will.  This center would help governments be honest in their reporting of these massive subsidies and coordinate global efforts to get rid of them.

Luckily, there are a number of opportunities on the horizon for government leaders to commit to these three simple steps.  One opportunity was just passed by this weekend, as the G8 leaders released only a reiteration of existing pledges on this issue.  But in June, the G20 will meet as they do each year, this time in Mexico, where a climate law was just passed that commits the Mexicans to removing their subsidies.  Just days later, the whole world will be convening in Rio for the Rio+20 global sustainability conference.  These two opportunities are prime opportunities to launch a global effort to live up to the commitments already made by the G20 and get rid of these inefficient and massive subsidies once and for all.

Just think, with a little effort we could have US$1 trillion to help fund a transition to a safer future. Seems like it’d be a great head start, if you ask me.

Getting arrested: par for the course at Keystone XL protests.Photo: chesapeakeclimate

While I’ve been active in the climate fight for several years now, this will be the first time I’ve joined in this sort of an action. Over the past five years, I have dedicated my life to facilitating NGOs in the U.S. and internationally to collaborate on advocating for ambitious climate policies in Congress and at the United Nations. My work consists of countless conference calls, emails, fights over commas and word choices, and quiet meetings with government officials. I’ve gotten to travel to some amazing places, only to find myself spending most of my time in hotels, conference rooms, and negotiating halls.

Despite it not being terribly glamorous, I’m convinced that this work is a necessary part of the global climate struggle — we must ensure that there is a legal infrastructure in place that can lock in ambitious action on climate change and hold governments accountable. And building that infrastructure takes time, a lot of wonky people, and perhaps boring work.

But what I’ve also learned in these past five years is that those of us in suits roaming the halls of “power” will never be enough to enact the change we need — an absolutely essential part, but not enough. In order for those laws and global agreements to be worthwhile, we need to fill them with the kind of substance to which we can hold governments accountable. 

We need our governments to hear from their people that they can no longer get away with finding reasons to delay action, or loopholes to make their pledges weaker than they appear. We need citizens all over the world to be heard when they say that climate change is affecting them now, and their lives will be further torn apart if action isn’t taken soon. 

The tar-sands action is focused on an issue with a clear story to be told. The groups I work with share many of the same goals, but often take very different strategies to pursue those goals. But it’s clear that we all agree with the substance behind the tar-sands action — the decision on the Keystone XL pipeline is a critical moment on climate for the Obama administration and for the climate movement here in the U.S. The tar-sands are a ticking time bomb for the climate — if fully exploited, it’s “essentially game over,” as James Hansen has said.

I’m heartened to say that when I look up from the negotiating documents and put the phone down from my conference calls, I can see and hear an amazing grassroots movement growing stronger by the day. It’s one that I’m proud to say many of my friends are helping to create. For awhile I’ve applauded it from the sidelines, and admired the work of friends all over the world who are on the front lines of this fight. Now I’ve finally decided it’s time, at least for a day, to personally join them in the streets.

So, this week, I’ll be headed to the White House to let my president know that on those days when I’m not talking to his representatives at the U.N. in my suit, I’m willing to sacrifice in other ways to ensure that he hears us and does what’s right for this country, and for the planet. It’s time for my president to reject this pipeline and show that he was serious when he said that his nomination marked “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

And if all goes well, after a day in jail with some friends, I’ll go back to my conference calls … at least for a while.

These 8,000+ amazing young people gathered this weekend in Washington, DC for Powershift to organize, train, and working to ignite a movement and reaching that tipping point here in the United States.

The weekend’s experience marks an incredible contrast to where I was one week ago – in Bangkok for the first of several United Nations climate negotiations for the year.  That meeting devolved into haggling over agendas, bitter discussions between developed and developing countries, malaise, and frustration.  It was such a contrast to the defiance, inspiration, creativity and excitement that I felt today in Lafayette Park and this weekend all over nation’s capital.

When I go to these international meetings, I’m an international advocate working with friends from all over the world, but I’m still an American.  And I’ve grown accustomed to my colleagues from abroad asking me what the hell is going on in my country and why, with all the hope that Obama represented such a short time ago, we’re not leading the way towards a brighter future.  

I’ll be honest, after two years I’ve gotten lazy in my response. I tell them that our system is corrupted by money and our legislators are handcuffed by those corporations that are buying power.  I tell them that the President is stuck in a tough place with the Tea Partiers, funded by the Koch brothers and other dirty polluters, on the right and the handcuffed members of Congress struggling to stay in office, on his left.  

It’s an easy story to tell when I’m tired and fed up with a process that’s moving too slow and sick of reading about a city back home that’s deadlocked and refusing to take action on the challenge of our time.  

But it’s not the whole story and this weekend at Powershift, I was reminded of that in spades.  There’s another story out there that the world needs to hear.  

It’s a story of high school students in the Gulf Coast waking up and seeing tar on the beaches in their backyards and deciding to take a stand by shutting down BP stations.  It’s a story of young people in Appalachia fighting for their communities, standing up against the coal industry that’s trying to tear them down.  It’s a story of students in Alaska and California and Georgia and Montana and Vermont and Minnesota and Colorado coming together and finding a way to rise up and make a difference.

It’s a story of those same students creating a movement that is built on love and respect, camaraderie and friendship, shown by the many hugs and laughter and singing and smiles seen in the halls of the DC convention center this weekend.  But it’s also a story of those same students creating a movement that is sophisticated and smart, strategic, educated and passionate…and ready to take control.  It’s a movement that’s also upset, angry, and fed up.  It’s a movement that’s dangerous in all the right ways.

That’s the story that I’ve taken away from this weekend, and one the world needs to hear.  It’s all too easy for the leaders of countries all around the world to look at the surface of the United States and hide behind the climate inaction that they see in the U.S. Congress.  What’s more, it’s all too easy for our friends and colleagues in the movement abroad to get discouraged, thinking the US may never move, or at least not until it’s too late.  

But if they all look a little closer, they’ll see this movement of amazing young people, and they’ll know it is all about to change. They’ll know it’s inevitable and they might as well get started on the path to a clean energy future now or else, all too soon, these “kids” are going to bring our country sling-shotting past them and they won’t know what him ‘em.

Its weekend’s like this that give me the hope to go back to the UN and continue the slog and tell the story and convince countries like Japan and Germany and Australia and Brazil and China to get on with it already and rest assured we’ll bring the US along in no time.  

The next time I am asked by a friend from abroad what’s going on in the US, I’m going to tell them the story of Powershift. Because this is the story that matters and this is the movement that’s going to win.  

One year ago, the world’s leaders couldn’t stop talking about solving climate change. The media was in a frenzy, tallying up commitments from presidents and prime ministers to attend the Copenhagen negotiations, which would eventually lead toward perhaps the largest-ever gathering of heads of state.

With all the attention, expectations were high. Leaders from Obama to Jintao to Chavez to Zenawi to Merkel had committed to reaching an agreement in Copenhagen that would put us on a path toward solving the climate crisis.

So it was with some irony that I awoke one morning last week to an article in The Onion, the satirical newspaper, with the headline “Report: Global Warming Issue From 2 Or 3 Years Ago May Still Be Problem.”  The article details, with considerable irony, the ways in which climate change — an issue that even just a year ago was at the top of so many important minds — has somehow been lost in the fray of so many other issues, especially here in the U.S.  

Today, as I work with my colleagues in the Climate Action Network to prepare for the Cancun climate talks, we are admittedly struggling to find a balance between learning the lessons from Copenhagen while at the same time pushing for what we know is so urgently needed.

Truth is, we needed a fair, ambitious, and binding international climate agreement yesterday. Just because we didn’t achieve it in Copenhagen doesn’t mean the physics has changed (in fact, it only looks worse).

But unfortunately, there’s another truth we are all grappling with: We’re not going to get a comprehensive agreement in Cancun. Try as we might, it doesn’t appear we’re going to change this reality any more in the next month than we’ll change the reality that the climate is warming rapidly.

So, what to do? What can we achieve in Cancun? How can we move forward effectively in spite of the politics, overcoming the mistrust in the U.N. process resulting from the failures of Copenhagen and recognizing the extreme urgency of the problem?

I contend there’s some hope amidst the dire predictions, if we focus on three things: 

1)    We need to recognize it’s not the process that’s the problem, it’s the politics.  

After Copenhagen, many reporters, politicians, and “thought leaders” quickly rushed to the conclusion that the U.N. process was dying. Better start looking to other forums for achieving an international climate agreement, they said, because the UNFCCC is broken. Even recently, The New York Times published a preemptive obituary for the UNFCCC talks.

But before we bury the U.N. process, let’s have a look at what these other forums have achieved. The G20 in 2009 said it would phase out fossil-fuel subsidies. Have they? Not according to all the reports I’ve seen. The Major Economies Forum helped to put forward a series of technology roadmaps, which are great in theory but in practice have meant little. The G8? It has been rapidly overshadowed by other forums, like the G20 (see above).

So, what forum truly carries with it the voices of everyone affected by this problem? What forum addresses the myriad interlinked issues needing to be addressed in order to solve the climate crisis? The answer is that there just isn’t anything better than the UNFCCC. And after a few months of griping earlier this year, many parties (including the U.S., mind you) have come back to recognizing this.  Meanwhile, the politics in many countries either haven’t changed or have gotten worse with respect to generating action on climate change. To paraphrase an early ‘90s campaign phrase, “It’s the politics (not the process), stupid.”

2)    We need to not be afraid of successes, even if they are small.  

In Copenhagen, we were all looking for THE Agreement. I’ll admit it, even in the few weeks before the talks, when things appeared to be going poorly, I was holding out hope that there would be some quasi-miraculous moment that would turn the talks around and generate enough momentum to achieve something truly world changing. How could so many heads of state be gathered in the same place and not achieve something? Well, we were wrong — the negotiations weren’t ready and what we got was a face-saving political document that no one was happy with.  

Today, as we start the sprint toward Cancun, no one is expecting the outcome to be what Copenhagen should have achieved. We in the Climate Action Network are looking to achieve a set of building blocks in Cancun on a number of important issues that can move us substantially down the road toward a full agreement at a later (hopefully not too late) date. We’ve outlined these building blocks in this publication.

While these building blocks may not be the final agreements we want, they could be quite substantial. For instance, we’re calling for the establishment of a global fund on climate change. This fund could serve as an incredibly important vehicle to channel money and resources to ensure the most vulnerable countries in the world can adapt to the terrible effects of climate change. Not a small achievement if we get it right. We’re also hoping for a number of technical agreements regarding reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD). If we get these agreements, we’ll be well on our way toward cutting deforestation all over the world. Considering its effects on global warming, biodiversity, and so many other factors, agreement on appropriate REDD programs would be a huge achievement. What else? Agreement on how to funnel the right technologies to those who need them through regional centers of technology excellence. Getting clean energy to the poor? I’ll take it.

Of course, this isn’t to say that our work will be done after Cancun. Far from it. But let’s be willing to look at the potential outcomes in Cancun, with our integrities fully intact, and celebrate success where we find it. Surely we’ll need to point out the shortcomings that we see, but let’s not be blind to achievements that we might be able to trumpet as well.

3)    We need to get to work.  

Given the delay in getting a full international agreement to address climate change, it’s as clear as ever that we need to begin implementing whatever we can, wherever we can, to address this issue. Luckily, a lot is already happening at the local and state levels (just look to California voters rejecting Prop 23!).  

But even at the international level, we need to get to work despite slow progress. In the much-debated Copenhagen Accord, developed countries associated with it agreed to mobilize $10 billion a year over the following three years (2010 through 2012) to support climate activities. Depending on what reports you read, that commitment has been barely reached, stolen from other coffers such as development aid, or not achieved at all. That’s not good enough. Further, the parties agreed to mobilize $100 billion annually starting in 2020. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s high-level panel on climate finance recently National Adaptation Plans of Action (NAPAs) and are ready to implement them if they only have the resources to do so. Let’s get these NAPAs funded already! The list of seemingly small but vital tasks goes on.

However, governments aren’t the only ones that need to get to work. We in  civil society need to as well. We need to be sure that any momentum generated in Cancun is seized and built upon in 2011 as we move toward the next round in South Africa. We need to build political alliances in key countries to generate more will for change and action. We need to fight the business interests that are so invested in the dirty status quo.  

Some are already getting to work, as our friends at 350.org showed us with their Global Work Party on Oct. 10. Millions of citizens around the world picked up shovels and hammers and joined hands to get to work. If they can do it, why can’t we?

One of the biggest lessons from Copenhagen was that this issue will not be solved in one conference.  The work has already started, and isn’t stopping anytime soon.  As we make our way towards Cancun, let’s keep in mind that action is needed urgently.  However, let’s also make progress and agree where we can, change the politics where agreements aren’t possible yet, and make those agreements that have already been made a reality on the ground.