Cheers to Copenhagen

Cheers!Yesterday I talked about Obama needing to put on the S suit on the plane on the way over to Copenhagen- he did. While it’s nowhere near what everyone had been hoping for when Copenhagen started to gather steam earlier this year, it is in fact more than everyone had been expecting as the summit grew closer. With deadlocks around emissions cut commitments and monetary contributions from industrialized nations, Obama was walking into a snakepit. But he did it anyway. "This progress did not come easily and we know this progress alone is not enough ... We've come a long way but we have much further to go," said Obama.

He had met with China's Premier Wen Jiabao, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and South Africa's President Jacob Zuma in order to get some kind of agreement that everyone could live with. The agreement requires that every country in the UN sets “concrete commitments” that will happen under “international consultation and analysis.” As for us, we committed to emissions cuts that will keep global warming under 2 degrees C. "We're going to have to build on the momentum we've established here in Copenhagen to ensure that international action to significantly reduce emissions is sustained and sufficient over time," said Obama. Well, yes, of course. But let’s all go sip some egg nog and open up the present we call agreement and minor success on this one- cheers!Whatever anybody else says, getting China to agree to carbon emissions limits is absolutely huge. Like I’ve been saying, I think that Obama talking to China so much has been the key that led to everyone else falling in line. Obama swooped in, got China and India to sign on to some actual numbers, and got everyone to agree on how much money the industrialized nations would give to developing countries over the next decade. $100 billion.

"The text we have is not perfect. If we had no deal, that would mean that two countries as important as India and China would be liberated from any type of contract... the United States, which is not in Kyoto would be free of any type of contract. That's why a contract is absolutely vital,” said French President Nicolas Sarkozy. And he’s right.

Everyone has to submit their emissions numbers by the end of January 2010.

The EU is generally unhappy about the deal, muttering in the corner that it "falls far below our expectation." Fair enough. It’s far below what we need, but Obama at least understands the importance of being involved in an international pact that includes everybody- which I think was the critical bottom line. Yes, it should and could have been more deep and powerful of an agreement and yes, it should have included deeper cuts in the U.S. itself. But it doesn’t.

The U.S. signed an international climate change pact. This is huge. We are in the game. In a generation or two, it will be commonplace and Obama will be held up as a hero for having the courage and forethought to actually engage with the world on this important and essential idea. I, for one, am drinking a beer from the New Belgium brewery (fully green powered with renewable and clean energy sources) in celebration!