The G20 and Copenhagen

April's G20 SummitThe G20 summit is happening and major decisions are happening. As one of the biggest meetings that paves the way toward Copenhagen, the G20 is not only making the decisions it is organized to make, but also laying the groundwork for the power-plays at the coming climate summit.

It’s interesting that the Copenhagen summit will involve power-struggles as much as it will- certainly, all decisions are politics and all politics is about power- but this climate change issue is reminiscent, if I may, of the movies where we see some outer-space threat coming to destroy the world. In the movies, everyone falls all over themselves to help each other to save the world from the unseen, un-understood threat.

Ideally, that’s what would be happening at the G20, countries’ diplomats trying to take the lead with how to deal with climate change, seeing who could be the lead on the next few months going into Copenhagen. It’s not happening. It comes down, as most things do, to…Money.

Rich nations and poor nations disagree on what to do about climate change, no secret. Rich nations want minimal emissions cuts and poor nations want money from rich nations and room to expand. Some of the resistance is coming from India and China- nations that are powers now but weren’t economic powers a few decades ago.

According to British finance minister Alistair Darling, there has been much talk but no agreements. And according to everyone there they will be working together toward an agreement in Copenhagen- more talking about talking. I have to give a nod to the EU Commissioner who actually registered disappointment about the lack of progress. Specifically:

"I am also a little disappointed by the lack of positive commitment today,” said Joaquin Almunia, EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commisioner.

Agreed.

"We would have been very happy to move further than we were able to at this meeting," said Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg.And another gem of a reason from Russia's Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin- According to Reuters, there was disagreement on whether the G20 was the right forum to debate the matter.

"Some participants thought we should make a strong statement on this issue, including possibly increasing the resources allocated to it. The other contingent thought this discussion, and these decisions should take place in Copenhagen," said Kudrin.

Fair enough- I get the idea that there are certain places to discuss certain things- maybe G20 isn’t the spot to talk about climate change, but if we don’t have the gumption to start talking about this at every possible moment in the lead-up to Copenhagen, when will we start? Are we really going to try and make everything happen in two or three weeks in December?

Though perhaps I am jumping the gun here. Copenhagen is set aside as a specific time and space to discuss climate change- what I’ll be watching is whether the diplomats get down to business and make meaningful change happen. 3 weeks to decide the next 5-10 years on climate change battle? We’ll see- the planet is certainly running on its own timetable, not that of diplomats and international meetings.