U.S. Submits Copenhagen Numbers We Won't Keep

Will Copenhagen Help?The U.S. has formally embraced the Copenhagen Accord this past week. That basically means that we are agreeing to a non-binding goal-setting workshop, kind of like those corporate retreats they send people on where you set goals. I used to facilitate at those, and the great thing is that people open up, push their comfort zone and are able to view their lives in a non-judgmental, pro-active kind of way. I often saw people high-five or hug at the end of a day of crying and exertion, mental and physical. This being with people they may have been in an office with for years but not really said much of anything to. What’s the connection? Everybody went to Copenhagen under a lot of pressure with a lot of big ideas. They went through two weeks of the wringer there and set some goals. But the same thing will happen with Copenhagen that happened with so many of those corporate retreats- there is no accountability. There is no one reinforcing the goals you make when you go back to the office, which makes it really, really easy to get too busy or distracted or just plain ignore it. And that is what people did. Not always, but often.

The key differentiator was internal motivation. You can get just about anyone to agree to just about anything when you combine personal processing with exhaustion and a good facilitator. Most of the time, it’s for an improvement, you know? And Copenhagen was going for that. It was an attempt to get everyone to agree to some common ground about some principles. It happened- I continue to think that that was and is the most important thing.

But it wasn’t signed. It’s an Accord, not an agreement, and it isn’t legally binding. So why do any of it? At this point it’s a public relations show- and Obama is playing nice with the PR unlike Bush who didn’t even pretend that Kyoto was something he agreed with. I almost prefer that.

Obama said that nuclear energy, offshore drilling and clean coal technologies were his three examples of the energy future of America. That made me realize more than ever that he is a Green PR guy, a greenwashed president with no real commitment to clean, sustainable, renewable energy.

Why doesn’t anyone see that we have unlimited energy moving around us- ALL. THE. TIME.

The U.S. said we will shoot for a 17% reduction in emissions by 2020 below 2005 levels. Final numbers to come after the senate deals with the bill. But they won’t pass it. They are incapable of passing anything. Ok, cynicism.

Will the senate pass the bill they have? Probably not. Will the U.S. reach our extremely modest targets? Probably not. What will happen to us as a result of once again paying only lip service to the green issues and not doing anything substantive about it?

Practically nothing.

The numbers we are submitting are goals as part of a non-binding agreement. Like I said about the corporate team-building- they are great, but the real determining factor as to whether they are kept, achieved, or even remembered is internal motivation.

Is the U.S. motivated to be a green innovation power? No. Nuclear, offshore drilling and clean coal will get us more of the same. And the only one of those with any chance at all of happening in the next few years is offshore drilling, which means more oil. Which isn’t getting us anywhere.

Great on the numbers. Let’s give it some teeth in Mexico City.

Photo Credit: woodleywonderworks (via Flickr under CCL)