Tom Friedman is cynical on progress at Bali last week. Whatever happened there wasn't transformational, he says, but incremental. What was transformative at the event was that the rest of the world stood up and booed -- actually booed, not just grumbled under their breaths -- when the United States held out on signing. Their chorus of boos signaled that they aren't waiting for the U.S. any longer, and unlike the previous generation of climate treaties, there's actual wide, profound concern on the part of all other nations, not to mention the people in the US who aren't members of the Bush administration.
Nor should they care about the U.S. delegation at this point. They, like us, know that nothing substantial is going to come out of the Bush administration, nor will Congress be able to pass anything groundbreaking in its current state. John Kerry, who traveled to Bali to represent Senate Dems, spoke this morning at the Center for American Progress about the summit and what it means now, and his read seems pretty accurate: the onus is on us to get out the votes in the presidential and Congressional elections. Sure, several states, cities, groups, and individuals are passionately pushing it as a chief concern. But all the lower-level action in the world doesn't get us the negotiating seat in Copenhagen when it comes down to hashing out the final global plan.
The impetus is on Congressional Dems, too, to remember that what climate and energy legislation they may pass now is not the final destination on the road to solving the climate problem, and for us to hold them to that. Anything that makes it through will be weak (see: the energy bill), and it must only be a stepping stone to post-08. Folks like the National Review editorial board are already banking on Congress to settle for modest cuts and leave it at that indefinitely. The lesson of Bali is that there's still plenty of work to do at home to ensure that we give the rest of the world what they deserve: an American president and Congress ready to lead on climate change.
--Kate Sheppard
