Amid the Copenhagen naysayers, look who’s saying ‘yes we can’

Ban Ki-Moon. Image by World Economic Forum via Flickr

This weekend the Times of London concluded Barack Obama won’t attend the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Why not? Because according to the Times, the conference failed. No matter that it hasn’t taken place yet.

The biggest piece of evidence for Obama staying home? A comment that, if you ask me, is open to interpretation:

The White House would not comment on Mr Obama’s travel plans yesterday, but administration officials have said privately that “Oslo is plenty close” — a reference to the Nobel ceremony that falls on December 10, two days into the Copenhagen meeting.

via President Obama won’t talk climate change in Copenhagen – Times Online .

When a White House official says, “Oslo is plenty close,” it suggests to me that as long as Obama’s in Oslo, he’s likely to visit Copenhagen on the same trip. I find it harder to catch the spin given by the Times: that Oslo is close enough to substitute for Copenhagen. As if all those cold northern countries are really just the same.

The Times also quotes a “source close to the Administration” saying it would be “hard to see the benefit” of Obama going to Copenhagen if there was no comprehensive deal for him to close or sign. Well, no kidding.

What’s important about Obama going to Copenhagen isn’t his presence there so much as the fact that his presence there signals a likely deal. The Times quotes an unnamed “expert” and an unnamed “analyst” saying it’s unlikely Obama will go. The probability factored into those comments makes it clear that neither actually knows.

The Times story is just the latest of a long series of published reports that “cap and trade is dead” in the U.S. and Copenhagen is a bust. But speculation can always favor bias, negative or positive, so let’s set speculation aside for a moment and notice some interesting developments that are taking place right now in the political world:

• Earlier this month, Senators John Kerry and Lindsay Graham published an op-ed in The New York Times in support of the Senate version of the climate bill, under the headline “Yes We Can (Pass Climate Legislation)“. Kerry is one of the bill’s Democratic sponsors. Graham is the Republican vote the Democrats need to pass it. Their use of Obama’s campaign rhetoric is surely no accident.
• Yesterday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon published his own Op-Ed in The New York Times emphasizing a positive outcome for Copenhagen and calling upon the U.S. to show leadership. What kind of leadership? Under the headline “We can do it,” Ban writes, “Can we seal a comprehensive, equitable and ambitious deal in Copenhagen that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit global temperature rise to a scientifically safe level? Can we catalyze clean energy growth? Can we help to protect the most vulnerable nations from the effects of climate change? Can we expect the United States to play a leading role? The best answer to all these questions was given last week by Senators Kerry and Graham: ‘Yes, we can.’”
• Late Friday, Sen. Barbara Boxer unveiled the latest version of the Senate’s climate bill, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act.
• Tuesday, hearings begin on that bill with almost the same lineup of Administration officials who testified on the first day of debate for the successful House version. There are a couple of additions, and no opposition on the first day: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Jon Wellinghoff will testify before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
• As the Times notes (but doesn’t really notice), “Mr Obama flew to Boston [Saturday] to make the case for a wholesale American switch to clean energy, and to launch a six-week drive to persuade the world that the US is at last serious about joining international efforts to combat climate change.”

Are we to believe all these people are undertaking all these endeavors coincidentally? With the expectation that they’ll fail, stay home in December, and watch Copenhagen riots on the BBC World Service? Are key senators and UN officials employing Obama campaign rhetoric without knowing it?

To me it seems more likely that they see an opportunity to pass a climate bill in the U.S. and sign a deal in Copenhagen, and they’re beginning a coordinated campaign to secure both goals.

Maybe these efforts will fail and Copenhagen will bust. We don’t know. All we know is that the fight is far from over.