The Blame Game, or Can Obama Be Another Teflon President?

Failure looms over Hopenchangen. It has been clear for months that negotiators were not going to conclude a new treaty to succeed Kyoto, but many people still held out hopes that substantial progress would be made towards a new agreement, which could then be wrapped up before COP-16 in Mexico City in November 2010. Those hopes now seem wildly optimistic. Major differences on the key issues still separate the U. S., the EU, China, and India. The smaller developing countries appear increasingly alienated and divided.

The question is, who is going to be saddled with the blame for COP-15's failure? There is only one obvious candidate: the United States. And the environmental movement is preparing the groundwork. Yesterday at 6 PM at Copenhagen's Bella Center where COP-15 is taking place, the Climate Action Network gave out their Fossil of the Day Awards to the countries that have done the most to block progress in the negotations. For the third straight day, the U. S. won first prize. This is a significant change from the first week, when the U. S. failed to win the top prize and was far behind Canada for the grand prize awarded at the end of the COP. But Canada is just not a big enough target upon which to focus the anger of the world's intellectual elites for the UN's failure to save the planet.

So the U. S. is going to take the fall. This is surprising. China and India are taking a much harder line than the U. S. So is Tuvalu, for that matter. Indeed, China has now reportedly said that it won't agree to any provisional political agreement as COP-15's deliverable. George W. Bush, who for eight years was the only obstacle to global progress against global warming, is no longer President. And Barack Obama is President. Interestingly, the people presenting the Fossil of the Day Awards held out the prospect that President Obama's arrival will turn the U. S. position around. He will tell his benighted negotiators to stop frustrating the hopes of the world and get with the Hopenchangen agenda. Should this actually occur, it will be a repeat of Kyoto in 1997. The negotiations were hopelessly deadlocked at the beginning of the last week. President Clinton sent (or allowed) Vice President Gore to fly to Kyoto and collapse the U. S. negotiating position. The result was a treaty that was dead in the Senate the minute it was signed.

It's probably too much to hope that Obama will make the same mistake that Gore made, but it is ironic that unless he does, the U. S. will end up being blamed for the failure here. It will be interesting to see to to what degree President Obama can succeed in keeping the blame from falling on him personally.