US Elections

Interview: Robert Hill in Copenhagen Part II

By Jonathan Bradley in Sydney

19 December 2009

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This past Thursday morning, I once again dialled Copenhagen and spoke to the USSC's Adjunct Professor in Sustainability, Robert Hill. Hill will be teaching a course here at the Centre titled "Climate Change After Copenhagen: Australia, the U.S. and the world," in Summer School 2010. He was once upon a time a Senator for South Australia and a Minister in the Howard Government, which he followed with a stint as Ambassador to the United Nations. Today he is the Chairman of the Australian Carbon Trust, and he's currently in Copenhagen at the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009.

Jonathan Bradley: Last time we spoke it seemed like things were still rather in the preliminary stages. What's changed in the past couple days?

Robert Hill: A number of things. The world leaders are starting to arrive, quite steadily now, and most will be here by tomorrow so they're expecting something like 110 heads of government or heads of state. With that change in the dynamic the President of the convention resigned - it was the environment minister - to be replaced by the Prime Minister. The meeting is ratcheting up a level - that was expected to occur; that was consistent with the meeting moving to a level more senior. The working group are concluding their consideration of the issue - sort of only half-happily one might say. They're still concluding with lots of brackets in their text and considerable unhappiness by some delegations. There's a feeling that they're being curtailed in their work, they hadn't completed their process, but basically they're being told that timing is up. The Danish chair is introducing new text and needless to say, there's lots of criticism with those texts as well. The organisers are now substantially reducing the number of NGOs that are allowed in the building, so the meeting is becoming much more focused on the decision-makers. So, it's really now moving towards the end game.

JB: Right.

RH: So they commenced the high level meeting two days ago, but now it's a moved level beyond that.

JB: You referred to a new text. Is this the new draft negotiation text that's been spoken about?

RH: I'm not sure which one you're referring to, but the Danish chair has introduced new text.

JB: Could you tell me a bit about what that text contains -what are its good points, if there's anything about it that you feel is not strong enough?

RH: When I left the convention hall, one had just been introduced, and the other track hadn't been, so I haven't had a chance to examine the details of the text. Interestingly most people think that they in themselves are only a step in the process, that they will be overtaken by what will become a political agreement, which will be put together probably by a small group of heads of state. There's always a discomfort in the UN about small groups, but 110 is too many to negotiate a common position.

JB: It does seem as if it would be quite difficult for 110 people to agree on anything, particularly something as contentious as this.

And here, thanks to the less than premium service of my Internet provider Unwired, the call dropped out. After a moment or so, however, I reconnected and Hill and I resumed our discussion.

JB: I was just about to ask about Kevin Rudd arriving, and how that's pushed things forward in terms of Australia's interests.

RH: I haven't seen him, and I understand he's been having a series of meetings with other heads of government as they arrive. But I haven't yet heard what target he's going to put on the table.

JB: Do you expect to see him at any point in the near future?

RH: No.

JB: So, you and he are working on different tracks, basically, is that correct?

RH: Yeah. He's doing his business.

JB: What is your role as compared to his - what is your role over the next few days?

RH: Well, it'll be interesting to see whether I get locked out tomorrow. So, it'll depend a bit on that. But basically I'm working with certain NGOs, particularly WWF International. We help them, they've got 120 negotiators working over on a country basis or on specialised issues, and then I help them with the overall dynamics of the negotiations.

JB: So there is a chance that you could show up tomorrow and they just won't let you in because of the escalation in terms of heads of government arriving?

RH: Well, I won't show up if I'm not going to be let in. I'll know before the morning. It's not much fun standing out there in a queue. There have been delegates waiting ten hours in queues in the icy cold and then not getting, so that's not the best way of doing the business.

JB: It doesn't sound it. We're missing a couple of very important leaders from the conference at the moment in Barack Obama and Hu Jintao. Is there still a sense that people are waiting until they show up, or is solid work being done even before these two heavyweights appear?

RH: I don't know... is Mr Hu coming is he?

JB: I believe he was - perhaps I have misread or have been misinformed about that...

Hill's question was warranted. I had confused China's President Hu with Premier Wen Jiabao, who will be attending the summit.

RH: Obama is obviously the key player and no decisions will be taken before Obama arrives. So when I said we're moving to the end game, we're still not at the end game. That'll be Friday, when Obama is here. The U.S., whether people like it or not, is still the key player in the whole negotiation. And it does in fact frustrate some because they say that the two track approach has really become necessary because of the U.S. not being in the Kyoto Protocol, and therefore there has to be a great deal of accommodation for the U.S. that some don't like - but that's the reality of international politics. And as you were hinting, the other key party now is China, because it's now become the world's largest emitter and it's also the key developing country, and of course under the rules it doesn't have any legal obligations. So they are the two key players in the negotiation. This is very frustrating for many who - small countries who see themselves as more directly affected by the consequences of climate change, and have less financial firepower to adapt to, ways to accommodate to changes in the climate. But there are the ones who are complaining today, and will be complaining in the next few days that their voice is not being heard. So it'll be a tricky issue, you know. I heard today that the heavyweights are having a lot of trouble in determining the composition of the small group. No doubt they won't even admit that there will be a small group. I don't think they quite imagined that they'd have to compose a small group from 110 countries, and that's almost unprecedented and is going to be a challenge in itself.

JB: How do they go about selecting the countries that will compose that small group? What's the negotiation process there?

RH: [laughs] There's no rule book. It's economic and political weight, basically, and sometimes consideration of other relevant factors. So, you ask me who I think will be in the small group, it will be obviously the United States, and the European Union will be represented. It will be China and India, as the two largest developing country emitters. It will be Brazil, for a range of different reasons, including the importance of the Amazon on the forest issues. I think it will be South Africa, and then it starts becoming difficult, because each extra country that you include, you disappoint, if not irritate, someone else. Indonesia would have a good argument; Japan would have a good argument; one of the OPEC countries would have a good argument. So it's not going to be easy at all to put it together and this is going to be a challenge for the chairman of the COP, but I think there'll be considerable guidance given to him by the United States.

JB: You mentioned Brazil and forestry, and I read that there's been an agreement on forestry issues - I think it's the REDD agreement - how significant is it that there has been some sort of agreement broached on this issue?

RH: Well there's not agreement, because there's no agreement until everything's agreed. But certainly there's in the working groups there was a fair degree of consensus. Now how much of that will last the processes of the next couple of days is difficult to gauge. But I think there's a good chance - in fact I am expecting - that REDD will be included in the outcome. Certainly, in principle, in other words, they say it in a political agreement, they adopt the principles of REDD, and how much detail will be attached to it as opposed to whether they instruct negotiators to continue to work on that detail won't become apparent until right at the end.

JB: You said on Monday that Australia has a lot in common with a lot of developing nation in issues like forestry. Is the REDD agreement a good thing for Australia?

RH: Yes Australia's supportive. Australia's been very supportive, because the reality is that if you don't preserve the world's forests, then you are emitting more greenhouse gases, so it's very important in terms of creating a sink and also in issues of restoration and improving the management of forests you enhance their capacity in terms of carbon. So it's an important part of the total picture. Some have seen it as an escape from facing up to the real responsibility of reducing industrial and transport building sector emissions and the like. But certainly the view of Australia is that it can be an important part of the solution.

JB: Do you think that there's any credibility to the view that this is an escape from the responsibility of reducing industrial emissions and et cetera?

RH: No, I don't. I think that you've got to do both. I think conserving the forests is important and reducing emissions from those power sources, and other industrial, household, transport, et cetera is important as well.

JB: One thing that's been reported a lot over the past couple days is that there seems to be a lot of drama between the U.S. and China in particular and they're having a tough time coming to an agreement. Is this an intractable conflict, or is it just for show, and they're going to get down to it at the end and come up with something that they can both agree on?

RH: I'm not saying it's a show but I think they will reach agreement. The issue that seems to have been the trickiest is verification. From the United States' perspective, seeing China is not going to take a legal obligation, it should at least, in their view, be obliged to accept a process of verification of the reductions forma business-as-usual scenario that they claim they would achieve, and there's been a lot of debate over what the form of that verification should take. And some say that it's going to be a deal-breaker, but my inclination is that behind the scenes they have a formula that will be acceptable to both sides. Why it's so important for Mr Obama - President Obama - is that it's one of those factors that the Congress will particularly look at because the Congress will view that China is getting it easy because it's not going to have a legal obligation, and therefore it'll particularly focus on verification. And that becomes relevant in terms of passage of next year's domestic cap-and-trade legislation in the United States. Obama has to satisfy the Congress that China is carrying its fair share of the burden.

JB: Do you have any idea what that formula is going to look like - that they've settled on behind the scenes?

RH: I don't really know, but my guess would be that it'd be a formula for maybe under the UN climate change processes for reviews of performance, where countries are in effect reviewed by their peers. It may be that China would accept that, whereas I don't think they'd accept teams of experts, for example, being dispatched to China to examine their accords and the detail of the outcome of their efforts.

JB: Right. I think we're getting close to five o'clock - sorry, that's my time - seven p.m. your time, so I won't keep you too much longer.

RH: Yeah, I've got to go to a function. We've got an Earth Hour function here, where they're going to turn off the lights in the city, and Secretary-General Ban is going to be there. I've got to introduce him to some people.

JB: In that case I will save my final question for next time.

RH: Just in summary, I haven't changed my view in terms of the outcome. There's been a lot of pessimism around, but I think that there's still a huge momentum towards ultimately finding a deal, because otherwise 110 global leaders have got to turn around and fly home and say they've failed, and I find that almost impossible to believe. So, I think that though all the parties may seem to be a long way apart at the moment and tempers are frayed and all of that sort of thing, I think the likelihood is still of a political agreement. And I think there's a fair chance that, in terms of targets and commitments, finance, forestry, adaptation, technology transfer, et cetera, that it will be a reasonable agreement. But it will be one that still will require a great deal further work to be done next year. So I'll see if I change my mind by Friday.

Tags: Climate Change, Copenhagen, Robert Hill

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