The Copenhagen summit on climate change has given birth to a conspiracy and a ruse, both of American origin. The conspiracy is a favourite topic for US Senator Jim Inhofe, member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Inhofe went to Copenhagen to speak on behalf of big industry against all types of environmental constraints. He claims to have enough support in Congress to abort any budget allocations aimed at reducing greenhouse gases. According to Inhofe, the $330 billion per year the US needs to bring down harmful emissions would be money wasted. Inhofe and his colleagues argue that climate change is a hoax propagated by proponents of state intervention in economic life. Citing scientists who work for big companies, Inhofe claims that the planet is not getting warmer. This is the conspiracy. As for the ruse, it will be delivered in person by none other than President Barack Obama himself, who will join the Copenhagen summit for its final days. The US president is expected to declare that the US is willing to reduce carbon emissions by 17 per cent by 2020. Obama is also expected to sign a new agreement to combat global warming. The reason this is a ruse is that given its current rates of consumption of fossil fuels, the US is not in a position to bring down greenhouse gases by 17 per cent. Even a seven per cent reduction is deemed unlikely. All the US can offer for now are non-binding pledges which Congress and business can later torpedo, just as happened with the Kyoto Protocol. The double dealing is not confined to Washington. With the exception of a few European nations, almost all industrialised countries pledge reductions in their emissions of greenhouse gasses without taking any tangible measures in that direction. China, a country expected to produce 53 per cent of all greenhouse gases by 2020, is one example. India, soon to be responsible for 22 per cent of the increase in greenhouse emissions, is another. So why is the US getting so much negative coverage? Two things. One, it is responsible for 25 per cent of greenhouse emissions worldwide and is currently using a quarter of the world's production of fuel. Two, US companies and Congress have emerged as the most outspoken opponents of any environmental reform. Does this mean that the Copenhagen summit is pointless? Yes and no. For all the rhetoric the summit is unlikely to put a cap on harmful emissions. But things are likely to change, as Martin Wolf of the Financial Times says. He called the Copenhagen summit "the end of the beginning". But even for such limited optimism to be true capitalism would have to change its ways. Perhaps he is right. Perhaps one day the capitalist camel will be able to pass through environmental needle's eye.
