Climate summit over before it begins?
Posted: Sunday, November 15, 2009 1:43 AM by Chuck Todd
From NBC's Chuck Todd
SINGAPORE -- It's rare that anything unannounced happens at one of these summits. That's why so many folks are buzzing about the unplanned Sunday morning breakfast meeting on the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Summit between 19 of the 21 world leaders attending this weekend's APEC conference.
The leaders of Australia and Mexico, both members of APEC, hastily organized the breakfast and encouraged Denmark's Prime Minister, Lars Rasmussen, to fly to Singapore to give the APEC leaders a briefing on the progress (or lack thereof) being made in advance of the December climate summit in Copenhagen.
In short, it appears expectations for something concrete have been dramatically ratcheted back.
According to deputy Nat'l Security advisor Mike Froman, Rasmussen told the leaders that in Copenhagen, there would be "one agreement, two steps," where "Copenhagen would be the first step in a process towards a internationally legally binding agreement; that in Copenhagen he would seek to achieve a politically binding agreement that covered all the major elements of the negotiations, including mitigation, adaptation, technology, and finance."
Translation: Copenhagen will be an agreement to form an agreement. (And you thought the health care was difficult to follow... but I digress.)
Froman went on to say that the expectation now is that something more concrete in terms of an int'l binding agreement on capping carbon emissions and cutting emissions etc. would happen NEXT YEAR at a conference that's expected to be in Mexico City.
Froman said Pres. Obama endorsed the "two step" strategy laid out by Rasmussen but did NOT make a pledge to attend the December Copenhagen conference.