The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2017

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2017 23 a “deadbeat dad”—the top historic carbon polluter ducking its obligations. Quest for a Deal “Applicable to All” When President Barack Obama took office in January 2009 UNFCCC negotiators faced the looming expiration of the Kyoto Protocol’s 2008-2012 commitment period. The chaotic December 2009 climate negotiations in Copenhagen, dubbed a failure by many, actually brought into bold relief a fundamental truth: putting the onus for action only on developed countries was no longer viable. Even if all developed countries met their ambitious targets, we would still be endangered by unchecked developing country GHG emissions, particularly driven by major emitters like China and India. Cobbled together by Pres. Obama and other heads of state in a last-ditch effort to salvage the Conference of the Parties, the brief “Copenhagen Accord” reset the foundations for interna- tional climate diplomacy. It was the first-ever agreement calling on both developed and developing countries to articulate GHG emission targets for 2020, removing the first bricks from the “firewall” that previously shielded developing countries from setting quantified goals. In so doing, Copenhagen set the stage for the effort to develop a new deal by 2015 for the post-2020 period. Given domestic U.S. politics, we had to have an agreement that, among other things, was “applicable to all” and that strengthened long- term ambition, ensured transparency with regular reporting and review, and was based on country-determined (“bottom-up”) targets and timetables rather than “top-down” ones imposed by others á la Kyoto. Led by then-Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern, the State Department’s team composed primarily of career civil servants carefully crafted a new “pledge and review” approach that ultimately became the basis for the Paris Agreement. Stern relied heavily on two career civil servants—Office of the Legal Adviser’s lawyer Sue Biniaz and Office of Global Change Director Trigg Talley, whom Stern later tapped as his deputy special envoy. The State Department climate team felt the impact when long-time climate champion and then-Senator John Kerry took the reins at State in 2013. Secretary of State Kerry elevated climate to the top of our diplomatic agenda, issuing his first department-wide policy memo focused on climate and includ- ing the issue as a regular fixture in his public statements. He and Pres. Obama pressed the U.S. agenda routinely in bilateral calls and meetings, as well as multilateral fora. Likewise, other top Obama administration officials lent their strong support on cli- mate issues, including Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, Agricul- ture Secretary Tom Vilsack, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and Science Advisor to the President Dr. John Holdren, among others. Several years of out- reach and bargaining set the stage for the closing run-up to Paris. At the 2014 U.N. climate negotiations in Lima, UNFCCC parties chose State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary for Environment Daniel Reifsnyder to co-chair the committee charged with drafting the Paris Agree- ment. Thanks to his long history with the UNFCCC dating from its first days, Reifsnyder offered much more than his negotiating skills and his credibility as a fair arbiter. He also brought to bear his encyclopedic knowledge of climate issues and the extended tribe of UNFCCC players from around the world. With little fanfare, Reifsnyder teamed with his Algerian co-chair, Ahmed Djoghlaf, also a veteran climate negotiator, to shepherd the fractious parties through an intense succession of negotiations throughout 2015. In reconciling the incredibly diverse interests of nearly 200 parties, they developed a balanced package that Cobbled together by President Obama and other heads of state, the brief “Copenhagen Accord” reset the foundations for international climate diplomacy. Secretary of State John Kerry confers with U.S. negotiators on the final text of the Paris Agreement. COURTESYOFTIMLATTIMER