SWEDES WORKING ON CLIMATE CHANGE TEMPTED BY THE PROSPECT

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 STOCKHOLM 000620 SIPDIS SENSITIVE, PLEASE HANDLE ACCORDINGLY E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: SENV KGHG PREL SW SUBJECT: SWEDES WORKING ON CLIMATE CHANGE TEMPTED BY THE PROSPECT OF A NARROW, FOCUSED US-EU PUSH REF: A) STATE 97542; B) STOCKHOLM 567 ¶1. (SBU) Summary: During a September 25 meeting, Swedish Environment Ministry officials continued to resist U.S. urgings that the U.S. and EU speak with one voice to pressure emerging economies on climate change, but showed some weakening in their resolve when the conversation turned to the specific tasks that need to be accomplished between now and COP-15. Identifying concrete areas where strong EU/U.S. coordination would be particularly fruitful may be a way to weaken European resolve to stand apart from U.S. climate change efforts. End summary. ¶2. (U) On September 25, Embassy Stockholm presented Ref A demarche to officials from the Division of Environmental Quality at the Environment Ministry, the Division directly responsible for climate change negotiations: Katja Awiti, Deputy Director, who oversees and coordinates climate issues for the Swedish EU Presidency; and Fredrik Hannerz who works on the Major Economies Forum (MEF). ¶3. (SBU) In response to our points that there is no prospect for Waxman-Markey to undertake more aggressive reductions, and Europe and the U.S. should speak with one voice, Hannerz responded that the Swedish Government does not see it this way. He repeated the answer given to our Ambassador by Environment Minister Carlgren (Ref B). Hannerz said Sweden sees calling on the U.S. to do more as keeping the pressure up on all parties. He argued that unless they are tough in demands from the U.S., they have no clout with China. He claimed the media's predilection to highlight EU criticism of the U.S. ignores equal Swedish pressure on China. ¶5. (SBU) Hannerz discussed at length two challenges that must be overcome to allow meaningful discussions in Copenhagen, financing and the currently unworkable negotiating text. He said the current text is over 200 pages and full of brackets. He did not expect the text to be improved in Bangkok, and opined that if it is not made more manageable by the time we get to Barcelona; then COP-15 in Copenhagen will be in serious trouble because the parties will not have a workable text to agree on. ¶6. (SBU) Hannerz said a key problem is that without a Ministerial level meeting, there is no way to change the Chair's mandate to allow him to table a Chairman's proposal or a similar more workable text. He said they wanted to have a Ministerial tied to Bangkok, but were blocked by some other countries. In a subsequent phone conversation, we understood that there is a possibility of introducing a Ministerial segment in Bangkok, a prospect much welcomed by the Swedes. ¶7. (SBU) We then discussed how a related problem seems to be, according to reports from the Bonn talks, that G-77 representatives are stalling the negotiations with procedural issues, making progress very slow. This led to discussion of how this might be a useful area for U.S. - EU joint collaboration: a strong push for progress in reducing the massive numbers of texts under consideration. The argument is that in order for the U.S., EU and other parties to have something workable to agree on at COP-15, the developing countries have to facilitate progress toward a workable text, e.g. reducing the number of pages, and especially the brackets, well in advance of COP-15. Without saying so explicitly, he recognized that this was a concrete area where joint US-EU efforts could be needed and useful. ¶8. (SBU) Hannerz explained how the Washington MEF offered good discussions on reporting, monitoring, and verification, and repeatedly wondered how we could get MEF results to feed into the UNFCC negotiations. He seemed to be looking for ideas on how to accomplish that. Both Awiti and Hannerz noted that many of the emerging economies and the G-77 group at large want to keep the climate discussions to the UNFCCC process, which is a challenge both to the MEF and the G20 efforts on climate change. ¶9. (SBU) The Embassy reviewed the other points from REF A, including that the U.S. is committed to providing financial and technological assistance to help developing countries move towards low-carbon development. Hannerz was very interested in this last point, expressing concern that if the G-20 process was not able to produce something on financing, we would be hard pressed to find another venue in time to yield the concrete results on financing needed before COP-15 to get commitments from developing countries. ¶11. (SBU) Clearly concerned about financing, Hannerz contacted us again on September 28. He had been reviewing Todd Stern's press remarks, and wanted to know what was meant by saying that the major emerging economies need to "stand behind their actions." In the September 22 remarks, Stern said, "the emerging markets, the major developing countries, also need to take significant actions to reduce their own emissions and need to stand behind their actions just the way developed countries need to stand behind theirs." Hannerz wondered if he was interpreting this the right way, to mean STOCKHOLM 00000620 002 OF 002 that the major emerging economies will have to finance their actions themselves; or whether the correct interpretation is more a legal one, that the emerging countries have to somehow legally commit to actions. We reminded Hannerz of what Ref A said the U.S. was asking of emerging economies: that they commit to undertake actions and reflect them as part of the agreement; undertake their national actions, at a level that puts them on a path that is consistent with what the science demands, commit internationally to carry them out; and estimate the emissions reductions from these actions, report actions transparently, and subject actions to international verification. ¶12. (SBU) Comment. Our Swedish interlocutors are clearly concerned that a lack of progress in the negotiations ahead of Copenhagen will lead to a failure at COP-15. Hannerz repeatedly mentioned concerns about the lengthy texts currently being negotiated, and about an appropriate forum to address financing, should G20 not deliver enough. When he talked about possible joint U.S.-EU efforts to press emerging economies on such specific points, Hannerz paused to scribble notes so he could pursue this idea with political levels in the Swedish government. Clearly he was worried enough about these specific challenges to find the prospect of focused joint US-EU pressure tempting. Identifying concrete areas where strong U.S.-EU coordination would be particularly fruitful may be a way to weaken European resolve to stand apart from U.S. climate change efforts. This would not be a panacea, since the political level sees advantages to blaming the U.S., but it may moderate the European approach. BARZUN