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

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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