Put this week in your diary…

20th November 2008 will go down in history. A political crossing of the Rubicon. For this week Barack Obama confirmed his commitment to the Kyoto Protocol. In fact the Kyoto timeframe is almost over, so President Obama’s commitment will be instrumental in getting agreement to its successor at Copenhagen in 2009.

Much is expected of Obama – too much – but he has quickly signalled that climate change is one area in which there will be no backtracking on election promises:

“We will establish strong annual targets that set us on a course to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them by an additional 80 percent by 2050″.

He is also backing this long range target with annual step goals, thereby removing the inevitable temptation to leave doing anything until later. This momentous news was pretty much drowned out by the endless self flagellation over the recession, credit crunch and impending mass unemployment.

America’s engagement in tackling climate change, err, changes everything and means there is now a real chance of capping carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and limiting the global temperature increase to an average of two degrees celsius, which is what the best advice says we must do. At last governments have a realistic opportunity to agree something meaningful in place of the token gestures which are all that have been possible without America.

Of course many in the US have been working constructively for years. Research institutions, some leading companies, many states, thousands of activists and a handful of actors had already decided their government called this one wrong and needed to be turned round.

But, the foot dragging, science perverting political filibustering of the Bush regime has had a huge impact in slowing progress to a crawl. Here’s just one minor story from my own experience:

As a consultant, I have been banging on about climate change for sixteen years. At the beginning it was just one of a list of environmental issues we were trying to make companies more aware of. In fact the hole in the ozone layer (caused by CFCs in aerosols and refrigerants) was originally a more pressing problem. Many at the time, including a UK environment minister, confused the ozone layer with global warming. Gradually, environmental management became better accepted and one by one companies linked energy consumption to carbon dioxide emissions and began thinking about targets.

About ten years ago we were working with a major quarrying group with operations in Europe and the US. To their credit they were one of the first in their sector to make an inventory of their energy consumption and calculate the consequent carbon footprint. Had they continued down this path of carbon accounting they would today be a world leader. But they did not.

On seeing the first draft of their corporate responsibility report, the CEO of the US operation instructed that all references to ‘climate change’ be deleted from the draft. We could mention energy use but not climate change. The hand of Bush hovered even over our keyboard in London. Soon the US CEO was made group CEO and we resigned the account. We will not green-wash.

I’m sure stories like this have played out in a multitude of companies, government organisations and even universities over the Bush period. No longer. The CEO who says he won’t discuss climate change will be about as fashionable as Pam Ewing’s shoulder pads.

Now the real power of America will be unleashed. Drill baby drill will be replaced by re-skill baby re-skill. Detroit will be saved by hybrids and diesels and electric power. Silicon valley will deliver huge carbon savings with IT controlling all kinds of engineering better making it more efficient. Very few nations still have leading brains and leading manufacturing capacity. The US is uniquely equipped to deliver the carbon revolution so many of us have been hoping for. It has some low hanging fruit to harvest working on its own domestic energy efficiency, which is laughable. There’s going to be so much money made using less oil and selling the machines to use less oil, it’s going to be the new boom. The drill less boom.

I for one am looking forward to this. I wonder if that aggregates CEO is ready to start talking carbon with me – I still have his number and my JR Ewing 80’s suit.

Sage