The 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) sounds like a contradiction in terms–conferences are business-like and dull while parties are, well, fun! But COP 15 is actually the formal name of the annual gathering of nations that participate in the UN’s effort to curb climate change and the “party” is about half a year from now in Denmark. Will the US arrive with little more than a tourist map of Copenhagen and some well-worn stories about China being the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases (GHGs)?

In my view, the US will surprise everyone and arrive with the suitcase full of robust climate policies, but if the UN insists on sticking to its formula for a new global climate deal, based on the Kyoto Protocol, the Americans won’t be the only ones departing empty handed. The divisions between developed and developing nations, especially the US and China, are too old and too real to solve with a broad one-size-fits-all agreement. Instead, we may need a series of mini-deals, each tackling specific sources of GHGs (by geography and industrial sector), which taken together creates a mosaic that completes a more detailed, practical picture.

The good news is that these various agreements are already being drafted, signed, and implemented. For example, at last year’s Governors’ Global Climate Summit in California, US states reached agreements with states in Brazil and Indonesia that will preserve rainforests, thereby cutting GHGs instead of trees.

In another example, US states and Canadian provinces have invited China to help design a massive international cap-and-trade system to use markets to reduce GHGS and ensure that projects are sustainable and verifiable.
Other sub-national governments–usually with US climate leadership states in the mix–are signing agreements to reduce GHGs with measures like energy efficiency R&D and other policy initiatives that pave the way for their respective national governments to get deals done when they convene in meetings like the COP15.

People forget that the US signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1992–but never ratified it. That’s because when policy makers looked inward, they had no idea how to achieve what had just agreed to and, as a result, there was no political support for ratification. Today the opposite is true–33 states have “climate action plans” that put them on a par with Kyoto signatories, showing the feds how we can slash GHGs–and the politics that usually undermine well-meaning aspirations and agreements.

So let’s prepare to party hearty in Denmark in December. The US will bring a lot of its own policies and programs that are already effectively reducing GHGs, albeit at the state and regional level–in many cases, with international partners already lined up. If the UN builds on this foundation, along with the great work that many Kyoto signatories have done in their countries so far, there will be more than funny hats and confetti on the floor when this party’s over.

Ever since President Obama took office in January, he’s kept his eye on the grand prize of making political discourse more civil. He’s held up the ideal that Democrats and Republicans can find common ground and move beyond shrill partisan warring that has characterized politics for the last twenty-five years.

In looking for places to boost this unifying project, the sunny patch of common ground on the White House lawn holds great promise.

When First Lady Michelle Obama and her daughters together with Washington school children recently turned soil to start the new White House vegetable garden, they tapped into a deep well of America’s heritage–the agrarian ideal and the related notion of self-sufficiency–but also into modern dreams of a more healthful food system not just for elites but for everyone.

These ideals and dreams capture the imagination of people everywhere on the political spectrum.

In the past year, as I’ve given talks about my book Kitchen Literacy: how we’ve lost knowledge of where food comes from and why we need to get it back, I’ve found myself talking with people from far right to far left, some from traditional farm backgrounds, some from city centers, some Christian fundamentalists, some Buddhists, some young, some old. I have been inspired to find people of all sorts excited by the hope of rebuilding local, regional food systems that can revive rural economies and provide better, more wholesome foods to more people.

Like no other issue, the aim of rebuilding local agriculture has the potential to unite people in communities all across the nation– to get us talking again about what is important and what is possible.

And strategies from both political camps are clearly needed.

With so many recent food recalls and food-borne illness problems, reforming government oversight of our food system is crucial. The USDA has a long history of sympathizing with producers, not consumers, creating an undeniable conflict of interest when it comes to food safety. Both FDA and the USDA have long been governed by leaders who rotate through revolving doors from big food and agri-business to government–drawing the credibility of the agencies into serious question. Another key area for reform is reducing farm subsidies that favor only the largest commodity crop producers.

But we also need a bottom up approach to rebuild our food systems on a regional and community levels. Already citizens are working at the grassroots to identify barriers to thriving regional agriculture and to figure out new solutions. Small farmers are seeing themselves not only as producers in a large corporate-governed commodity system, but also as entrepreneurs who can tap niche and local markets. And even consumers are figuring out how to parley the power of their pocketbooks by taking personal responsibility for their shopping, by supporting local farms at farmers markets and by starting backyard vegetable gardens.

On a practical level, the new White House vegetable garden will certainly grow great tasting lettuce for the first family and may even inspire local school kids to eat their veggies. On a more symbolic level, the garden can nurture a mix of personal responsibility and government reform that has the potential to re-unify America.

As new seeds poke their heads through soil this spring, we can be hopeful.

When Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed me to serve as the Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency in 2003, my first challenge came not from the smoggy skies of Los Angeles or the pesticide-laden drainage from irrigated fields near Fresno, but from a small town in Missouri. Well, actually it came from the tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions made to Missouri Senator Christopher “Kit” Bond by Briggs & Stratton in exchange for the lives of about 1200 Americans.

My CalEPA air quality team had concluded that small, highly-polluting engines should be required to reduce emissions, using off-the-shelf technology, the same as your car or a refinery’s smoke stack is required to do. Doing so, the science showed, would reduce asthma and save lives. Briggs and Stratton had an engine assembly plant in Missouri, so they turned to the Senator, whose election campaigns they had generously supported, and cooked up a scheme to sneak a provision into a bill before Congress that would prevent any state from regulating these potent polluters.

After much wrangling, Governor Schwarzenegger and Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) protected California’s unique rights under the federal Clean Air Act to regulate these small engines, but Bond managed to force the other 49 states to wait for the USEPA to take action if they were going to do likewise. Bond, and the USEPA at the time, said there was a greater threat to the economy than our lungs from such regulation, because it might hurt the factory in Missouri.

Last week, after stalling for nearly five years, the USEPA finally agreed with California and imposed regulations on small engine pollution. Californians are already protected from these smog-makers, but the federal rules for the other 49 states won’t take effect for three more years, despite the fact that the USEPA now admits that “…the total estimated public health benefits range between $1.6 and $4.4 billion by 2030. These benefits outweigh estimated costs by at least eight to one, while preventing over 300 premature deaths, 1,700 hospitalizations, and 23,000 lost workdays annually.”

The additional delays in regulating this significant source of pollution nationally means that about 1200 Americans will die prematurely for absolutely no reason - - other than politics. Meanwhile, Briggs and Stratton lost the business anyway, because the rest of the world wanted cleaner engines too and started buying the ones produced by Briggs’ competitors, like Coleman and Honda, who were smart enough to produce cleaner versions of the same thing at competitive prices.

Yes, politics kills people, jobs, and even the economy it pretends to protect. I hope this small battle in the long war for clean air will serve as a teachable moment for our Presidential candidates and the voters who will make their choices later this year. If so, then perhaps those 1200 will not die in vain.

What do you think? Leave us a comment.

———-

Terry Tamminen is author of Lives Per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction. You can visit him at www.terrytamminen.com.