U.S. Diplomacy and Global Energy Policy

Energy policy has been prioritized by the U.S. diplomatic bureaucracy. This much is clear after a dinner I attended last night with Kurt Volker, deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs and soon to be U.S. Ambassador to NATO. Mr. Volker is a well spoken man who seems to have the ability to articulate any topic related to U.S. foreign policy, whether he has any expertise on the subject or not. His capacity to finesse any topic to the point where you want to buy whatever he is selling is uncanny — and admirable. I guess 20 years in the foreign service allows one to make bull shit seem like an infomercial product that you just can't help but buy.

But I didn't buy it all. Ok, just one set of brick slicing knives, but not two. The director of IERES at GW, Hope Harrison, asked him to speak specifically on energy security and Russia. He spoke eloquently on a variety of topics initially — the Bucharest NATO summit, missile defence, relations with Russia, relations with the EU, foreign policy formation in general, President Bush — and I found myself thoroughly convinced that Mr. Volker is brilliant, even though I was cognisant of the fact that he most likely comes from a slightly neo-conservative but definately conservative perspective. He phrased the issues in such a way so that one could not help but agree, and substantiated his views with very pointed, however unverifiable, evidence. And then when it came time to address Russia and energy security, he instead spoke at length on U.S. energy and climate change policy. And this is where I refused to drink the government sponsored kool-aid.

I am not sure how or why he veered the conversation in this direction. Maybe he was testing out his smooth talking abilities. Seeing if he could convince a crowd on an issue in which he has very little, if any, expertise. He started off by defining energy security as one of the two major issues that will remain unresolved for the next few decades (extremism and terrorism being the other). It then turned into somewhat of a rant on the naivety of the European attempts at a carbon emissions trading mechanisms. He seemed to think it useless to set caps for carbon emissions, put a monetary value on emissions, and then trade excess credits to firms that cannot reduce their carbon output. He furthermore ridiculed the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the EU trading scheme. The basis of the CDM is that Western countries can sponsor/fund emissions reduction programs in developing countries and count those reductions towards reducing their own country's emissions. The logic behind it is that it provides a way for developing countries to reduce their CO2 emissions while providing incentive for wealthy countries to fund such projects — and the logic seems sound to me (and every other scientist on the UN IPCC). Mr. Volker did not see it this way. The way he phrased it (and I paraphrase) was that it allows European countries to claim emissions reductions while providing money to countries like China to build more coal-fired, carbon producing power plant.

The whole discussion was a true exercize in bureaucratic diplomacy. His comments, instead of being informed by fact or expertise, were formed by towing the party line (or perhaps by himself who creates the party line). The EU CO2 trading system is a mess, and just short of a total failure up to this point. But this is not what Mr. Volker was saying. He was saying that cap-and-trade systems are inherently a failure. This is a strange position to take seeing as most scientists and inform environmental activists support the use of cap-and-trade schemes. Two other topics lead me to believe that his views are more informed by the administration hierarchy rather than the scientific community or any other legitimate source. First, he touted the contemporary nuclear power revival. I am not opposed to nuclear energy being part of the mix of energy supply, but there are some significant problems with nuclear energy that he somehow failed to address. The second was the complete lack of discussion on international cooperation on climate change, the Kyoto treaty, or a post-Kyoto global agreement. The reason is that the Bush administration, and hence Mr. Volker, have ZERO interest in international cooperation on climate change, unless it is entirely on U.S. terms. The reasoning is becoming increasingly flimsy in the face of international pressure, and came to a head when members of the U.S. delegation to the Bali Climate Change Summit were laughed and booed at.

Let me make my stance on the issue clear. The world needs an international agreement to stem the negative effects of climate change and environmental degradation, and the world needs the United States to lead on this issue. It is a question of who jumps first (because everyone will eventually jump). Europe has jumped, but their global efforts are useless without U.S. support. China and India will not jump first. For both of these reasons, the U.S. must be the first to act radically. For a more elaborate explanation of my opinion, read this article. Cap-and-trade systems and the CDM, if done properly, can be very useful tools for stopping climate change.

By veering too far from his areas of expertise, Mr. Volker exposed himself more than he should have. My respect for him did not turn to contempt, but rather to the sad realization that dogmatism, rather than dynamism, plagues the foreign policy bureaucracy. In the case of Mr. Volker, being as high on the totem pole as he is, it may not be that he is towing the party line, but that he is informing (or misinforming) and creating it.