(Cross-posted at On Day One)

At long last, Congress has passed the 2008 supplemental appropriations bill -- and it includes $665 million to help fund UN peacekeeping missions, pay back U.S. debt to the UN, and contribute to key international organizations like NATO and the World Health Organization. In response, the Better World Campaign expressed cautious optimism in a press release that it issued on Friday:

"At a time when the United States is asking the United Nations to take on more and more responsibilities for peace, security and progress around the world, it is imperative that America honor its financial commitments to the UN," said former Senator Timothy E. Wirth, President of the United Nations Foundation and Better World Campaign. "America is a great nation and as such needs to pay its bills on time and in full. This legislation is an important step toward reducing America's nearly $2 billion debt to the UN," Wirth said.

"If the President approves this budget request, U.S. debt to the UN will fall to $1.734 billion," said Deborah Derrick, Executive Director of the Better World Campaign. "In order to further reduce U.S. debt to the UN, and enhance America's reputation in the world, the Better World Campaign is calling on Congress and the Administration to prioritize payment of unpaid bills to the UN in the fiscal 2009 appropriations process," she said.

"Fall to $1.734 billion" may seem depressingly ironic, as such a sum means that the country with the world's largest economy still harbors an unacceptably bloated debt to an organization that it asks to take on so much around the world -- from Darfur to Iraq to, most recently, Zimbabwe. Even with this funding, the U.S. is still dangerously underfunding peacekeeping missions in places like Chad, Kosovo, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, jeopardizing the ability of these missions to be effective. Furthermore, the upcoming FY 2009 funding bill threatens to undo all of the gains that will be made by this $665 million.

Nonetheless, there is a positive sign in Congress' decision of how to appropriate funds in the supplemental. The $665 million for UN causes will go not just to high-profile issues like the peacekeeping force in Darfur, but also to the less "sexy" -- but no less important -- cause of paying back the U.S.'s debt to the UN. Congress has made the statement that fully funding the UN is a worthwhile endeavor, and, in its work on the 2009 budget, it needs to make sure that this step forward is not canceled out by two steps back.

We all know that the U.S. is by far the largest debtor to the United Nations. In fact, the U.S. represents 94% of all debt to the U.N. regular budget. This means that 6% of the debt to the UN regular budget comes from other countries.

Often people will respond by saying, "Of course the U.S. has the largest debt, since they are the largest contributors." This is certainly a valid point. The U.S. is expected to pay 22% of the UN's regular budget--more than anyone else in the world. Obviously then, if we miss any payment at all, it will represent a large percentage of the debt. The question then, is this:

How does the U.S. proportion of the debt stack up to others when compared to the amount they are expected to pay?

I crunched these numbers, and I found out something interesting. There are two countries that stand out when you compare their percentage of the debt and their expected payment: the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Both of these countries have a percentage of the total debt to the UN regular budget that is 426% of what they are expected to pay annually. For comparison, Japan's debt stands at just over 5% of what they are expected to pay each year.

This statistic says a lot about comparative attitudes toward the UN and engagement with the rest of the world. If this is the preferred measure of those who would withhold funding from the UN, it should give them pause to realize the company they keep by doing so.

by Dan Shepard, Information Officer, UN DPI

It was one day late but countries achieved a major breakthrough on international climate change action at 2:31pm Bali time on Saturday. It was not without high drama featuring plenty of twists and turns along the way on a day when many delegates had planned to catch flights home.

It even took the special intervention of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yodhoyono and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to exhort delegates to complete what seemed like hopelessly deadlocked talks.

Yodhoyono called on countries to complete "the most difficult mile," of an "exhaustive marathon." He told delegates that we could not allow "the human race and the planet to crumble because we cannot find the right words."

The Secretary-General, who returned to Bali after a visit to Timor-Leste, said he was reluctant to speak again to the conference but that he was disappointed in the progress that had been made. "The hour is late. It is time to make a decision." He appealed to delegates not to "risk everything you have achieved so far."

After a morning of false starts and false hopes, mis-communications and misunderstandings, countries agreed on a roadmap to launch negotiations toward a global, comprehensive agreement to address climate change. The Bali decision sets out an agenda that frames the discussions that will take place over the next two years and sets a deadline of 2009 to complete the negotiations.

After agreement was reached, the Secretary-General issued a statement strongly welcoming the outcome and saying that the Bali Roadmap achieved all three of the main objectives. "The Bali Roadmap that has been agreed is a pivotal first step toward an agreement that can address the threat of climate change, the defining challenge of our time."

But the agreement did not come painlessly. On a key provision, concerning the obligations of developing countries in the future negotiations, India, speaking for developing countries, said that alternate wording had been agreed to during the night. And then Bangladesh said that language concerning the least developed countries and small island states had been omitted. The Philippines said the phrase "on the basis of equity" had been omitted. And then the United States said it could not accept the formulation that was put forward but offered to keep working until an agreement could be found.

Then South Africa, responding to the US, said developing countries had voluntarily moved to accept new obligations for their national actions on climate change that were "measurable, reportable and verifiable," a concession that only a year ago, he said, "would have been unthinkable." South Africa asked the US to reconsider its position.

Then an avalanche of countries took the floor in support of the developing country position, many asking the US to state their reservations separately and not block a consensus.

US Under Secretary of State Paula Dobriansky took the floor again and said the US wanted a roadmap and wanted to be part of the roadmap.

"We are very committed to long-term greenhouse gas emission reductions," and she said the US would work with other large emitters to halve global emissions by 2050. And then she said the US "will go forward and join the consensus," which was followed by a thunderous ovation.

"It feels like we are in a movie with lots of plots," said the delegate from Egypt.

After full adoption by the plenary, countries thanked the US for joining the consensus and thanked the secretariat of the Climate Change Convention and the Indonesian government for hosting the Conference.

By Curtis Moore, Independent Consultant and a Former Counsel, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works

It is Thursday of the second week of the climate negotiations in Bali, which is the traditional day to reach agreement--or not--at international global warming negotiations. But do not confuse an agreement -- if there is one, and there almost certainly will be--with a solution. A Bali roadmap may be a great accomplishment, but it is not a solution, nor will it lead to one. A solution is what is desperately needed because the peril posed by global warming is far more grave and imminent than all but a few realize.

The Earth is approaching--some believe it may have already passed--a half dozen tipping points. These are infinitesimally small changes that trigger sudden, often violent and irreversible change. Because of the extended delay from the development of science until its restatement by the IPCC, none of these considerations is before negotiators in Bali. But one government in the world has considered these facts, then adopted the most comprehensive, multifaceted and aggressive program to combat global warming in the world. That government, which will come as no surprise to many, is California.

One of the great flaws in the negotiations process is that policies are developed on science as expounded by the 2,000 participants in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It, in turn, reaches its conclusions considering only studies published in "peer reviewed" literature, meaning they have been scrutinized closely by expert scientists. This means the science elaborated by the IPCC is rock solid, but three to five years old, so when negotiators from throughout the world gather annually to craft policies, they may be utterly ignorant of the newest science, even if has profound implications. That is certainly the case in Bali.

In the last five years, thanks in part to improved super computers and new information, but also due to the inspiration of some, scientists looking for answers to troubling and unexplained environmental changes, serious shortcomings in the assumptions on which the negotiating process is based have been revealed.

First, scientists knew that a variety of pollutants excluded from the Kyoto Protocol tropospheric ozone, or smog, for example, and carbon monoxide the colorless, odorless gas emitted by every tailpipe and smokestack--cause global warming. But because they had short lifetimes--meaning they are destroyed by a variety of chemical reactions in the atmosphere or by other means--they were thought to be much less important than the so called "long lived" gases. But in fact, it is now clear the majority of today's warming is due to these short-lived pollutants.

Second, some pollutants were not then known to be significant causes of warming. Black carbon, like the soot emitted by diesels, for example was not seriously considered for inclusion in the Protocol. It now turns out, however, that it is a major cause of warming, especially where it darkens snow and ice, thus increasing the absorption of sunlight. Moreover, black carbon now appears to not only cause melting by warming areas like Greenland, Alaska and Siberia, but also by actually changing the way that snow melts, accelerating the process. This may account for the fact that while warming in the Arctic is roughly what computer models predict, melting is much, much faster, perhaps twice the speed of predictions.

Third, some pollutants and sources were excluded from coverage because, in theory, they are subject to other international agreements, but also because the true magnitude of their contribution to global warming was not accurately known. Ships, for example, are excluded. But recent estimates place are that they account not for a small amount of pollution, but an immense quantity: between 15 and 30 percent of global emissions of oxides of nitrogen, a pollutant that helps form smog, for example. Indeed emissions from ships are roughly equal to those of the continent of either Europe or North America. Aircraft are also excluded, even though they injects immense amounts of carbon where it can be most dangerous, at high altitudes and over the Arctic.

Negotiators also left chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), the industrial chemicals like DuPont's Freons that destroy stratospheric ozone, out of global warming coverage, supposedly because they were subject to another international regime, the Montreal Protocol to Protect the Ozone Layer. Chemicals subject to Montreal are regulated, however, solely to address their impacts on stratospheric ozone. As a result, the chemical–again, one made by DuPont–now used as a chilling agent in the air conditioners of cars and trucks was allowed on the market as a CFC replacement even though it was known at the time to be a powerful cause of global warming.

Perhaps worst of all, the true atmospheric lifetime of the chemical that will be the single largest contributor to global warming, carbon dioxide--created when carbon-rich fuels like coal, oil and wood are burned--was greatly underestimated. Although there was some uncertainty as to CO2's lifetime, there was a consensus that one century was about right. Instead, it is now known that after even 1,000 years, one third of CO2 being emitted now will still be in the system.

The upshot of this miscalculation of CO2's lifetime is that even if emissions were to cease this instant, it would be over a century before the full cooling benefit would be realized. These are grim realities, but as is often the case, there are solutions, if only policy-makers will address them.

Because the lifetimes of the short-lived pollutants range from a few days to weeks to a few years, reducing them can produce near-term cooling. HFC-134a, the DuPont chemical used in car air conditioners, has 3,400 times the warming power of CO2 on a molecule-to-molecule basis, and a lifetime of about 12 to 15 years. Thus, if the entire world were to ban use of the chemical in automotive air conditioners, as Europe is doing starting in 2011, there would be cooling benefit before children born today graduated from high school.

For the other short-lived pollutants that cause global warming, the health payback would be immense. Black carbon kills and ozone both kills and causes asthma. The global annual total surely is in the hundreds of thousands of deaths and tens of millions of illnesses. Reduce them, and needless sickness and death would be avoided--and reduce them we must.

One Government realizes this: California.

It was in California that the link between cars and smog was first established, where the first pollution control technologies were mandated and the first statewide regulatory program for air pollution was installed. It was California that gave birth to solar photovoltaic cells to generate electricity from sunlight, where turbines to generate electricity were installed in huge numbers and where the most aggressive and effective energy conservation requirements in the world were developed.

After reviewing new science and examining what regulations and new technologies could achieve, the California legislature adopted not one law, but an entire suite. They deal with the near, mid and long term; cover transportation, electricity generation, and industrial processes as well as residential and commercial activities. They require reductions right away -- "early actions," they're called–and other cuts that must be the "maximum technologically feasible, cost effective" reductions.

They encourage the deployment of solar and wind power, and the adoption of new, tougher conservation requirements. They require reductions in not only carbon dioxide and the other pollutants covered by international global warming law, but also black carbon, ozone and its precursors and the industrial chemicals like DuPont's 134a.

There are some gaps in the California Suite, but the legislature is working to close them, so that when they are finished the final product will be a solution -- not just agreement. To see the California Suite become the symphony played worldwide would be, pardon the pun, sweet music indeed.