But the administration’s focus on China could be productive in the long run, so perhaps it is too early to count Obama out. The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) has laid out in its solarium II project, with input from the Baker Institute, how a China-first negotiating posture could produce a win-win for the United States on both climate and energy security. Chief U.S. climate negotiator Todd Stern aptly noted during a Washington D.C. speech in June, “China may not be the alpha and omega of the international negotiations, but it is close.”

However, efforts with China have been slow going, and it remains unclear how exactly China would implement Copenhagen climate target pledges, even if it makes them. Easing fuel subsidies is one way China is pushing its domestic market to be less energy intensive. A few years ago, Beijing also passed an energy savings law that called on state enterprises to reduce energy consumption per unit of production by 20 percent. But, Beijing has less control over the economic policies of southern China than one might imagine and this means implementation of grander commitments might be hard to achieve.

With China potentially not playing ball, the Democrats’ other bandaids for Copenhagen don’t seem up to the triage. The Center for American Progress, closely associated with its founder John Podesta, who is now President Obama’s White House-based chief advisor on science and technology, released a briefing paper listing pro-climate U.S. executive actions as evidence that President Obama “has reversed course and reoriented us in a new direction.” However, the reality is that climate is not a winning area so far for this administration. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s endangerment finding that greenhouse gases contribute to air pollution that can be regulated garnered some mild praise at the ongoing Copenhagen meetings, but the reality is that the United States is not steering the Copenhagen ship, except perhaps to hold things back.

The president is greatly inhibited by domestic politics and efforts to have Democratic climate cheerleader John Kerry and Republican Lindsay Graham forged a set of bi-partisan principles that might lay the foundation for a compromise climate bill out of Capital Hill has not moved past their New York Times op-ed.

In point of fact, inside the Washington, D.C., beltway, the betting is that U.S. climate legislation could still wind up the unintended casualty of health care reform. With the health care bill taking so long, climate legislation is pushed to the backburner, running the risk of being taken off the table ahead of the mid-term elections. That could delay a climate bill until 2012, Washington insiders believe. Even climate legislation backers wonder if the White House might shift priorities.

Fall back positions include taking on financial market regulatory reform first so as to ease Congressional concerns that the only ones who will benefit from a cap-and-trade carbon market might be New York speculators while average Americans wind up with the costs. Another idea is that the administration might repackage legislation as an energy bill and emphasize the U.S. electricity sector, including preparedness for electric plug in cars, while tossing Republicans a nuclear power bone. But one thing is for sure. The U.S. Congress has sandbagged the president’s saddle for Copenhagen, preventing him from getting out in front, early in the race.

UPDATE: Senators John Kerry and Lindsay Graham along with Sen. Joe Lieberman had a press conference on December 10 announcing their desire for bi-partisan cap-and-trade legislation.  Their letter to President Obama lays out their overall vision of the structure and goals of such a bill, but at only four pages, it provides few details besides setting the cap "in the range of" 17% below 2005 emissions by 2020.

Amy Myers Jaffe is the Baker Institute Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Energy Studies and director of the Energy Forum. 

Behind ExxonMobil’s changing views is its bottom-up assessment that there will be tremendous savings in energy use over the next two decades through efficiency gains, especially in the OECD. ExxonMobil expects the OECD to avoid a doubling of energy demand through efficiency, partly prompted by the introduction of some form of carbon pricing and partly by the penetration of more fuel efficient vehicles in the United States, Europe and Japan, among other major oil consuming nations. ExxonMobil’s forecast includes estimates that new cars in the United States will average 35 miles per gallon on road by 2030, Europe, close to 48 mpg, and China 43 mpg through the use of hybrid cars. Interestingly, the company is not expecting a major breakthrough to plug-in technology over the forecast period, which means if they prove incorrect on the pace of car technology change, global oil demand could be even more curtailed.

The more sanguine view of demand from ExxonMobil also comes from a more conservative view of energy use growth in China. The company is expecting slower oil demand growth for China than many other forecasters, based on its views that the Chinese government will be pro-active to slow growth in oil use, due to national security concerns. ExxonMobil only anticipates about 100 million cars on the road in China by 2030, far below many forecasters.

On the supply side, ExxonMobil sees a slide in non-OPEC crude oil production from 48 million b/d in 2008, down to 42 million b/d by 2030, but rising supplies of unconventional oil, biofuels and other liquids such as condensates will make up most of the difference so that the world’s dependence on OPEC crude oil fields won’t rise all that much. And OPEC might find that persistent high oil prices will propel even more efficient technology breakthroughs than ExxonMobil is forecasting, underscoring that oil market participants might be surprised when doomsday scenarios for the next two decades don’t emerge. 

Amy Myers Jaffe is the Baker Institute Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Energy Studies and director of the Energy Forum.

But the backstory on a binding international fuel economy agreement is that no agency, not even the International Energy Agency or the diplomats at Copenhagen, is actually trying to lock down global fuel economy agreement. This is a shame because the idea has great merit. Baker Institute research shows that if new cars sold in the United States were to achieve fuel economy of 50 miles to the gallon in 2020, the U.S. could shave 6.5 to 7 million barrels a day of oil use, assuming new vehicle purchases represented a typical average rate of 6.5 percent of the fleet in each year. Multiplied by every major economy that had a major car industry (the U.S., China, India, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Italy, Brazil, etc., the global impact would be dramatic.

Many countries tried to stimulate their economies in the past year utilizing a cash-for-clunkers program. Some countries, most notably the United States, offered billions of dollars in bailouts to save their car industries. Japan has long subsidized its car industry to innovate fuel efficient vehicles. Policy makers are setting the bar too low. A voluntary global car economy roadmap fails to recognize the importance of this powerful policy tool. A binding agreement should be the standard that institutions like the IEA or the UNEP should be pursuing. And the United States, which uses almost 35 percent of all road fuel in the world --instead of pandering to Detroit-- should get out in front.

Amy Myers Jaffe is the Baker Institute Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Energy Studies and director of the Energy Forum.

“A just-released study commissioned by Navteq, a leading provider of digital map data, shows that drivers using Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation devices drove fewer miles (actually, kilometers in this European study) and spent less time driving.

Conflict of interest? Perhaps. But the study, based on more than 2,000 individual trips, 20,000 kilometers (about 12,500 miles) of driving, and almost 500 hours on the road, found that drivers with GPS devices experienced a 12 percent increase in fuel efficiency, a nearly 2,500-kilometer (1,550-mile) drop in distance traveled per driver per year, and a per-driver average of more than 400 Euros ($530) in annual savings on fuel.

The study evaluated drivers with and without navigation systems, taking traffic into account, in the Dusseldorf and Munich metropolitan areas in Germany. No participants in the study had previously used a GPS navigation device. The study also revealed a learning curve, with bigger reductions in driving time and fuel consumption once drivers had familiarized themselves with the GPS systems.”

The finding that GPS devices can reduce oil use is fascinating, even if Navteq might be inclined to sponsor a study showing off a selling feature for their product. The study found that GPS systems with added traffic information reduced rush-hour trip times and driving distance. Even greater reductions were seen during non-routine trips. 

GPS devices seem to work better than listening to the radio for traffic updates every 10 minutes. The other impact on non-routine trips of GPS systems is also surprisingly quite important. According to the 2001 National Highway Traffic Survey, only 27% of miles are to and from work, and many other trips can be non-routine (see Table 8.8). Additionally, it may reduce the frequency of the stories of macho guys driving around aimlessly wasting gasoline by refusing to ask for directions; as of 1990, men drove almost two-thirds of miles. 

While it is wonderful if GPS systems can reduce oil use, it’s certainly not a substitute for stronger fuel efficiency regulatory policy. In a sprawling city like Houston, it’s wonderful to avoid traffic and never get lost, but a good amount of gasoline will be used driving an inefficient vehicle across town to visit a friend. In thinking critically about the study findings, one has to wonder about the 12% efficiency figure, which is a strange metric to use when discussing a GPS device. For instance, a doubling of efficiency (100%) only results in a consumption decline of 50%. Fuel efficiency matters if GPS devices allow drivers to avoid idling in traffic, but it shouldn’t really be related to getting lost. It’s very possible to get excellent fuel economy driving 55 mph without traffic while driving completely in the wrong direction. Total fuel used, not fuel economy, is what counts.

James Coan is a research associate at the Baker Institute Energy Forum