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The action in Copenhagen began to pick up a bit on day two of 15th Conference of Parties at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. While UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon remains optimistic that an agreement will be reached by the end of the conference next week, several developments today pointed to the long road that needs to be traveled to get there.
One of the central issues preventing an agreement from being reached surfaced today in an unlikely way, causing an uproar among the developing nations of the world. A secret draft of an international agreement, it was rumored, was being worked on before the conference by a group known as 'the circle of commitment'. The proposal was known as the Danish Text and was understood to be the work of the UK, U.S., and Denmark. It was finalized last week before the conference, but it was not a public document. This morning it was leaked to The Guardian. "It is incredibly inappropriate to have this document circulating on paper at this point. It should not have come out until next week." Read about it here or here. Read the leaked Text here. Read Bloomberg's take on the Text here. It caused quite a stir because it proposed emission cuts for developing nations.
The document highlighted the gap between developing nations and industrialized countries, which continues to widen. At issue is whether or not developing nations should be held to the same emission regulations as industrialized countries. Developing nations have argued since the beginning of negotiations that industrialized nations were able to go through their initial growth phases without limits on emissions; to regulate emissions in developing nations now will limit economic growth at a time when these nations are seeking to raise the quality of life for their citizens. "Developing countries are now being required to take the leadership in cutting emissions while developed countries are continuously increasing their emissions and hence continuously over-occupying the global climate space," said Ambassador Ibrahim Mirghani Ibrahim, head of the Sudanese delegation.
If developing nations' emissions are limited incrementally over time, these countries are asking for economic aid and the sharing of technology in order to develop the cleaner, more expensive forms of energy. Rich nations don't want to pay for the development elsewhere. Under the Kyoto Protocol, developing nations were exempt from emission commitments; the Danish Text that was leaked this morning sets specific emission cuts for developing nations, something never agreed upon at other UN meetings.
The G77 is the group that represents the developing nations. Within this group of nations, there are varying levels of economic stability. For example, countries like Brazil, south Africa, India, and China (known as the BASIC bloc of developing nations) have larger economies and create more emissions than other less developed nations. The Association of Small Island States (AOSIS), another group in the G77, is made up of more fragile nations that are significantly more threatened by climate change than the BASIC countries. Industrialized nations have been putting pressure on the BASIC bloc to 'voluntarily' agree to reducing their emissions; AOSIS nations now believe that the BASIC countries inadequately represent their concerns. Read about the rift developing in the G77 here. More on the rift here.
Bangladesh asked for 15% of any climate fund that is set up. Plagued by cyclones and being located below sea level, Bangladesh's more than 150 million population is in a particularly delicate situation. Already, climate refugees from Bangladesh have begun migrating to neighboring countries. India will have none of them, constructing a 2,100 mile long fence to keep refugees out. "Authorities are building a border barrier, a high fence of reinforced barbed wire that cuts through the paddy fields. Soon it will completely encircle Bangladesh, 2,100 miles of it. International migration, millions of poor and desperate people pouring across borders, is clearly one factor in India's thinking. The fence is due to be completed by March next year." Refugees will not be able to travel far due to limited resources. Read here or here.
Many countries in Africa fall under the most vulnerable nations status of the G77. Africa, as a whole, has not contributed to the effects of climate change in any significant way, yet the people of Africa are particularly vulnerable to their climate changing. "More than 40 percent of the continent's inhabitants live in extreme poverty and 70 percent of that number are located in rural areas, depending largely on agriculture for their livelihoods." Climate funds paid into by industrialized nations and accessed by developing nations like those in Africa can not only reduce the effects of climate change, but also address some of their deep-rooted economic development concerns such as access to energy and food. Read here.
Concerning European leaders, France wants a 0.005 percent on financial transactions in order to help developing countries fight poverty, promote education and health, and meet the costs of combating climate change. While current EU President Andreas Carlgren keeps Europe's emission cuts secretive, British PM Gordon Brown said that he wants to see 30% cuts below 1990 levels by 2020 to become Europe's pledge. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, "The overall offers that are on the table are not yet enough to be sure of reaching the two degree target". Energy ministers from Britain, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, Ireland, and Luxembourg all promised that they would develop an offshore power grid that would link electricity that is produced from offshore wind turbines to inland European demand centers.
Since the stolen email hubbub began a few weeks back, media outlets such as CNN and WSJ have been hyping the controversial angle of global warming; forget about presenting the science behind either opinion of the issue. The controversy surrounding the stolen emails, while stoking the skeptics' fire, it has yet to penetrate into negotiations. "One can only surmise that those who have carried out this act have done it with the very clear intention as to influence the process in Copenhagen – but, barring a few isolated voices, people over here are totally convinced of the solidity of the findings of the IPCC report," said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC advising the UN negotiations on climate. Read here.
The World Meteorological Organization published data today that showed that the last decade was the warmest in 160 years of record keeping. This fact will probably fall on deaf ears, as the campaign to discredit climate science in all of its forms has been slowly eroding the public's tolerance for temperature data. The sets of data came from NASA, NOAA, and WMO, but even these organizations have been under attack by skeptics claiming partiality. "A central plank of the climate skeptics’ creed has been that the Earth has been cooling since 1998. They have misled many, and damaged public policy as a result. Here is the definitive proof that they are wrong," said Tim Flannery, professor of environmental and life sciences at Macquarie University in Australia and the chair of the Copenhagen Climate Council. Read here. NYT's take here.
Nicholas Stern, a leading British climate change economist, said skeptics were 'confused'. "It (the stolen emails incident) has created confusion and confusion never helps scientific discussions," Stern said. Confusion is what skeptics are trying to cultivate in order to derail negotiations in Copenhagen. If the negotiations in Copenhagen dissolve into disarray, it most likely will not be because of the stolen emails; most likely, it will be because of the developed-developing nations chasm. Still, skeptic chatrooms are all abuzz with their emotionally heightened conspiracy theories.
Finally, U.S. Republican Congressional representatives will be flying to Copenhagen sometime in the next week to become protesters on the street at the UN Climate Conference in an attempt to derail international negotiations in Copenhagen all at the taxpayers expense. So far, four Republicans are scheduled to make the trip. Texas Rep. Joe Barton, the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, along with Republican Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, Darrell Issa of California, and Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee are on the list. "In the worst recession in 26 years, in the midst of an academic scandal and questionable science revealed in ‘Climategate’ and in the absence of a national consensus about policies that would bear upon the category known as climate change, we gather here to say, Mr. President, don’t make promises in Copenhagen that we cant keep," said another Republican. Read here.
America's pledge to lower emissions by 17% from 2005 levels by 2020 are seen as the weakest effort amongst participating nations.
