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Chaos ruled supreme in the closing day of the 15th Conference of the
Parties at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in
Copenhagen, Denmark.
On Friday, about 25 Heads of State that had been meeting separately from the main negotiations going on for most of the day, emerged to announce an agreement had been reached sometime between yesterday and today, which was to be called the Copenhagen Accord. The full text of the latest draft can be read here.
Besides failing to commit any countries to emission cuts, the Copenhagen Accord also failed to close emission loopholes that exist in the Kyoto Treaty. Scientists and environmentalist organizations said that world leaders should have performed better than they had, and even President Obama acknowledged that COP15 may have caused the world to take two steps backward in the whole process.
People who were hoping for a comprehensive, international, legally-binding agreement to come out of Copenhagen were no doubt disappointed by the results, but we were warned of this fact. There was not much that came out of the past two weeks of negotiations except for an increase in the already strained relations between developing countries and rich ones. Reaction outside among observers was summed up in the slogan 'Climate Shame'.
World leaders were asked at the end of yesterday's negotiations to stay until an agreement was reached, and they did for the most part (not leaving until this morning), but the rush to secure some kind of agreement caused the majority of the countries' leaders who had flown to Copenhagen for the final days of negotiations to be virtually left out of the process. Many of the meetings yesterday took place behind closed doors with only the major countries' leaders invited to participate. In the end, the select group emerged from their closed-door meetings and thrust their agreement upon the rest of the leaders present in the mainstream negotiations going on elsewhere.
Western leaders began to leave Copenhagen in the early hours of Saturday morning, claiming to have secured a global agreement to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius. But the deal provoked immediate anger for failing to include concrete measures to reach that target, and scientists at the talks said it would set the world on a path to 3.5 ºC of warming by 2100. (New Scientist)
The Copenhagen Accord, once presented to the full negotiating body present at the UN assembly, was immediately rejected by those nations not present for the creation of it. Realizing though that the fate of such nations such as Tuvalu and other Small Island States were at stake if no agreement at all was made, the Copenhagen Accord was 'noted' but not formally accepted.
Seven countries, led by the tiny Pacific island nation of Tuvalu, this morning declined to accept the Copenhagen Accord that was reached late last night. But in a procedural move designed to put the agreement into effect, the conference decided to “take note” of the accord instead of formally approving it. Non-government Organization (NGO) experts explained that the decision by the other nations who are parties to the conference to “take note” enables the accord to become what the United States and other supporting nations call “operational,” even though it has not gained formal United Nations approval. (Circle of Blue)
After two weeks of rancor and uncertainty, the U.N.-sponsored climate talks ended Saturday morning with negotiators choosing to "take note" of an agreement brokered by the United States but failing to adopt it as an official decision of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. (Washington Post)
While a deal to protect the world's forest looked as though it would be the one shining star in the process, no steps were taken to stop deforestation in the final agreement.
Burning trees to clear land for plantations or cattle ranches and logging forests for wood is blamed for about 20 percent of the world's emissions. That's as much carbon dioxide as all the world's cars, trucks, trains, planes, and ships combined. No treaty means that forest destruction will continue unabated, forest-dependent peoples' rights will not be protected and endangered species will continue down the path to extinction. (AP)
Staring climate change in the face, world leaders froze, and were seemingly paralyzed from taking concrete action. The best they could come up with was making voluntary cuts in emissions, which according to the analysis of their colelctive efforts simply isn't enough. Without some kind of binding mechanism or way to verify that countries are holding up to their part in the agreement, most likely emissions will continue to rise much like they have under the Kyoto Treaty. Even the U.S. faces the daunting task of trying to keep true to its promised 17% cut in emissions from 2005 levels by 2020.
The broad range of voluntary carbon reductions falls far short of what's needed to address climate change, energy experts emphasize. To approach anything near the 17 percent reduction in emissions by 2020 that the Obama administration has targeted, a price must be put on carbon emissions, most energy expert acknowledge. (AP)
The deal reached in Copenhagen was so vague that even President Obama was unclear of whether what was agreed would be implemented or forgotten. Reports after the meeting yesterday and last night indicate that many side meetings were taking place and many world leaders felt shunned or excluded by the process that had taken over the last hour negotiations. There was definitely a sense of desperation in the air.
The climate deal reached between the U.S. and China and other great powers on Friday night is so vague, hastily hatched and non-binding President Obama isn’t even sure he’ll be required to sign it. “You know, it raises an interesting question as to whether technically there's actually a signature… It's not a legally binding agreement, I don't know what the protocols are,” said a bleary-eyed Obama, before hopping in Air Force One for the trip back to Washington. Even as he left, it wasn’t clear that the pact Obama described as “meaningful” would even pass muster with the European Union – or attract enough votes with the 193-nation COP 15 conference to become an official declaration. (Politico)
So what the hell happened at Copenhagen?
Hours later, as African negotiators were leading an uproar over the accord and civil society groups were protesting outside, it was still unclear which other countries were willing to support a backdoor deal forged by just five countries outside the typical UN process. "It looks like we are being offered 30 pieces of silver to betray our people and our future," said Ian Fry of Tuvalu, one of a few tiny Pacific islands for whom climate changeis a matter of survival.
Can the agreement that hatched in Copenhagen be considered a success in light of all the negative press coming out in the wake of world leaders heading home, protestors clearing from the streets, riot police returning to civilian clothes, and COP15 shutting down? Well, the answer to that will be that we'll have to wait and see. Perhaps world leaders are serious that their governments are moving in the direction of fewer emissions and more clean energy; time will only tell. There were some things that happened in Copenhagen that never happened before though. China and the U.S. (together responsible for nearly half of all emissions globally) came to the bargaining table and made voluntary pledges to reform their pollutive behavior as well as made progress on the issue of verification and transparency.
On one hand, the deal includes explicit emission pledges by all the major economies and a start on an international system to verify that developing countries are honoring theirs, two things we've never had before. Details need to be fleshed out. But this goes a long way toward assuring Congress that China and other big developing countries are prepared to act and be held accountable. (Washington Post)
Politicians struggle to cast Copenhagen as a success, while most observers will judge it a failure. It is neither. The inflated expectations that were attached to this conference distract from the difficult decisions that remain ahead, regardless of the deal struck in Denmark. There never was an opportunity for some grand bargain to avert a global disaster so often speculated about. What was accomplished – and can be built upon – were small steps towards consensus and a clearer view of the differences still to be bridged. (The National)
The real work for President Obama now begins in the Senate (with those small steps) where he faces an extremely tough battle to enact energy reform. If the healthcare debate is any indication of how far entrenched the lobbyists for big corporations have gotten and how deep into the pockets of Congressional representatives they are, then the enery fight of 2010 is going to be a doozy.
The limited global warming deal that President Obama brokered at the Copenhagen climate summit Friday has raised eyebrows and expectations in the Senate, showing that it’s unclear if it will speed along slow-moving Democratic climate legislation in the upper chamber. (The Hill)
It will not cool the globe, but the new world climate accord may temper Washington's political heat for Barack Obama, and it has crucially given him a deal he can defend at home. That very omission (of binding emission cuts) may make the accord palatable in Washington, where climate change skepticism is rising and critics warn Obama's energy revolution could squelch frail economic growth. (AFP)
President Obama defended his actions in Copenhagen saying that the first steps are the most important ones when starting out on a journey. If the world is really beginning the transition toward clean energy in the twenty-first century, then the past ten years can be categorized as essential to working out the rules of the new game. The major issues were presented clearly in Copenhagen. Developing countries and rich countries alike now understand each others' restrictions. These were highlights, and it is important to seize the momentum and continue to move forward trying to reform energy use and production, the President said.
"For the first time in history, all of the world's major economies have come together to accept their responsibility to take action on the threat of climate change. After extremely difficult and complex negotiations, this important breakthrough laid the foundation for international action in the years to come. Going forward, we are going to have to build on momentum that we established in Copenhagen to ensure that international action to significantly reduce emissions is sustained and sufficient over time," President Obama said. (Reuters)
One can argue that the major success of the Copenhagen conference was the abolition of the developing-developed nation divide. Up until now, negotiations around climate and energy centered on the idea of historical responsibility. The developing world cliaimed that rich countries had benefitted from carbon pollution up until now and so should pay for it and cut their emissions while allowing poorer nations to emit freely in order to catch up to the rest of the world economically. Copenhagen showed that the wolrd has moved beyond that dichotomy. The new world of energy and climate reform is now centered on large emitters and small ones, regardless of their historical responsibility or developing-developed status.
This union of the US with these four countries (Brazil, South Africa, India, and China) is premised on what could become a new guiding assumption: that the world is divided between the major emitters of carbon pollution and everyone else. In that respect the fact that the accord includes a robust compromise on measurement, reporting, and verification acceptable to both the US and China is significant. A framework has finally been advanced for cooperation between developed and developing countries on reductions rather than continuing a process mired in the old divisions which have hampered us for so long. (Climate Progress)
So, let's all say good-bye COP15! Now that negotiations in Copenhagen have concluded, the world can start preparing for COP16 in Mexico City. The movement to clean up humanity's collective act is not going away. Businesses across the globe have already started preparing for the inevitable; we are moving to a world where emissions are regulated. Fighting this shift is like trying to halt a tsunami. High on the agenda for next year's negotiations will be moving the Copenhagen Accord to a legally-binding text. The road will be bumpy, but the work continues.
"The following changes are in my understanding those agreed in the drafting group. The group would continue its work with a view to presenting the outcome of its work to the conference of the parties for adoption at its sixteenth session," the president of the talks said and subsequently brought down his gavel on that decision at a plenary meeting of 193 countries in the Danish capital. (Reuters)The agreement brokered by President Barack Obama with China and others in fast-paced hours of diplomacy on Friday sets up the first significant program of climate aid to poorer nations. But although it urges deeper cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming, it does nothing to demand them. That will now be subject to continuing talks next year. (AP)
