The UN’s Copenhagen climate change summit ended on 19 December with even less having been achieved than had been feared in advance. It may be the case that world climate change mitigation has actually been set back, because Kyoto’s legal framework has not been advanced while some of the vountary gains of the last few years will likely now be lost as nation states regroup and reconsider. In the event the climate issues were lost in a welter of accusation and counter-accusation, posturing and counter-posturing, veto and counter-veto, and the conference itself broke up under a fusilade of blame and recrimination. Prominent among them was UK climate change secretary Ed Miliband who accused China of hijacking the summit by blocking a legally-binding treaty. China had vetoed attempts to give legal force to the Accord reached at the conference, and blocked an agreement on reductions in global emissions, he said. "We did not get an agreement on 50 percent reductions in global emissions by 2050 or on 80 percent reductions by developed countries. Both were vetoed by China, despite the support of a coalition of developed and the vast majority of developing countries." China countered by claiming that measures it already had in place were more effective than the demands of existing treaties such as Kyoto.
In the end the conference came up with a very weak Accord brokered by the USA and supported by about 30 nations including the UK. Other delegates took official note of it without adding their names. It recognises the 2°C benchmark set in 1992 (the figure for the maximum global temperature rise before serious consequences ensue) and agrees to do something unspecified about it. It in effect produced a nonbinding agreement that urges major polluters to make deeper emissions cuts – but does not require it.
The Accord, which is merely a UN decision that has no legal standing and no timetable to turn it into a proper treaty, stated that:
1. Measures should be taken to ensure that the global temperature rise stays below 2°C (3.6F)
2. Finance to help developing nations adapt would be made abvailable by the richer nations which will provide 30 billion dollars in total by 2012 and $100 bn per annum by 2020 to help poor countries adapt to climate change but there is no detail given on where this money will come from.
The Accord will set up a new fund that pays poor nations not to cut down forests, but there is no timetable and little money in place to finance this.
3. It was agreed that the leading technological nations would share information on new technology that will help countries adapt to climate change and generate clean energy. Again it has not been made clear when this will happen.
What was left out completely was any numerical target for reducing greenhouse gases or cutting any kind of pollution. Introducing international emissions reductions monitoring also failed when China refused to accept it but it did agree that countries must measure their own emissions and report to the outside world. Ways and means of cutting emissions were not mentioned beyond the use of market mechanisms which were reckoned to be a "cost effective” method, but it is recognised that industry and investors will need much more concrete indicators before they are confident enough to invest in trading carbon.
Nonetheless both China and the USA, two countries that create more pollution than any other, praised the outcome of the conference. China’s foreign minister Yang Jiechi said the climate talks that brought together more than 110 world leaders in Copenhagen delivered "significant and positive" results while the Obama administration also defended the agreement as a "great step forward"
Seeds of dissent
The broad causes of failure were in part those reasons set out by US president Obama before the event, namely the lack of time available for his new administration to agree a firm basis for negotiation with other major polluters such as China, but also deeply entrenched conflicts between the developed and developing world, and a major split between developing countries which emerged at the talks themselves when small island states and poor African nations vulnerable to climate impacts laid out demands for a legally-binding deal tougher than the Kyoto Protocol, and in support of them staged a walkout from the talks.
This stance was opposed by richer developing states such as China, which fear tougher action would curb their growth, while the EU and the developed world in general has promoted the idea of an entirely new agreement, replacing the protocol. Developing countries, represented by the G77-China bloc, fear they would lose many of the gains they made when the Kyoto agreement was signed in 1997. They point out that the Kyoto Protocol is the only international legally binding instrument that has curbed carbon emissions, and also that it contains functioning mechanisms for bringing development benefits to poor countries such as money for investment in clean energy projects. G77-China chief negotiator Lumumba Di-Aping explained why the bloc had taken the decision to withdraw its co-operation, accusing the Danish presidency of advancing the interests of the developed countries at the expense of the balance of obligations between developed and developing countries. The small Pacific island state of Tuvalu demanded - and got - a suspension of negotiations until the issue could be resolved, a delay that helped to render almost impossible, given the vast amount of negotiating to get through, a finalising of negotiations within the agreed conference schedule.
Many developing countries have been arguing for a "twin track" approach, whereby countries with existing targets under the Kyoto Protocol (all developed nations except the US) stay under that umbrella, with the US and major developing economies making their carbon pledges under a new protocol.
• According to a new assessment by the “Climate Action Tracker” (www.climateactiontracker.org) created by Ecofys, Climate Analytics and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) even the best emission reductions proposal are only half way to the limits in 2020 that would keep the global average temperature rise below 2°C. Even with recent pledges by India, South Africa, and Mexico the world is still headed for a global warming of 3.5°C by 2100 (2.8 to 4.3°C). Carbon dioxide concentrations are projected to be over 650 ppm in 2100, far above the 350 ppm limit called for by many countries. Total GHG concentrations would be close to 800 ppm CO2 equivalent by 2100.
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