Tainted Saints

COPENHAGEN — Leaders here concluded a climate change deal on Friday that the Obama administration called “meaningful” but that falls short of even the modest expectations for the summit meeting here.

The agreement addresses many of the issues that leaders came here to settle, but the answers are bound to leave many of the participants unhappy.

Even an Obama administration official conceded, “It is not sufficient to combat the threat of climate change, but it’s an important first step.”

“No country is entirely satisfied with each element,” the administration statement said, “but this is a meaningful and historic step forward and a foundation from which to make further progress.”

The accord drops the expected goal of concluding a binding international treaty by the end of 2010, which leaves the implementation of its provisions uncertain. It is likely to undergo many months, perhaps years, of additional negotiation before it emerges in any internationally enforceable form.

“We entered this negotiation at a time when there were significant differences between countries,” the American official said.

“Developed and developing countries have now agreed to listing their national actions and commitments, a finance mechanism, to set a mitigation target of two degrees Celsius and to provide information on the implementation of their actions through national communications, with provisions for international consultations and analysis under clearly defined guidelines.”

The deal came after a dramatic moment in which Mr. Obama burst into a meeting of the Chinese, Indian and Brazilian leaders, according to senior administration officials. Chinese protocol officers protested, and Mr. Obama said he did not want them negotiating in secret. The intrusion led to new talks that cemented key terms of the deal, American officials said. [more...]

For two weeks we’ve been listening to the story of the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia—a media tempest in an English teapot. And all the time the biggest scandal has been directly under our noses.

This afternoon at Copenhagen a document mysteriously leaked from the UN Secretariat. It was first reported from the Guardian, and by the time it was posted online it oddly had my name scrawled all across the top—I don’t know why, because I didn’t leak it.

My suspicion, though, is because it confirms something I’ve been writing for weeks. The cuts in emissions that countries are proposing here are nowhere near good enough to meet even their remarkably weak target of limiting temperature rise to two degrees Celsius. In fact, says the UN in this leaked report, the  cuts on offer now produce a rise of at least three degrees, and a CO2 concentration of at least 550 ppm, not the 350 scientists say we need, or even the weak 450 that the US supposedly supports.

In other words, this entire conference is an elaborate sham, where the organizers have known all along that they’re heading for a very different world than the one they’re supposedly creating. It’s intellectual dishonesty of a very high order, and with very high consequences. And it’s probably come too late to derail the stage management—tomorrow Barack Obama will piously intone that he’s committed to a two degree temperature target. But he isn’t—and now he can’t even say it with a straight face. [more...]

No deal. Not even a fig leaf.

That seemed to be the implication of President Barack Obama’s much-anticipated speech at the Copenhagen climate summit.

He arrived at the Bella Center at 9:30 in the morning and immediately huddled in a non-scheduled and tense meeting with 18 other world leaders, including Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei. As Obama and the others talked, White House officials told reporters that Obama had ripped up his schedule for the day–supposedly the last day of the conference–and was attempting to rescue the troubled negotiations. He apparently did not succeed.

After the meeting ended, the summit began its most high-profile session. Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen opened the gathering, saying that it is “not too often us leaders get a chance to chart out a new course for our planet.” No such course was forthcoming. Minutes later, Chinese Premier Wen Jibao hailed his own nation’s efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. But he offered no give on the key matters that had been raised by the United States: China placing its emissions reductions within a binding treaty and subjecting them to outside verification. Wen indicated that China would keep its emissions limits voluntary and unilateral. Next Brazilian President Luiz Lula da Silva said it would take a “miracle” to reach an accord at Copenhagen. He complained that due to the lack of progress in the negotiations he had been forced to participate in a 2:00 am meeting with other world leaders. He declared that “each country has to have the confidence to do its own oversight”–seemingly siding with China on this front.

Then it was Obama’s turn. His eight-minutes of remarks signaled a global train wreck. Not hiding his anger and frustration, he said, “I think our ability to take collective action is in doubt.” He maintained that his administration has started to mount an “ambitious” plan to cut emissions. And he contended that it is “in our mutual interest to achieve a global accord in which we agree to steps, and to hold each other accountable for certain commitments.” According to his prepared text, Obama was next supposed to say, “I believe that the pieces of that accord are nowclear.” (Emphasis added.)Instead, he asserted, “I believe that the pieces of that accord should now be clear.” That is, there was no consensus among the major global leaders regarding what a deal would look like–not even one that would paper over the deep differences that have plagued the Copenhagen summit from the start: what targets to set; how to include both developed and developing countries within the same framework; what financing would be available for international programs to help poorer nations contend with climate change. [more...]

Hopes for a strong deal on climate change appeared slim last night with countries so far failing to agree on fundamental issues and blaming each other for the descent towards a humiliating end.

Last-ditch efforts by the UN to get the 120 world leaders to at least commit to targets on temperature rises, emissions cuts and deadlines to finalise the treaty appeared gloomy, barring a late-night change in positions. With the talks stretching into the evening, some delegates held out the prospect of a weak, political agreement emerging, but on that would fall far short of expectations at the start of the two-week meeting.

The day saw successive versions of a draft agreement circulated with each version becoming less ambitious, until the evening when a slight increase in ambition was detected. Only weak, long-term aspirations for an overall global emissions cut of 50% by 2050 and an 80% cut by 2050 for rich countries appeared to be agreed by all. These commitments, and a pledge to keep temperature rises below 2C, were assumed to be givens at the start of the summit.

 Officials suggested Gordon Brown would convene a smaller group of countries and ask them to sign up to a “plan B”. This might include the proposals for a $100bn fund for climate protection which the prime minister had first proposed. There was a “good deal of agreement surrounding it” he said.

 An official said a plan B was possible because “there are not thousands of variables in this [negotiation], there are a handful. It is only the 2050 target and the issue of how to verify [emission cuts countries pledge].”

 The two most serious stumbling blocks were demands from rich countries that developing countries should peak their emissions within a few years, and that the legally binding Kyoto protocol should be abandoned before a new legal treaty was in place. [more...]

[Contingent on China's cooperation, which ain't gonna happen...-Ed.]

International climate talks at the UN summit in Copenhagen have made little progress on key issues such as finance for a deal, despite the publication today of a new draft negotiating text by the UN.

 The so-called “long-term action plan text” was last night interpreted as far more ambitious and positive than a document prepared by the Danish delegation and other developed countries that was leaked to the Guardian earlier this week. But many key issues within the new document – which is seven pages long and will form the basis of discussions between ministers when they arrive next week – remain unresolved.

The document says that developed countries will have to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 – compared to 1990 levels – by between 25-45%, with the overall aim of holding a global temperature rise to 1.5C or 2C. Even the lower figure for cuts is far higher than the commitments from rich countries already on the table. The 1.5C temperature figure is extremely ambitious and would require technology to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. [more...]

Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.

Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year’s inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world’s response has been feeble and half-hearted.

Climate change has been caused over centuries, has consequences that will endure for all time and our prospects of taming it will be determined in the next 14 days. We call on the representatives of the 192 countries gathered in Copenhagen not to hesitate, not to fall into dispute, not to blame each other but to seize opportunity from the greatest modern failure of politics. This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor world, or between east and west. Climate change affects everyone, and must be solved by everyone.

The science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. A bigger rise of 3-4C — the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction — would parch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions of people would be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea. The controversy over emails by British researchers that suggest they tried to suppress inconvenient data has muddied the waters but failed to dent the mass of evidence on which these predictions are based.

Few believe that Copenhagen can any longer produce a fully polished treaty; real progress towards one could only begin with the arrival of President Obama in the White House and the reversal of years of US obstructionism. Even now the world finds itself at the mercy of American domestic politics, for the president cannot fully commit to the action required until the US Congress has done so. [more...]

The highlight of my first day at COP15 was a conversation with the extraordinary Nigerian poet and activist Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International. We talked about the fact that some of the toughest activists here still pull their punches when it comes to Obama, even as his climate team works tirelessly to do away with the Kyoto Protocol, replacing it with much weaker piecemeal targets.

If George W. Bush had pulled some of the things Obama has done here, he would have been burned in effigy on the steps of the convention center. With Obama, however, even the most timid actions are greeted as historic breakthroughs, or at least a good start.

“Everyone says: ‘give Obama time,’” Bassey told me. “But when it comes to climate change, there is no more time.” The best analogy, he said, is a soccer game that has gone into overtime. “It’s not even injury time, it’s sudden death. It’s the nick of time, but there is no more extra time.”

The solution for Bassey is not carbon trading or sinks but “serious emissions cuts at the source. Leave the oil in the ground, leave the coal in the hole, leave the tar sands in the land.” In Nigeria, where Bassey lives, Friends of the Earth is calling for no new oil development whatsoever, though it does accept more efficient use of existing fields. If Obama isn’t willing to consider those types of solutions, Bassey says, “he may as well be coming [to Copenhagen] for vacation.” [more...]

The United Nations secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, has re-asserted ownership over the Copenhagen climate change meeting after the “trust issues” between rich and poor nations were exposed by a leaked draft agreement. He said he was confident of getting a deal for immediate action on global warming.

 In an interview with the Guardian, Ban said he believed the negotiations remained on course for a strong deal, sweetened with the early release of $10bn in aid to poor countries and set down in international law within six months.

He was also adamant that deal would hinge on the core elements of the Kyoto protocol, which developing countries feared was being sabotaged in the so-called Danish text leaked to the Guardian yesterday. The text, prepared in secret by the Danish hosts, was interpreted by developing nations as favouring the rich nations they hold responsible for global warming…

Ban admitted that the uproar over the leaked Danish text had exposed the distrust between the industrialised and developing countries. But he downplayed its repercussions, noting he had been in constant contact with the Danish prime minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, and that he had been easing matters over with developing countries. “I have been very consciously engaging with developing countries,” he said. “Even if there have been some trust issues, we have been bridging this gap as much as we can. This is what I am going to continue to do.”

 He was also adamant that the essence of the Kyoto agreement — that industrialised countries take responsibility for global warming — would survive. “What is know as common but differentiated responsibility principle will be maintained in Copenhagen,” Ban said… [more...]

Click here for excellent graphic…