What DID we do at Copenhagen?
Meaningful Step Forward or Abject Failure?
The truth of a candid statement made over two years ago by a senior aide of UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon at the Bali Climate Change of December 2007 is now starkly revealed for all to see. Asked what was really going on at the Bali COP15 meeting he said it was, “the first stage of the battle for economic leadership of the world between the US and China”.
In the closing weeks of 2009 world’s leaders from 119 nations flocked to Copenhagen in order to play their part finding a solution to global warming. Hopes for a successful conference were high. For the first time the US was now fully engaged in the process, and all countries fully accepted the science that global warming was real and a serious threat to the planet. On the table was an ambitions and improved UN-brokered accord whereby temperature increases were to be kept to 1.5ºC, developing nations would have reduced their current Co2 emissions by 50% come 2050 and developing nations by 80%. It was not to be. After two weeks of intensive negotiation little was achieved.
It was agreed temperatures should not be allowed to rise 2ºC. over pre industrial levels. US$30 billion over 3 years was to be given as aid to the developing nations directly threatened by global warming, rising to $100 billion per annum by 2020. The BRIC bloc, the fast developing nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China agreed to come back with carbon reduction levels they were prepared to commit to by February 2010. The REDD scheme whereby developed nations would pay developing countries not to cut down their forests was approved.
That was about the size of it. Was the COP15 Copenhagen then “a crime” as Green Peace said or the “abject failure” Friends of the Earth claimed or, should we “all be happy” as China’s Premier Wen Jibao enjoined us, or had we “come a long way”, as US President Barack Obama remarked, adding the we still had “much to do”? Based on such results, somewhere between Barack and Green Peace, I’d say.
The news on the rain forests is good news indeed. It just remains to ensure the money doesn’t get paid AND the forests get chopped down. The transfer of major funds to countries threatened by global warming is a nice idea but is unlikely to happen on anything like the scale envisaged. Large sums of aid promised almost never ever get honoured by the countries making them, being expressions of fuzzy good intent rather. Most depressing of all was the refusal of China to commit to any levels of carbon reduction that were transparent, could be independently monitored and carried penalties for failure to achieve targets.
In fact China’s Wen Jibao was the dark star of COP15 as he ruthlessly torpedoed initiatives and engaged in eco-realpolitik in break-out sessions excluding the less powerful and poorer developing nations, exactly the countries most likely to bear the brunt of global warming. Things in this respect weren’t helped by the posturing of Sudan and Venezuela, who unfortunately held key positions in the COP15 procedural structure and did disservice to the cause. The EU, to whom many looked to lead by continued example, wimped out on the job, bickering amongst themselves and lacking the clout to influence the real debate going on between the US and China, egged on by the Indians. As for Barack Obama, he made all the right noises but committed to very little, in the full knowledge that he faces a long and hard fight in Congress to get his energy policies enacted.
So the fudge went in again, just as in Bali 2007. Having agreed to a wooly consensus in Copenhagen the parties at least advanced the timetable by agreeing to a meeting in Mexico this December, when binding carbon emissions are to be hammered out.
The crux of the matter is the view of the BRICs, led by China, that they have the right to pollute right up to Western levels of Co2 equity. Understandable though that might be, the industrialized countries being the ones who got us to this stage of things, it is not helpful. In fact it is the misapplied logic of Mutually Assured Destruction.
China seeks to benefit financially by being at the cutting edge of eco-tech and go right on burning coal, as if there were no tomorrow. So far it has only committed to reduce the growth of carbon emissions, not to cut volume. The Chinese leaders figure their Mandate from Heaven would soon get called in question if China’s growth rates stalled. They do care about the planet but clearly the Party comes first and the perils of global warming is unlikely to be in the top six of the current political agenda.
As for the US, they have gone in short order from Obama’s “Yes, we can!” to “No, let’s Wait!”. Americans are unlikely to let themselves be steamrollered into anything they feel gives China an unfair economic advantage, particularly when the Chinese refuse to agree to independent monitoring or sanctions for failure to observe GHG reduction targets. No US president wants to expend political capital pushing through energy legislation, already unpopular in many quarters, if China is perceived as not pulling its weight or talking unfair advantage of the situation.
Progress in the fight against global warming is unquestionably being made, though not as fast as many would like or may be required to do us any good. We can only hope and pray that the political process speeds up and kicks in before it’s too late. One thing is for sure, the price to be paid will not be less the later we leave it.
Hoping for the best is not an unreasonable reaction to our circumstances. Even if we lack political power and, even if some of us still doubt the science of global warming, we can still play a meaningful role by treading lightly in this world.
