CLIMATE CHANGE SUMMIT:
Frenzied Negotiations End Deadlock Meaningful Deals Struck with India and China 

On the verge of collapse, the Copenhagen climate talks ended on a positive note with a tired US President Barack Obama announcing an "unprecedented breakthrough" with four emerging economies agreeing to curb greenhouse gas emissions — including a mechanism to verify compliance — after hours of frenzied negotiations at the UN climate talks.

The summit's final day was marked by a bitter struggle between nations that favored a compromise -- cobbled together by Obama and leaders from Brazil, India, South Africa and China -- and a group of counties including Venezuela, Sudan and Cuba, who loudly objected to the process used to reach it.

After an up-and-down, all-night bargaining session, the summit adopted a resolution that "took note" of the non-binding document, called the Copenhagen Accord, which sets up a system for monitoring and reporting progress toward national pollution-reduction goals and sets a goal of limiting the global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2050. The Accord requires each country to list the actions they will take to cut global warming pollution by specific amounts. It falls significantly short of environmentalists' hopes but nevertheless represents a political victory for Obama, who conceded that due to the lack of required emission-reduction targets, "It will not be legally binding," as binding emissions targets were "not achievable at this meeting."

Obama said participating nations had agreed to "list commitments" to combat climate change and provide greater transparency through "international consultation and analysis," by setting a "mitigation target" of no more than 2 degrees Celsius. "Each nation will be putting concrete commitments in an appendix to the document and will lay out very specifically what those commitments are," Obama said, referring to the emissions targets developing nations would offer for the first time ever.

The deal reiterates a goal that eight leading industrialized nations set earlier this year on long-term emission cuts and provides a mechanism to help poor countries prepare for climate change. "We feel confident we are moving in the direction of a final accord." If the countries had waited to reach a full, binding agreement, "then we wouldn’t make any progress,"' Obama said. In that case, he said, "there might be such frustration and cynicism that rather than taking one step forward we ended up taking two steps back."

he said the nations of the world will have to take more aggressive steps to combat global warming. The first step, he said, is to build trust between developed and developing countries. Obama had planned to spend only about nine hours in Copenhagen as the summit wrapped up. But, as an agreement did not appear within reach, he extended his stay by more than six hours to attend a series of meetings aimed at brokering a deal.

Earlier in the day, Prime minister manmohan Singh, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Brazilian President Lula da Silva briefly left the session along with their respective delegations to hold a parallel meeting, reportedly to confer about concerns over the "umbrella paragraph" in the draft of an agreement being worked on for signing later.

 A day later, UN climate chief yvo De Boer, informed the told press on December 19, 2009, that the Accord had been "embraced" by the conference. he described it as "letter of intent, a willingness to move forward." 

As expected the Accord was disparaged by many for being non-binding in nature. Australia’s Liberal leader Tony Abbott said the result vindicated his party's decision not to support the Federal Government's emissions trading scheme legislation, while Greens deputy leader Christine milne wanted rudd to be held responsible for "'trying to bully those who wanted a real deal into accepting his greenwash." And, Climate Institute policy director Erwin Jackson said the result was "a collective failure of the major emitters, in particular China and the US," to secure a strong outcome from the talks, while the institute's chief executive, John Connor, described the summit as a '"train wreck par excellence."

The most withering attack on the Accord was by Lumumba Di-Aping, Sudan's ambassador to the UN, who called it "the worst development in the fight against climate change" he said the draft accord was "in gross violation of the principles of transparency and participation by all countries that have governed all actions within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It is against the poor and it lacks common sense." The Danish text "robs developing countries of their just and equitable and fair share of the atmospheric space," he added.

Kim Carstensen of the World Wildlife Fund described the text as a "a too elitist, selective and nontransparent approach," and added, "After years of negotiations we now have a declaration of will which does not bind anyone and therefore fails to guarantee a safer future for next generations."

And a scathing statement released by ActionAid's Climate Justice Coordinator, Tom Sharman, said, "resistance to this shambolic accord from Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba and Pakistan strips bare the approach taken by rich countries - and shows that international agreements need to be just that - and not imposed by a cluster of countries while excluding the rest…We now have a weaker statement than the Bali Action Plan agreed two years ago. In no way can we call this a success - it is a cataclysmic failure - pure and simple."

Vice-chair Conservative lawmaker Karlheinz Florenz of the COP15 delegation, added: "It is a slap in the face for the world. There has been a huge lack of trust during these negotiations. Some developing countries have been blocking without contributing in a positive manner to the text. For further negotiations it will be crucial to overcome this for the further negotiations." Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo, not too far behind in the criticism of the Accord, said: "World leaders failed to avert catastrophic climate change. People everywhere demanded a real deal before the summit began and they are still demanding it. We can still save hundreds of millions of people from the devastation of a warming world, but it has just become a whole lot harder."

Grenada, representing the least developed countries, strongly demanded that elements lost in the Copenhagen accord be given back at a later stage. "We lost many along the way (during the Copenhagen talks) and gained some," the Grenada representative told the plenary meeting on December 19, 2009. The elements lost in the accord include the lack of a legally binding agreement, no mid-term targets or a specific peak time for carbon emissions, which are all critical to the success of the global fight against climate change, she said. Nations still have much to do and it's only a first step with the Copenhagen accord, she added.

Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth, described the deal as a "cover-up" for the Obama administration." It’s not going to save the planet. It's an agreement -- nonbinding targets, weak targets, weak financing," Pica said. "It actually speaks to the failure of the negotiations that were meant to have a global deal to solve the climate crisis, one that was just and equitable. And what this agreement is just something for the United States to take home and say we accomplished something."

Tuvalu negotiator Ian Fry said the accord's poorly defined emissions targets would lead to the tiny island nation being inundated by rising seas. The funding offered in return was not enough. "'In biblical terms it looks like we are being offered 30 pieces of silver to betray our future and our people … our future is not for sale."

Several leaders offered reluctant support for the accord, reasoning it was better than nothing. German Chancellor Angela merkel said the talks were extremely difficult and: "`I must also say that I view the outcome with mixed feelings, while Brazilian Ambassador Sergio Barbosa said, "It's not what we expected. "It may still be a way of salvaging something and paving the way for another a meeting or series  of meetings next year"

New Zealand's climate change ambassador Adrian macey called it "a modest deal." he said, "I see Kyoto as a first step. This is another first step, a global first step." more than anything, macey found the UN process on climate change "appalling."

The European Union accepted the accord but made it clear that it was not very happy with it. European Commission President Jose manuel Barroso said, "This agreement is better than none at all, but it is clearly below our objective. I am not going to hide my disappointment," adding, "But it is the first step in a very important process. It’s a positive step but clearly below our ambitions."

"Let us speak plainly, I would have liked more. This will not solve the threat of climate change. But it is a first step, an important step," said Swedish Prime minister Fredrik reinfeldt at a press conference after the end of the meeting. Sweden holds the rotating six-month EU presidency till end of December 2009.

"What we wanted to achieve when we came here to Copenhagen was to get us out of the deadlock. Either we do something or we land in nothing. And now we have seen countries make efforts and set goals. Even countries that said they wouldn't make any commitments have presented figures, "said reinfeldt.

On the bright side, UN. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced, "finally we sealed a deal." he admitted that "the Copenhagen Accord may not be everything everyone had hoped for, but this ... is an important beginning."

At issue was the perennial sticking point of any global climate agreement -- the gulf between richer, developed nations, which have moved to curb their own emissions, and poorer,

developing nations, which have been loath to adopt strict emissions standards that could curb their booming growth. Developing nations have bitterly questioned why the US and Europe, which went through incredibly dirty and environmentally destructive phases of industrial growth to become wealthy, should tell them how they are to grow. And considering that the US remains the world's largest polluter, the argument goes, developed countries want developing countries to "Do as I say," not "Do as I do."

But for developed countries and green advocates, no solution to global warming can leave out giant developing countries like China and India, which burn millions of tons of fossil fuel and emit vast quantities of toxic substances into the atmosphere. Despite the voluntary targets that Obama said the developing countries would make, the president acknowledged that even if the countries follow through on their commitments, "the targets will not be by themselves what we need to get to 2050."

Despite the deal being "not sufficient" to fight the ravages of climate change, official sources said, "It’s an important first step." Interestingly, an insider at the negotiations said, China, India, Brazil, Algeria, Ethiopia and Bangladesh had "input into the process and product" of the proposed agreement.

he said representatives of those nations knew about the agreement's most controversial provisions, including commitments for greenhouse gas reductions by developing countries and a reduced role for the United Nations in climate policy, well before the summit began. It was unclear if everyone in the room agreed to every provision.

The proposal sparked breathless global news coverage; loud protests in Copenhagen’s Bella Center, where negotiators are gathered; and a run of outraged news conferences, all from poor nations and nonprofit groups that work closely with them, which complained that the draft provisions would penalize developing nations to the benefit of wealthy countries such as the United States and Denmark.

And before this December 18, 2009 tentative agreement was arrived at, British Prime minister Gordon Brown had disclosed that world leaders in Copenhagen were drawing up a "Plan B," an international agreement on climate change that would exclude China should the initial draft failed.

"If we cannot reach an agreement, it would be right for me and others to put forward proposals about how we move forward. Sources said that the alternative plan could see countries who continued to object, mainly China, being effectively excluded from a slimmed down Copenhagen Accord calling for carbon emissions to be halved by 2050 and a $100 billion- a-year fund to help poor countries adapt their economies to emit less. An agreement that did not fully include China, the world’s biggest producer of greenhouse gases, would be a significant blow to hopes of a universal deal.

British sources made clear that even China could not be allowed to derail the entire Copenhagen process. many were preparing for the announcement of the alternative plan and for another unscheduled day of talks on December 19, 2009, but many leaders, including Japan's Prime minister yukio hatoyama, asserted they would leave the Danish capital on December 18, 2009 night.

The row between China and the US, the world’s two largest emitters, had effectively paralyzed the Summit and it teetered on the brink of collapse. The disagreement centered on China rejecting American calls for its emissions to be independently monitored, and resisting plans for a worldwide agreement to halve emissions by 2050. As the talks dragged on into the night, Gordon conceded that the dispute between Washington and Beijing could kill the Copenhagen search for a global deal.

China had also taken offence to Obama warning that "time is running out" for a climate deal, a clear reference to China’s resistance over emissions monitoring. "I don’t know how you have an international agreement where you don’t share information and ensure we are meeting our commitments," the president said. "That doesn’t make sense. That would be a hollow victory." Following his speech, Obama held two lengthy private meetings with Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier.

Asad rehman, a climate adviser for Friends of the Earth, said blaming China for holding up the process was a cover for the failure of developed countries to take action. "This has always been a blame game," he said. "The US blames China to shift responsibility for their own failure to take action."
By A. Sharma