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Copenhagen Accord - Why a more "meaningful agreement" was not
reached
The Climate Change Conference 2009
(COP15), or the "Copenhagen Summit" has come and gone. An accord
termed "Copenhagen Accord" was hurriedly reached towards the end of
the conference. the "accord" has been described by all parties
involved in the summit (including President Barrack Obama of the
United States) as below expectations going into the summit. However,
many World leaders have also said it is a first and necessary step
that should lead to further talks expected to culminate into a legally binding
agreement on climate change in Mexico by November, 2010.
President Obama said the agreement is a
"meaningful agreement" but only a first step which is
insufficient to fight Climate Change. Other developed nations
(Britain, Germany, Canada following after US action etc) expressed
support for the accord but feel that more is required to be able to
stave of the threats of climate Change which includes
floods, droughts, rising sea levels and species extinctions. Many
activities have criticized the accord. Why was it difficult for the
over 15,000 delegates and over 120 World leaders to reach a more
meaningful accord at the summit?
The differences between the
parties in attendance at the COP15, the Copenhagen 2009 Summit was
responsible for the near failure of the conference. There were sharp
divisions between developed and developing nations; and between
economic/development survival and the preservation of the Earth from
the threatening effects of global warming.
Prior to the 2009 Copenhagen
conference, the only existing legally binding accord is the
Kyoto Protocol, adopted in
1997 at the Kyoto Conference in Kyoto, Japan and ratified (became
law) in 2005. In the Kyoto Protocol most developed countries
(including the United States) committed to reducing their
greenhouse gases emission to
varying percentages below their 1990 emission numbers. The
developing nations (including India and China) were exempted from
making commitments because they are not contributing as much to the
greenhouse gases emission to the atmosphere as the developed
countries. Some of the developed nations (particularly USA) were not
happy with the non-inclusion of India and China considered to be
heavy emitters of greenhouse gases and did not sign the Kyoto
Protocol. The Kyoto protocol did not only exempt developing
countries from making commitments but also make provisions for
developed countries to aid clean developments in developing country
while claiming emission reductions from those developments under the
Clean Development Mechanism.
The protocol also makes provisions for technology transfer to the
developing countries.
It will be fair to
say that the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol are the challenges or
dividing issues during the 2009 Copenhagen Conference:
-
Developed nations
want some form of commitments from developing countries particularly
India and China;
-
Developing
countries (particularly African countries) say "Do not KILL Kyoto".
Kyoto was based on the principle of "common
but differentiated responsibilities" which rightly acknowledged that
the developed countries contributed more to the common threat of
global and should take more responsibilities in fixing the problem;
-
India and China (or
the emerging economies) will not want emission cuts that will slow
their economic developments.
The Copenhagen Summit was
originally planned to produce a legally binding treaty which will be
a replacement for Kyoto Protocol. In the run-up to the
Copenhagen conference, there were several negotiations between the
developed and the emerging economies -
China and India (who are developing
rapidly and are also contributing significantly to greenhouse gases
emissions)
to convince the later to make
some form of the commitments in the new treaty. Such a gesture by
the emerging nations will encourage developed nation like USA to
also sign up to the new treaty. However, all negotiations did not
produce any meaningful outcome fuelling the suspicion that
Copenhagen may not produce a legally binding treaty but at least a
political agreement. However, when it was getting closer to the
summit, President
Obama of the USA announced that he had persuaded the emerging
countries like China and India to come on board and act on providing
solution to global warming. Consequently India and China made
pledges on carbon intensity approach to solving global warming
problems, while Obama committed to 17% reduction target below the
2000 level by 2020.
Several other countries made emission
reduction pledges before the conference. The hope was that deeper
cuts could be obtained from these parties and other parties
attending the Copenhagen Summit. However this hope was not realized
because the emerging countries feel that emission cuts will slow
down their growth while the developed countries feel that not having
commitments from the developing countries will lead to more
developed nations manufacturing works being outsourced to the
emerging nations who has less stringent operational measures as
relates to developing clean energy projects or the efficient use of
energy.
Other developing countries (e.g.
African countries) came up suspecting that the developed countries
want to "kill" the Kyoto Protocol. Any new treaty should be add on
to Kyoto provisions not the one that erases Kyoto provisions
altogether. The suspicion grew stronger with the leaked "Danish
Test" - a document containing some proposals prepared by
the rich countries. to be "imposed" on the delegates and
pushed for adoption at the end of the talks. This leak took place on
the second day of the conference. The document will hand more power
to the rich nations and will sideline the United Nations. The
document also marked a sharp departure from the Kyoto Protocol.
African Nations and other poorer nations were not ready to part with
the provisions they already had through the Kyoto Protocol and it
looked like the developed nations are planning to remove those
provisions from the new treaty to make the implementation of the new
treaty cheaper for them (the developed nations).
The final "accord" reached bore some
resemblance to the Danish text. The accord accepted the science
verdict that global temperature increase should be limited to 2C to
help mitigate the effects of global warming but set no limits. It
looks a bit vague, was not adopted but "noted" in Copenhagen. It
appears the World leaders intend to follow on to improve it and make
it better to hopefully become a legaly bidding document by November,
2010 summit in Mexico.
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