Barack Obama, according to US officials, is not coming to increase already declared pledges, but rather to ensure a good operational agreement on climate change policies. His economic recovery program though includes 80 billion dollars for renewable energy, nuclear power, fuel efficient motor vehicles and carbon capture technologies in coal power plants*. These and other mitigation actions being planned and in place on a voluntary (national or regional) basis all over the world are key, but a new treaty could plan global emission cuts and international funding to ensure equity in distribution of commitments and economic support. The legally binding framework to the picture of green progress is missing.
At COP15 Japan’s delegates announced yesterday a 15 billion dollars fund for climate aid (11 bl $ of public money) on both mitigation and adaptation, a higher share than the EU and the US that creates the expected start-up of about 30 billion $ from 2010 to 2012. It is a conditional offer though that will become real if the agreement materializes tomorrow or on Saturday; actually every group of countries is waiting for other nations’ moves and leadership is lacking. During the last days of COP15 the Copenhagen Climate Summit for Mayors is also on; over a half of the world’s population lives in cities that are responsible for 80 % of global CO2 emissions and many interesting projects on city planning and mobility in Jakarta, London, New York, Toronto and other cities are presented to the public in the “Hopenhagen” square. This indipendent bottom-up approach is going to be crucial while negotiations will proceed for the years to come.
Ban Ki-moon said that the time for unresonable requests is over and that the EU offer is not insignificant, but the negotiations are facing a stop due to lack of clarity on the drafts for the Kyoto protocol and the Long Term Cooperation tracks. A lot is at stake in terms of political leaders’ credibility in front of citizens and businesses: Connie Hedegaard was very clear-cut in one of the last plenaries saying that “we can choose between fame or shame“. Given the expectations and the IPCC scenarios on climate change in the next decades and the extraordinary presence of heads of State and government in Copenhagen it seems it would be difficult to hide a failure to the world. The situation does not look good, the British newspaper Guardian states that we are at the brink of a collapse**, but many people are hoping that decision makers are here to make decisions, that is what citizens pay them for.
Luca Marazzi
*http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=3033
**http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/17/copenhagen-talks-brink-collapse