Climate Change Blog

The Copenhagen Accord is an embarassing text of which the official body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Conference of the Parties, only takes note. It is signed by a “list of parties” of which there is no trace on the web yet; it should include all developed countries and the big developing countries while Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba and many smaller developing countries refused to endorse it. The delegation from Tuvalu declared that “we have been offered 30 pieces of silver to betray our people and our future [...] our future is not for sale” and Cuba roared in a harsh critique of the process originating the document. In fact a group of about 30 Heads of State and government, as many as 28 from the developed world, met in a hotel on Friday 18 December delaying indefinetely the plenary to come up with a six page text, two of which are blank lists, i.e. to be filled before 31 January 2010. A lot of people wonder why this unfairly out of protocol meeting was to take place just before the general assembly.

This non agreement is the face saving document presented to the world two years after the Bali Action Plan was adopted to launch the development of a new treaty in Denmark this year. It is not a legally binding document nor a political agreement starting up immediate action, which were the objectives at COP15: this summit then should be honestly called a big failure with respect to the expectations. An overall failure of democracy because no commitments have been signed on how much greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced and about whom will pay (and when) the promised money for mitigation and adaptation to developing countries.

Citizens and businesses needed and need reference points from their governments and international institutions on many issues, but they see here that the best choice is to (continue to) act independently to cut emissions and adapt to the severe actual impacts of climate change around the world. The bottom-up approach can reach important results by itself while the United Nations process of negotiations is to be reformed; what needs to be changed seems the effectiveness of the system of representation of over 190 countries in order to avoid deadlocks, but allow democracy to take place in a transparent and inclusive way. Groups of countries could have one representative for decisions to be taken, say with a 3/4 majority of votes (whenever a unanimous one is not available) to actually manage to act on issues regarding the whole humanity rather than facing this constant paralisis that can only worsen the global environmental situation.

Moreover it is very sad to observe that thousands of people have been queing for hours outside the Bella Center without being able to get access to this public important event: it never happened during the previous Conferences of the Parties. The civil society was bringing energy, ideas and enthusiasm inside and outside the venue, but everything was turned upside down in the second week. And it is very disappointing that Barack Obama did not inject the final stimulus asked of the USA after the EU and Japan offered significant initial funding for developing nations to cope with climate change. These offers do not even appear in the Accord because they were conditional to a globally agreed text: unfortunately steps backwards have been made and we have little in our hands now, despite the general satisfaction expressed by various political leaders.

An historic opportunity has been missed in Copenhagen and it would be wise to learn from this failure to get this deal done in the next year. Too many echoes of ideological clashes and mistrust resounded in the Bella Center during the last two weeks: a lot of confidence is still to be built like Obama himself acknowledged. What makes many (poorer or richer) people angry is that there are already big obstacles ahead to stay stuck on disputes on the past any longer, but to do that a true confrontation should take place from now on. Any more leaked unofficial texts and phantomatic documents will only help the climate catastrophe to come while a more mature multilateral discussion and a better United Nations system to deliver action, and not proclamations, are what the public opinion want in order not to completely lose trust in our common institutions.

Certainly different urgent choices would have been made already at COP15 or before if submersion was a clear and present danger for New York, London or Shangai, and not only for Maldives, Kiribati and the like.

Luca Marazzi

Everybody has been waiting for the United States at COP15: Hillary Clinton declared on Thursday that they are ready to participate to the 100 billion $ worth annual fund to be raised by 2020, but still no definite figure has been announced. Today at 1 pm Barack Obama gave his speech to the plenary, but unfortunately he did not add anything new to the declared positions. He stressed on the transparency issue on national actions to warn China one last time that a deal without verification does not make any sense. Obama declared that he came to act and not to talk, but new action is missing and old words dominate in this exhausting chess game; things are still moving, but a strong deal is out of reach and more months of work will be needed to sign the new protocol.

The closing COP* and CMP** this afternoon will represent the final showdown trasforming the drafts into the results of COP15. But is what is on the table now enough, especially for the developing countries? drafting groups will have to discuss and write the terms and numbers of the agreement in the next hours. Here at Bella Center it is clearly perceivable how difficult the relatively new climate diplomacy is: like in all politics there is a fine line between words and facts, misunderstandings are all over the place and exterminate patience is a must. The Secretary General of the United Nations impersonate the persistent force needed for multilateral negotiations; the climate change threat does require to speed up the process not to let down billions of people now and in the future.

At least all leaders of the world are now concerned about the task, while China and USA were far from being so for too long, but the gap between reality and the actions required to tackle it is still very large.

Luca Marazzi

*Conference of the Parties

**Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol

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

The second week of the negotiations started with a thriller: for two hours a risk of complete failure was suspended over the Bella Center. Then agreement was reached to keep the two different tracks on the Kyoto commitments and the development of the new treaty. Tensions among small island states, China, India and the developed world have been strong in the last few days and texts have been drafted very late with respect to the two years available since Bali. This is a typically human weakness to leave everything till the last moment and it has a certain appeal: everybody will be waiting for heads of State and government to deliver what promised or expected.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (night included) are the last days to support the credibility of the UNFCCC in the face of the unprecedented threat of climate change. Watching again the COP15 opening ceremony, especially Connie Hedegaard’s emotional call not to miss this unique chance, it seems indeed stupid to give up high legitimate expectations. Political leaders bailed out the banks worldwide; they can decide to maintain promises currently unmet on the various funds to mitigate and adapt to climate change or just get stuck in the umpteenth political declaration. On the basis of lies Iraq was invaded very decidedly and with huge losses, on the basis of scientific evidence we can change our global priorities, with much less expenses and pain. Gordon Brown is expected to come tomorrow, two days in advance, and everybody is eager to know Barack Obama’s decisions; Sarkozy will probably play the card of the international tax for the climate and China and India will have to respond on their role of major countries. The only win-win situation possible is not to wait any longer and share a new vision of the future, however slow it will be to build it.

In the developed world we have means to adapt to climate change, giving medical assistance to elderly people in case of heat wave or building large barriers to protect our cities from severe floods. We are experiencing climate change, but there is no risk that Copenhagen or New York will be submerged by sea level rise very shortly. This is not the case in the Maldives and in many other island states, it is in their wonderful backyard where tourists go to take home loads of pictures that the future of next generations is being decided.

Axam Maunmoon, UNICEF young spokesperson said to Climate Change TV*: “I came here to make everybody feel the pain that we are feeling. We are losing our home, every small storm that comes can pluck out a house from a beach with children and people still in it, so you can imagine how you would feel just to see your friends and family washed away“. Axam and other 44 children came to Copenhagen to participate to the children’s climate conference before COP15 to put together a declaration of all the children of the world, who actually represent 2.5 billion citizens.

What he says should shake everybody and suggest us to go to these islands and talk to people there taking home stories, as well as photos, that can encourage us to act reducing our carbon footprint in every day life. More efforts are needed from everyone, if we think that the EU offer of 2,4 billion Euros/year represents less than 5 Euros per citizen in the next three years we can really understand how angry African countries and other developing nations are. A packet of cigarettes or an alcoholic drink is what the EU asks every European to renounce to: can’t we give more than that to children risking their lives because of a storm?

*http://www.climate-change.tv/component/content/article/47-inside-climate-change-solutions-interviews/305-axam-maunmoon-december-2009

There is something very psychological in this endless deadlock in the climate change negotiations: it is a matter of whether we want to look behind or before us. If we want to look ahead seriously then it is clear that rapidly developing nations have to have their fair share in commitments to go towards sustainable development. If we want to look behind us the payment of the “climate debt” is a priority to start from scratch to realize an ambitious new green deal.

A good long term funding plan would help and I would say that some strong moves are needed urgently not to declare this COP15 summit a failure, if not a disaster, according to vulnerable countries and activists. The big problem is that the money put on the table up to now do not reflect the urgency of the damages and life losses already happening (and predicted) because of present abnormal greenhouse gas emissions. Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, Chief negotiator for the G77 group, expressed yesterday his dissatisfaction about the EU fund offer for climate change mitigation* (2,4 billion euro/year for the next three years). On the contrary Yvo de Boer defined this European pledge as “hugely encouraging” and, since Obama said the USA are ready to pay their fair share, the situation might be not that bad.

So why is there this great gap in judgements? everybody will be asking 100 and giving 10 or 20 until the last minute probably, but there could be strong final determinations to fill these holes.  History though has a weight in people’s and countries’ counsciousness and trust is a major issue. More courage and self-reflection on life styles could help us understand that we should not expect the same fossil fuel based richness and cheap energy for decades to come: the next generations in rich nations could be happier consuming less and better and the ones in developing countries could become wealthier in a more sustainable way than we did. It is all about it and everybody knows that, but then who gives up their privileges without problems? selfishness is sad, but it is a reality, a limit that will be overcome sooner or later for the survival of the species. (Evolution could help us, but there is scientific debate whether Homo sapiens is still evolving under natural selection or only very little**).

*http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=2946

**http://www.ucl.ac.uk/media/library/humanevolution

Although carefully reading information in the press elements of optimism remain on the progress towards a global agreement on climate change, there seems to be no rock’n roll going on at COP15, apart for the wave of enthusiasm of young people, NGOs and flourishing green businesses (plus all events in town). Targets from the developing countries and some of the developed countries are interesting, even the criticized new US administration announced better targets for 2025 and 2030: 18 % below 1990-levels in 2025 and 32 percent in 2030*. But press conferences from the US and Chinese delegations show lack of trust and uncertainty on what these major powers will decide in the end, especially about funding and the choice between a new treaty and a Kyoto 2 treaty. African nations are calling for dollars from USA and International Monetary Fund to pay for the climate debt that Action Aid are campaigning on, and, even if it is important to broaden committments in order for developing countries to avoid polluting development paths, it is undoubtable that historic responsabilities cannot be put into brackets nor denied. A balance needs to be found between autonomous actions and externally funded programmes in most of Africa and other poor regions. Clean Development Mechanisms (CDMs) are still few there, but more relevant in China and India that are in fact rapidly developing nations, if a distinction is to be made with the Least Developed Countries (LDCs).

Friday’s fossil of the day saw Canada winning for announcing lower targets than the ones they had in Kyoto stating that these are “science-based” figures: an embarassed, but very energetic Mayor of Toronto, David Miller, received the ironic cup full with coal from the brilliant Climate Action Network guys. He addressed the audience with the positive message on what many cities in the world are doing to tackle climate change via a bottom-up approach, as to say: “we are not waiting, we are drawing the way forward“. On the very open COP15 website (www.en.cop15.dk) you can read stimulating ideas like the questions launched by Bo Persson: “What if the USA pulled home some of its outsourced industries? And China canceled some of the loans?” to suggest a win win situation for the two countries on both the economic and environmental side.
In the chaotic, exciting global episode n°15 in the UNFCCC Conferences of the Parties series all the opportunities to meet and talk to people at all levels are there, as well as all the shortcomings of such a huge concentrated event. COP15 will not be able to solve all dilemmas and decide between all alternatives, but new ideas, people and solutions deserve the world’s attention and it is during such contexts that you can be a small actor still able to add a few pieces to the global puzzle. There is not much time to complete the picture, but the efforts are large: the political leaders have now the responsability to combine them and give a precise meaning and a mission to future summits like this.

Luca Marazzi

*http://en.cop15.dk/blogs/climate+thinkers+blog

Tuvalu is a Polynesian island nation in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Australia: it has four reef islands and five true atolls and about 12,000 inhabitants. Its average altitude is only 4.5 m above sea level, and climate change is having serious impacts because of thermal expansion of the oceans plus glaciers and ice caps melting causing worrying sea level rise. Today these islands, the third smallest State in the world, caused a stall in the negotiations in Copenhagen because their proposal to start up a new treaty involving CO2 binding emission cuts from developing countries was opposed by India, China and Saudi Arabia among others. Something new is happening here and final outcomes can be unpredictable because the scheme developed/developing nations has been finally broken, and I think it is a good news. Yes, because now everybody has to play their own cards more transparently and most of all beyond these two blocks: the chess game gets more complicated, but more open and potentially successful.

The Danish government played a risky card with their informal controversial draft, but after what has been invested on this event at all levels, political accountability for the outcomes will be there on all major players: EU, USA, China and India at least. The two Asian giants are under scrutiny by the developed leaders and viceversa: their energy-intensity based targets are not explicit and convincing enough. Small Island States and their allies seem to have appreciated Denmark’s proposal the spirit of which could relieve them from the heavy burden of being China and India’s companions forever. Is it just a speculation or a new scenario?

The Least Developed Countries did not even remotely contribute in a relevant way to the climate change impacts they are facing, and they are now asking someone else in the so-called developing world to do more in view of their increasing population and per capita emissions. We will see whether this tough game is going to produce some fruits: required generosity is still missing while fear and anxiety are dominating the picture. Another 9 days of patience and hard work before knowing the final result of COP15.

One of the answers to our questions on what would be a success and what a failure from the Copenhagen summit was given by Yvo de Boer this morning: “action needs to begin the day after the conference ends“. Action means “additional financial support for developing countries and strong foundations on adaptation, mitigation, technology, finance, capacity building and forest” deliverable by negotiators and then governments to increase ambition on targets and agree on controversial issues.

So a failure would happen if such an additional economic effort will not be in place and written in black and white on Saturday 19 December and if a productive clarity will not be there in the other areas mentioned by the UNFCCC Secretary. In the meantime a confidential text from the Danish government on a possible agreement, published by The Guardian, seemed to have irritated the developing countries, in particular over the division between Least Developed Countries that would not have commitments to fulfill and other nations that can actually contribute to reduce global emissions in their development path. But scenarios without any commitments from at least the wealthier among the developing countries would be simply unfair to future generations, since emissions there amount to over 50% of the global CO2 with growing populations and standard of life. Ambitious pledges have been made by Brazil, Indonesia, China and India so the reality is being accepted, but we need a further boost from USA, EU and friends due to the gravity of the situation.

What is needed here is trust between nations which is more difficult to reach than trust between individuals. This does not mean forgetting history and its lessons, but rather moving on despite the persistent injustices, unless we just give up and divide the world in bad/rich guys (developed countries) and poor and good guys (developing countries). But then would it make any sense to still meet every year? peaceful dialogue with clear action at the end of it is still possible, here and now in Copenhagen. This city is a symbol of hope and has been renamed “Hopenhagen” in a big Danish campaign: this needs not to remain only nice rethoric and become collective responsibility.

If we need to be naive to solve the big challenges ahead we just have to do it, take the risk, and forget about what is wrong in this whole UN circus: we are human and thus imperfect, but we must improve and believe in something or just maybe stay at home next time, at least saving some emissions…

I live in London and I find it a very exciting city, but Copenhagen is definitely more human and sustainable. Alright, it is like comparing pears with apples because the former has a metropolitan area of about 12 million inhabitants and the latter has got less than 2 million people, but I bet that there are many people in London who would happily come here and take a break every now and then. It is an incredible challenge to build sustainable metropolis for our children to live in, but do we have a healthy alternative to the current decline in life quality in huge cities?

Let’s start with what happened today at COP15 and see if there is any hope. In the opening ceremony the Danish Prime Minister showed leadership and urged his colleagues to take action. 192 Countries and their delegates have only 7 negotiating days left to agree on binding rules and targets that will have to be ratified by governments and Parliaments in every nation involved. It is not a joke! Then the ministries and the heads of State will come and sign or finalize the deal next week, or admit the failure (would they ever do that?). Public money is to be put on this problem and prioritized with respect to other ones; for example, even if the United States administration are trying to approve a historic health care reform, acting on climate change would help their citizens to suffer less from air pollution, heat waves and floods. Health is ultimately involved in the picture: we just have to be a bit more imaginative, shall we?

There is the right political momentum: over 100 heads of State and government have announced their participation to COP15 next week and no excuses would seem plausible to the public opinion. Achim Steiner, the Head of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) said that who thinks an ambitious deal is impossible is wrong…everybody hopes he is right. A recent study conducted by Lord Nicholas Stern¹ with UNEP estimates that the current pledges from all countries, if realized (it is a big if), would be very close to the 44 billion tonnes of CO₂ target for 2020.

Barack Obama is expected to participate to the conference next week: this is a good sign and there is growing consensus that a low carbon economy is the best exit strategy from the economic crisis and a vaccine against future crises. As European Union we are hiding our cards to see whether other countries’ targets are comparable to the 20% CO₂ reduction we committed to: if so the EU could raise the bar to 30% less emissions than 1990 by 2020. China and India, that have committed to rather serious targets, would be put under further pressure if the USA showed the courage and sense of urgency needed, especially after Bush’s climate denial. The UNFCCC Executive Secretary, de Boer, strongly asked the leaders to get this “Christmas cake” done because the time is up; he started his statement at the opening ceremony, visibly moved, reading what a child said about a flooding that took part of his family away from him. Natural disasters have always happened and will continue to happen unfortunately, but the evidence that a growing share of these are caused by excessive greenhouse gas emissions is out there unequivocal after decades of research.

Rajendra Pachauri defended the massive work of the IPCC and of all the honest scientists who contribute to it against the scandal of the emails hacked from the East Anglia University Climate Research Unit in UK. It is indeed sad that a few scientists overexcited by their own “belief” in their work on climate change put the credibility of the international community under attack, but it is suspicious that this happened just before COP15 (and it is illegal to crack passwords). The public opinion need researchers to explain the uncertainty and limits of their findings, but also to state when there is a real alarm and action is a must, like it currently is. Mr. Pachauri also underlined the Danish example on the generation and use of renewable energy: is it a case that, according to a survey, Denmark have the happiest people in the world or they simply made the best choices after the oil crisis in the 1970s?

The enthusiasm you can breathe during this and other COPs, from young people, members of NGOs, volunteers, but also some political leaders and many official delegates is great. The course of history can be changed only with realistic, but positive attitude: the worst thing it could happen is that we will have tried hard and we will still be able to say: “that’s all we could do”. On the other side there will be someone else evidently more influential who would regret not to have been brave enough or to have been too selfish, personally or as a whole country.

How can the world imitate Denmark to be greener, wealthier and more relaxed? This is like the last night before the exam and we’d better stay awake and study because we are late! Please express your ideas on the blog on how to pass tomorrow’s exam…

Luca Marazzi

1. http://www.unep.org//pdf/climatechange/ActionAndAmbitionForGlobalDealInCopenhagen.pdf.