COP15 « Climate Equity

The outcome of the Copenhagen climate conference will be discussed for years to come. There are much smarter people than I that can outlinethe implications for climate change and a new world order that has emerged in Copenhagen (one of them for sure being Malini Mehra from India-based Centre for Social Markets who published this extremely worthwhile piece).

What becomes obvious for a European working on climate change in Washington DC is the completely different perception of the Copenhagen outcome on both sides of the Atlantic. While European governments are frustrated and disappointed, most climate advocates in the United States define Copenhagen as a success and an important step forward towards tackling global climate change. Why is it Swing time in the US and Europe plays the climate Blues? (more…)

It is ironic, really. 

The question about financial transfers from the industrialized to the developing countries - one of the most contentious issues throughout the two weeks’ negotiations in  the Bella Center - might be one issue area, where a final Copenhagen declaration could show a clear way forward – albeit in an otherwise weak and watered down political statement by Head of States, a sad remnant of the earlier, grander vision of a comprehensive “Copenhagen Deal”.  

Finally, concrete numbers – the most to be expected for a future “Copenhagen Climate Fund” - are on the table. And while they are not as grandios as hoped for, they will, if collected and tranferred speedily, go a long way to improve the lives and livelihoods of men and women in the devleoping world as well as the world’s climate. Over the next three years, industrialized countries commit to transfer some $30 billion in short-term financing to developing countries.  Most of these funds over the next three years would probably be delivered through existing (climate) financing mechanisms, including at the multilateral development banks and the GEF. (A reminder:  It took seven years from COP decision to the start of operations of the new Adapation Fund). By 2020, a “Copenhagen Climate Fund” under the direct authority of the UNFCCC would then collect  some $100 billion per year by 2020.

This at least, is what a three-page outline document for a political declaration, the result of a “green room”-type meeting of 30 countries came up with after a long night of negotiations early Friday morning.  But it seems also the outline of what is politically possible as a financing framework, with its baselines seemingly holding throughout the high-level segment of the negotiations and the statements by Obama, Merkel, Lula & Co. (more…)

They have prepared, saved and strategized for months.  They have neglected friends and family, sleep and their own health in order to finish the brief, the publication or exhibition, prepare the side-event, fundraise the money to bring partners or plan their communication strategy for Copenhagen — only to find themselves locked out of the Bella Center during the last two days — crunch-time!!! — of the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen. 

You guys from global civil society are nice, but essentially superfluous; colorful, but not important; a security risk, really.  This is the message that the host government and the UNFCCC Secretariat are sending. And the world’s civil society, which had made the treck to the Danish capital in the tens of thousands, is angry… and worse: frustrated and questioning increasingly its involvement with and the legitimacy of the climate negotiations process. (more…)

It reminded those passing by of the reading of names at memorials to fallen heroes or victims of terrorism… And in a way, the action felt like the early public mourning for an ambitious climate outcome at the COP 15, which will probably never see the light of day.

Thursday in the afternoon, the babylonic noise levels in the Bella Center reached a new crescendo, when some 50 young folks, committed members of the tcktcktck campaign started reading out aloud the names of people from all over the world.  Sitting and standing in the main walkways of the conference center, the activits implored the moral support of some 11 million men, women and children  from around the world who had signed on to the campaign worldwide demanding a “fair, ambitious and legally binding” agreement in Copenhagen. (more…)

Monday morning 11:30am negotiations in Copenhagen have stopped completely. A day before the high-level segments start, countries are arguing about what to negotiate first and only agreed to disagree.  It was interesting as an observer to watch how the session of the group of the Kyoto-Protocol was ended by Australia insisting on closing the session, because the developing countries were blocking other sessions. All press conferences by governments have been canceled, behind the door talks are going on. In the meantime, Canada has announced a new climate target for 2020 that would put the home of the tar sands in a frontrunner position to tackle climate change. Sounds crazy? I know… (more…)

It is quite amazing how many different negotiation texts and informal working groups one could see in the first week of the COP. This is a stark contrast to the last two COPs I have visited, Bali in 2007 and Poznan in 2008, where the talks started very slowly and only in the Bali-COP had a dramatic finale. Copenhagen definitely brings a stronger dynamic and a higher speed – even before Ministers and heads of States have arrived. It’s crunch time in global climate diplomacy!

Copenhagen brings more direct confrontations, new proposals and immediate rejections. Todd Stern, the US key negotiator, laid out the perspective of his administration, including “I don’t envision public funds, certainly not from the United States, going to China” in this press conference. The Chinese Vice Foreign Minister he Yafei responded by calling Todd Stern “extremely irresponsible” and challenged the rich countries to live up to their historic responsibility. At a later briefing, Stern said his comments about the public funding issue and China were “a bit unfortunate.”

The question of responsibility was also adressed to US Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) in this BBC-interview. His only response when asked if the US shouldn’t take into account that that the average American emits 20 tones of CO2 per person, Europe-10, China-5, and Africa-1, was that, “There’s no way this is gonna pass the Congress.”

It is raining in Copenhagen — the normal watery stuff, but also finance proposals, albeit of the non-official, imaginary “non-paper” variety. But these are sometimes helpful to test the depth of the negotiation waters, to stay with the H2O analogies.

Just yesterday, the “non-paper” of the UK, Mexico, Australia and Norway made the rounds in the Bella Center with the proposal for a new global Climate or Green Fund. 

And today, Mr. “I-know-a-good-deal-in-finance-when-I-see-it” George Soros, the legendary billionaire investor, who know heads the Open Society Institute, rushed through the Copenhagen Conference Center (flanked by a security detail that would make some heads of state blush with envy) to present to the delegates and the world a proposal to generate an additional $100 billion for climate change relief, just like that.

Both proposals, in substance, provide not too much that is entirely new, but — in the green spirit — recycle and repackage some ideas tossed around during the past year or so of global discussions about climate finance to maximum effect and best re-use. And they aim to stir up the finance debate in Copenhagen at a critical time in the negotiations by showing some innovative thinking and daring that official submissions up to now lack. (more…)

Even after some days of negotiation it is not fully clear how much substance and how much greenwash can be expected in the end of COP15, the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark. The Heinrich Böll Foundation has published together with Germanwatch this background paper on possible elements of a fair climate treaty in line with the climate science.

Obviously there is also the danger that the world leaders will politically agree on a solution that includes loopholes. These are the four main dangers on the way to a Greenwash Agreement:

Danger No. 1 for a Greenwash Agreement: Long-Term Goals Without Short-Term Targets: It could be that a 2 degrees limit and non-binding long-term goals are announced with much fanfare in Copenhagen, but that the binding short-term goals (2020) remain clearly below the benchmark governments set themselves in Copenhagen. Binding short-term targets are the only realistic way for the achievement of long-term goals.

Danger no. 2 for a Greenwash Agreement: The Risk of Loopholes: Given the current state of negotiations, it is likely that we will be confronted with significant loopholes. Then the low reduction targets of industrialized countries would not be worth the paper they are written on.

Danger No. 3 for a Greenwash Agreement: “Politically Binding”: The concept “Politically binding” is a smoke grenade. A “politically binding” agreement would mean putting political will in a sieve through which it can quickly leak out: By no later than the next change of government, a country would not be bound to it anymore. By contrast, an agreement legally binding under international lawwould pour the political will in a leak-proof bucket, in order to be able to transport it for the distance. If at the end of the climate conference we have a politically binding agreement it would be a greenwash selling the world a sieve as a bucket.

Danger No. 4 for a Greenwash Agreement: “Pledge and Review”: If every country simply submits its own climate and financing targets and these are accepted, then no real climate negotiations are actually taking place. The purpose of the multilateral approach, that all participate and go further than they would otherwise, would be lost.If the legal bindingness is also absent, there will be no dynamic unleashed, only frustration and deadlock.