More fallout analysis

The Copenhagen analysis continues apace, with some foolish people looking to Mexico as a repeat. Far more likely that this whole sorry mess will get strung out till 2011 and South Africa- and beyond…

The Ecoequity lot have got “After Copenhagen: A wiser movement, a justice challenge, a response to the China bashing”

It’s been a while since Copenhagen, but not too long, perhaps, to send out another reflection on its significance. So here’s After Copenhagen, wherein Tom Athanasiou spends most of his time considering Copenhagen as a turning point for the climate justice movement, and replying to the new vogue for China bashing. Mark Lynas in particular.

Climateethics has published a paper-A Comprehensive Ethical Analysis of the Copenhagen Accord.

It is an attempt to identify what happened in Copenhagen , address the controversy about whether the Copenhagen Accord was a step forward or a disaster, and finally examine the Copenhagen outcome through an ethical lens. It is available at:

http://climateethics.org/?p=343

And there’s this from the Guardian-
On their take on a deal being im-possible

and the experts they asked…

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Saving face or “saving the planet”

“The Europeans are still feeling bruised, and think Copenhagen was pretty much a disaster. The Chinese and Americans tend to be pleased about avoiding a total breakdown in the talks and think it was useful to get a statement of principles to build on. The point of the meeting was to get a deal that might stand some chance of meeting scientific advice on climate change, not an outcome that could be spun to save politicians’ faces.”

Gideon Rachman “In Stockholm, thinking about Copenhagen”
Financial Times January 23rd 2010

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So much for that then…

“The United Nations has dropped the 31 January deadline for countries to submit their climate change targets as agreed in December’s Copenhagen climate summit. The UN climate change chief, Yvo de Boer, announced yesterday that the deadline is now “soft”, meaning countries can sign up to the Copenhagen accord whenever they want.
The change comes as only 20 out of 192 countries have submitted official targets with 10 days left to the deadline. The Copenhagen accord seeks to bind nations to a goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times. It also proposes that developing countries receive 100 billion US dollars per year to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change after 2020.”

See here too

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An online post-mortem…

So, Earthscan publish some pretty interesting books (declaration of interest- MCFly has requested some review copies and gotten ’em).

And this looks interesting

Earthcast – After Copenhagen: the tactics and the treaty
this is a live web event on 27 January 2010 at 5pm. Anyone can register and participate. Contributors will include Michael Grubb, David Satterthwaite and Richard Smith. They will dissect the agreement and ask whether future negotiations can establish a binding treaty that sets ambitious limits for the large emitters while supporting developing nations financially and technologically.

To register go to http://www.earthscan.co.uk/?tabid=101760

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Slamdown returns…

Sorry for the prolonged absence- will get back into a little more regular posting. Here’s something from the Grauniad, which isn’t a surprise. The next year is going to be a battle between effectiveness and legitimacy…

America sees a diminished role for the United Nations in trying to stop global warming after the “chaotic” Copenhagen climate change summit, an Obama administration official said today.

Jonathan Pershing, who helped lead talks at Copenhagen, instead sketched out a future path for negotiations dominated by the world’s largest polluters such as China, the US, India, Brazil and South Africa, who signed up to a deal in the final hours of the summit. That would represent a realignment of the way the international community has dealt with climate change over the last two decades.

“It is impossible to imagine a global agreement in place that doesn’t essentially have a global buy-in. There aren’t other institutions beside the UN that have that,” Pershing said. “But it is also impossible to imagine a negotiation of enormous complexity where you have a table of 192 countries involved in all the detail.”

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Informacion Detallada del FIASCO CLIMATICO

With thanks to Cristian Abud for the Spanish translation

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Blue Moon, without a dream in my heart…

Remarks to UNGA on the UN Copenhagen Climate Change Conference

21 December 2009: In his briefing to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on the outcome of the UN Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon identified a number of tasks that the international community should now undertake.

First, he urged “all Governments to formally sign on to the Copenhagen Accord by registering their support through the UNFCCC.”

Second, he said the commitments enshrined in the Copenhagen Accord should be converted into a legally binding climate change treaty as soon as possible in 2010.

Third, he called for the Copenhagen Green Climate Fund to become fully operational as soon as possible. In this context, he said he will engage the UN system to immediately start to support countries in their mitigation and adaptation efforts and to support climate resilience and clean energy growth in developing countries.

Fourth, he urged all countries to implement their commitments while the legally binding agreement is being developed. He said all actors must “look to what more we can do between now and the UN Climate Change Conference in Mexico” at the end of 2010, suggested examining the lessons of the Copenhagen Conference and considering how to improve the negotiations process, and called for encompassing “the full context of climate change and development in the negotiations, both substantively and institutionally.” He said he will establish, in early 2010, a high-level panel on development and climate change to address such issues.

Fifth, we should all grow up and stop using displacement mechanisms to ignore our impending but still avoidable (perhaps) immolation.

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Copenhagen fall-out, the sequel

So, the Copenhagen fallout continues…

Oxfam tell us that “The UN climate talks must be rescued from the shambles of Copenhagen by revolutionising the way the negotiations are carried out so that a deal can be delivered in 2010 and the chaos witnessed in Copenhagen is never repeated, said Oxfam today.
In its new report. Climate shame: get back to the table launching today, the international aid agency reviews the outcomes of the recent climate conference, the shortcomings and the missed opportunities which will send repercussions among the world’s poorest people already suffering the effects of climate change.”

Excellent coverage in the FT of course. Everyone who wants to know what is going on in the world needs to be reading the FT alongside whatever brand of dissidence (Socialist Worker, Permanent Revolution, Peace News, Indymedia etc). It takes time to get used to, and it ain’t cheap, but it is damn well worth it

Front page story “Business chiefs hit at climate agreement, followed by more coverage. Capitalists like long loud and clear signals on carbon pricing. They didn’t get it…

Inside we have further analysis. Bernice Lee (of Chatham House) said “None of the major parties moved out of their comfort zones in… negotiations. They stuck to their opening offers.”

The analysis section (the page before the letters page) is full of useful information. “A discordant accord”, written by Fiona Harvey, Ed Crooks and Andrew Ward.

Aussies friendless!

“As the talks entered their final week, the wrangling grew worse. Australia was to be the co-chair of a group discussing commitments to reduce emissions but needed a developing country partner. Of at least 10 approached, none would do it.”

The Real Problem? “Is that it has not been formally accepted by the Copenhagen conference, which means it can easily be sidelined…”

There’s amusing stuff on the blame shifting between the Danes and the UN. “But the frustration voiced privately by other European countries is harder to discount. Officials say the hosts made procedural mistakes and there were breakdowns in communication with the UN bureaucracy.

The editorial doesn’t pull its punches either

“Governments need to understand, even if they cannot say so, that Copenhagen was worse than useless. If you draw the world’s attention to an event of this kind, you have to deliver, otherwise the political impetus is lost. To declare what everybody knows to be a failure a success is feeble, and makes matters worse. Loss of momentum is now the danger. In future, governments must observe the golden rule of international co-operation: agree first, arrange celebrations and photo opportunities later.”

Where next?
Nick Stern wants Mexico (the next host) to get together a group of “20 representative countries to work on a potential treaty “tackling the main outstanding issues and building consensus”.

Major Emitters Forum or UNFCCC? Efficacy or legitimacy? Which do ya want?

And finally, having breached enough of the FT’s copyright for one day…
From the FT Fund Management supplement

“The negotiators at last week’s global climate change summit failed to say where the vast majority of the money needed to arrest global warming will co from, according to two United Nations-related bodies.

“The asset owners on the board of the UN’s Principles for Responsible Investment have sent an open letter to the heads of state who attended the summit, calling for the long-term negotiation process to recognise their role and that of capital markets in making it possible to lower carbon emissions….”

On Wednesday there’s a supplement on Copenhagen too, so that’s gonna be worth a read.

On the Accord itself there’s a pretty interesting piece by a Harvard guy called Robert Stavins
What Hath Copenhagen Wrought? A Preliminary Assessment of the Copenhagen Accord
December 20th, 2009

But it’s definitely not for people who don’t know their IPCC from their UNFCCC from their CDM…

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More commentary, via Beeb piece on Miliband

Uggh, much as I admire Ed Miliband, this is an image I didn’t need-

Mr Miliband said “sticking points” had led four or five countries to almost “dump the agreement completely” at 4am on Saturday morning.

He said he had been in his hotel room, “in his underwear”, when he was called back for “hours of wrangling” to stop a deal being blocked.

Later on in the story, those hard-working (and paid) BBC hacks have gathered together a few worthies’ comments

Liberal Democrat energy spokesman Simon Hughes said the declaration was “desperately disappointing” when the world needed a deal.
He said: “I can’t remember an occasion when more people of power and influence came together on a more important issue and went away with so little to show for it.”
Shadow climate change secretary Greg Clark said talks must go on in the months ahead until a proper deal is struck.
He said: “I made it clear in Copenhagen that, if negotiations continue beyond the general election and Conservatives were in government, there would be no let up in our determination to secure a rigorous global deal.”
Green Party leader Caroline Lucas said the outcome after years of waiting was “a complete disaster”.
She said: “What have we got? An empty accord with no legally binding framework, no targets, and no money guaranteed to be over and above existing aid budgets. It’s deeply, deeply disappointing.”
Friends of the Earth campaigner Tom Picken said the UK government had said it would fight for a “strong and fair agreement” but the accord was neither.
“It is not even an agreement,” he said. “The parties rejected it as being a consensus decision.”
He accused the US of “arm twisting” some countries into a deal, and said the rich countries had acted against the spirit of the past two years of negotiations.

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Reactions and analysis

We’re putting together a cartoon guide to the Accord, called “The Copenhagen Accord-ing to Gort”. In the meantime, while you wait for the comedy gold to appear on your computer screen, check out the following four analyses (I haven’t bothered summating all the summit-was-a-catastrophe quotes from Barroso, Sauven etc etc) Though for once the NGOs seem to have gotten up on their hind-legs and called it like they see it.

“This accord is not legally binding, it’s a political statement,” said Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International. “This is a disaster for the poor nations – the urgency of climate change was not really considered.”

Dame Barbara Stocking, Oxfam’s chief executive, agreed. “World leaders in Copenhagen seem to have forgotten that they were not negotiating numbers, they were negotiating lives,” she said.

The most interesting takes are from two up-beat (Obama loving?) Americans, linked to later on in this post. First two downbeat ones, full of inventive invective and splendid spleen come from George Monbiot in the Grauniad and Joss ‘Plane Stupid’ Garman in the Utterly-and-soon-to-be-Russian-owned-Dependent.

Monbiot starts

“First they put the planet in square brackets, now they have deleted it from the text. At the end it was no longer about saving the biosphere: it was just a matter of saving face. As the talks melted down, everything that might have made a new treaty worthwhile was scratched out. Any deal would do, as long as the negotiators could pretend they have achieved something…”

Garman deploys a modicum of sarcasm

“Late in the evening, the two men meet and cobble together a collection of paragraphs that they call a “deal”, although in reality it has all the meaning and authority of a bus ticket, not that it stops them signing it with great solemnity.”

Meanwhile, Joe Romm of the indispensable Climate Progress has two guest bloggers, both of whom are fans/enablers of the Obama administration, but/therefore have interesting perspectives on what was achieved (politics being the art of the possible and all that)

Jeremy Symons, Senior VP for Conservation and Education at the National Wildlife Federation, America’s largest conservation organization
says

“Most importantly, China is now officially in the game in a way it has resisted since the Earth Summit almost two decades ago. The Copenhagen Accord is a two-part breakthrough with China: They are putting numbers on the table with a measurable pledge to join the global fight to reduce climate pollution, and they agreed to open their books on their rising emissions and allow a transparent review of their progress toward their emissions pledge. This breakthrough is important for the global climate effort, as well as encouraging the Senate to move forward and deliver the climate and clean energy bill to the president. China will act, and the China excuse is off the table.”

and according to Andrew Light, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress

“Unfortunately though the agreement does not have a hard deadline to take the second step and turn it into a final legally binding agreement by 2010 in Mexico City. Such a provision would have provided the basis for a good answer to those who find the numbers and reduction targets in the accord lacking. As they will expire in one or two years they would, of necessity, need to be adjusted to continue reducing emissions at an appropriate pace. Nonetheless, UN General Secretary Moon and other parties have committed themselves to taking the next step and turning this document into a binding legal agreement by the next UN climate summit in Mexico City in 2010.

There is however a different aspect of this deal that could be the beginning of a game changer in how the world looks at ending carbon pollution. The Copenhagen Accord was not forged among our closest allies in the developed world; it was the product of cooperation between the US and a group of the largest carbon emitters in the developing world. In fact, this same group had met prior to the Copenhagen meeting in China to declare that they would never move beyond one of the core guiding assumptions of the Kyoto Protocol: that the world is divided between developed and developing countries and that only the former are required to take steps to curb their carbon emissions and be held accountable for those reductions.”

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