From COP-15: A Long Night in Copenhagen
By Brooks Yeager,
Executive Vice President for Policy
Clean Air-Cool Planet
It’s going to be a long night. The veteran negotiators have that look of weary resignation that means they know what they have to do, even if they were much younger the last time they had to do it. But all the gauntlets have been thrown down, and the procedural moves have been made. The leaders have started to arrive, and they won’t want to go home with empty hands.
There are three major issues dogging the process. The first concerns the substance of the greenhouse gas emissions reduction target put forward by the key nations – the major emitters. Are they ambitious enough, individually? And do they add up to enough to keep the world, as the Swedish Environment Minster, Andreas Karlgren put it, “well below 2° Celsius global warming?” Karlgren clearly thinks we’re not there yet – he directly challenged the U.S. and China to “unleash your full potential and allow the world to defeat the threat of climate change.”
The second concerns the form of the reduction targets. Even if China’s target is a reduction in energy intensity, allowing for further growth, while the U.S. and European targets call for absolute reductions, do they have the same legal form, and are they reviewable according to the same standard? The Chinese say no: their efforts are voluntary, and not subject to international verification. Fearful that Congress will demand nothing less, the U.S. negotiators want a standard that would justify a trade challenge if China fails to deliver on its commitments.
Finally, there is the issue of money, to help the developing world with adaptation and the development of low-carbon technology. This is much on the minds of the African Heads of State, among others. As the leaders rose to speak this afternoon, the theme that emerged was that climate change is already having a devastating impact on the lives of the poor, through drought, desertification, and storm surge. “Africans are already dying to pay for the carbon-intensive development enjoyed by the rich countries,” was the succinct view of Meles Zenawi, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, speaking for Africa. The developing countries, he pointed out, need to invest to make their population, their communities, and their agriculture sectors more resilient. In this respect, the offers from the developed world have so far been underwhelming. And as Zenawi concluded, “we will either all leave Copenhagen happy with the deal we have put together, or there will be no deal.”
Explore posts in the same categories: COP-15 in Copenhagen, PolicyTags: brooks yeager, clean air-cool planet, climate negotiations, climate policy, COP-15, copenhagen, international agreement, international climate negotiations
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