Final Day

Frustration was an over-riding feeling today in the Bella Centre with shaking heads instead of shaking hands. Although the Copenhagen talks have been on the edge of collapse ever since they started, the revival of the negotiations yesterday morning through the Danish COP President’s ambitious work plan for the conference’s final 24 hours as well as Hilary Clinton’s encouraging speech have fueled new hopes that today’s deadline for agreement could still be met. However, yesterday’s newly gained momentum was insufficient to stabilize the fragile approaches between parties and to speed the entire process. The ad-hoc contact groups failed to merge the still diverting views into a new draft agreement, so that negotiators left the dinner hosted by Queen Margrethe early last night to continue bargaining until the dawn. Nevertheless, no document was yet on paper when the first people swarmed the large Plenary of the Bella Centre this morning to hear President Obama and other world leaders. French President Nicolas Sarkozy for example spoke with the waiting journalists and commented on the stalled progress. He identified China’s reluctance to guarantee transparent monitoring procedures and India’s unwillingness to commit to any kind of mitigation commitments as the key obstacles, while emphasising that there is considerable common ground between the positions of the EU, Africa and the US.

An informal meeting between President Obama, the Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen and 28 other heads of state, mostly from the EU but also including Japan, India and Russia was scheduled spontaneously this morning to produce a last-minute negotiating text. According to news reports the resulting “Copenhagen Accord” stipulates that parties “ought” to limit the rise of global mean temperature to 2 degrees, without defining concrete emissions reductions targets for developed countries. Commitments for developing country mitigation actions are equally not included. However, the annexes of the document provide room for filling in the parties’ pledges later. In terms of financing, the draft mentions the provision of $30bn up to 2012 and up to$100bn in climate aid by 2020. The timeline for finalizing an ultimate agreement is extended to COP 16 in Mexico City and it is said that negotiations should continue under both the Kyoto and the Convention track. The latest news reports however claim that even the 2010 deadline has now been removed, leaving the future of the international negotiations in the open.

From what is known right now, the “Copenhagen Accord” can be considered nothing else than a rough 3-page sketch out of the smallest common denominator. Except for financing, none of the “crunch” issues seems to be resolved which raises the question of what has actually been achieved over the last 10 days. It is therefore questionable whether the now officially announced extension of the talks until Sunday night will help to regain what has been lost already.

So what we can hope for now? The easiest outcome would be for governments settle for the upper ends of the emission reduction ranges they unilaterally announced in the run up to the summit. The EU, for example, could increase its target from 20 to 30 percent by 2020, and Japan’s goal as well is still contingent on the level of ambition displayed by other developed countries. However, for this to happen, someone would have to make a first move. Crucially the US would need to offer more than its percent reduction target on 2005 levels. But President Obama effectively dashed this prospect in his speech this afternoon - he did not offer any further emissions cuts or financing commitments, nor did he directly address the US Senate to push for the passing of strong domestic legislation. Instead, he boiled down international climate politics to a simple formula consisting of mitigation, transparency and financing – not that helpful really given that everyone knew this already.

At this stage the most likely outcome is what we suggested would happen going into the talks. There will effectively be no negotiated outcome. Parties will voluntary commit to unilateral targets which are not contingent on what other countries do. The EU, US, Japan and Australia have all proposed unilateral absolute targets for 2020 (all but the EU require the passage of domestic legislation) and China and India have proposed (largely business as usual) energy intensity targets. It now seems clear that China and India simply will not compromise their growth, even with the injection of substantial money from the developed world, and without this compromise the US will not budge from its unilateral position. And without the US it is very difficult for the EU, Australia and Japan to go further. Stalemate.