ENVIRONMENT: GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE : INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND DIPLOMACY: SUMMITS AND CONFERENCES: 'Meaningful' Deal Reached at Copenhagen Climate Summit
David P. Dillard
.
ENVIRONMENT: GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE :
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND DIPLOMACY: SUMMITS AND CONFERENCES:
'Meaningful' Deal Reached at Copenhagen Climate Summit
'Meaningful' Deal Reached at Copenhagen Climate Summit
Key states have reached what they call a "meaningful agreement" at the
Copenhagen climate summit.
Page last updated at 22:32 GMT, Friday, 18 December 2009
BBC News
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8421880.stm>
A US government official said the deal was a "historic step forward" but
was not enough to prevent dangerous climate change in the future.
Analysts welcomed the fact that a deal had been done, but said its
achievements were modest.
US President Barack Obama said the deal would be a foundation for global
action but there was "much further to go".
He said the US, China, Brazil, India and South Africa had "agreed to set a
mitigation target to limit warming to no more than 2C and, importantly, to
take action to meet this objective".
He added: "We are confident that we are moving in the direction of a
significant accord."
BBC environment correspondent Richard Black said it was not yet clear how
other countries would view the agreement.
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ENVIRONMENT: GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE :
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND DIPLOMACY: SUMMITS AND CONFERENCES:
Climate Summit Hopes Less is More
Climate Summit Hopes Less is More
The Copenhagen talks' mandate is muddled, but some wonder whether markets
won't save the day.
By Jim Tankersley
December 20, 2009
Los Angeles Times
<http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/
la-fg-copenhagen-climate20-2009dec20,0,6958334.story>
A shorter URL for the above link:
Reporting from Copenhagen - When two weeks of climate negotiations finally
wound to an overtime finish in Copenhagen, the goal of a new binding
treaty to combat global warming still looked elusively far away. And, even
for climate activists, the question was: "Is that so bad?"
The summit officially ended Saturday with a gentlemen's agreement among
the world's largest economies to take steps to curb greenhouse gas
emissions, but no formal consensus on the part of the 193 nations present
-- and no prescription for what comes next in the global negotiating
process that is nearly 20 years old.
It was a muddled mandate from a conference originally intended to produce
a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. And it left the impression that
any success in humankind's efforts to avert the worst effects of climate
change may be less an outcome of formal bargaining than of domestic
politics, scientific innovation and, above all, the power of the emerging
global market in low-emitting sources of energy.
The most celebrated aspects of the so-called Copenhagen Accord, at least
initially, were a batch of provisions that will boost the likelihood of
major emitters acting on their own to reduce carbon pollution and will
send clear signals to clean-energy investors and inventors.
Summit alters the climate in Copenhagen
The Christmas holiday air of the Danish capital seems to undergo drastic
change along with the ups and downs of the climate negotiators struggling
to craft an agreement on greenhouse gas emissions.
By Jim Tankersley
December 19, 2009 | 4:22 p.m.
Los Angeles Times
<http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/
la-fgw-climate-sider20-2009dec20,0,2987172.story>
A shorter URL for the above link:
Reporting from Copenhagen - In the early days of the global climate
summit, Copenhagen was Christmas incarnate -- a place of white lights,
rosy cheeks and cobbled streets, where sugared almonds roasted in great
metal bowls and a classical sextet played carols in the cold.
By the end, the city was Mordor, the soul-crushing provenance of evil in
Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings." Dreary, gray, slushy. Daylight made
timid cameos. In the stark Nordic hotel hosting U.S. negotiators, so newly
built that some rooms lacked shower heads, the wind rattled the windows.
The city's atmosphere was transformed, over two weeks, by the slogging
pace of negotiations on a new agreement to control greenhouse gas
emissions. Hope cooled. Frustration settled in. Police clubbed protesters.
The weather piled on.
Optimism flared and died swiftly as the deadline neared. Overnight talks
stalled. Basic issues went unresolved. Who agrees to cut emissions? Who
makes sure the cuts come to pass? Who pays, and how much, for poor
countries to cope with a changing climate and adopt cleaner sources of
fuel?
The summit's final scheduled day dawned to a bitter chill and pandemic
exhaustion. Into the gloom, a jumbo jet brought the man whom many
delegates saw as their last hope to break the impasse: the president of
the United States, who was risking a lot more than he let on.
Copenhagen summit ends in blood, sweat and recrimination
Gordon Brown and Barack Obama did their best to put a positive spin on it,
but Copenhagen was a disaster, writes Andrew Gilligan.
Published: 7:30AM GMT 20 Dec 2009
Telegraph
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/
6845892/Copenhagen-summit-ends-in-blood-sweat-and-recrimination.html>
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Just after midnight, Copenhagen time, Gordon Brown appeared in front of
the Sky News camera. "I feel I've played a part in bringing countries
together," said the Prime Minister, in a line clearly prepared long before
the disaster unfolding around him.
Mr Brown had, in fact, played little part in the final deal that emerged
in the early hours of Saturday, and would be well advised to make that
abundantly clear.
For even as he spoke, international unity was falling apart and the
emotional temperature inside the conference centre was already rising to
levels beyond even the most doom-laden forecasts of the global-warming
lobby.
The deal cobbled together by five of the 192 nations at the summit was
"the worst development in climate change negotiations in history," stormed
Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, representative of the G77 group of 130
developing countries. "It has the lowest level of ambition you can
imagine."
Tim Jones, of the World Development Movement, called it a "shameful and
monumental failure, devoid of real content. The leaders of rich countries
have refused to lead and history will judge them harshly." Greenpeace's
John Sauven said Copenhagen was a "crime scene, with the guilty men and
women fleeing to the airport".
Such was the anger that one developing-country representative, Venezuela's
Claudio Salerno Caldera, even appeared to deliberately hurt herself,
drawing blood, in the final conference plenary session early yesterday.
"You are going to endorse this coup d'etat against the United Nations,"
she told Denmark's sullen-faced prime minister, Lars Loekke Rasmussen,
chair of the meeting.
ANALYSIS
Copenhagen climate deal shows new world order may be led by U.S., China
By Anthony Faiola, Juliet Eilperin and John Pomfret
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Washington Post
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2009/12/19/AR2009121900687.html?hpid=topnews>
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COPENHAGEN -- If the talks that resulted in an imperfect deal to combat
global warming provided anything, it was a glimpse into a new world order
in which international diplomacy will increasingly be shaped by the United
States and emerging powers, most notably China.
Friday's agreement, sources involved in the talks said, boiled down to
President Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao personally hammering out a
pact both could live with, even if many other leaders could not. Wen even
squelched his own negotiator's protests.
What Obama heralded as a "breakthrough" -- after getting India and other
rising powers to sign on -- was decried by some nations as too little, too
late. The leaders of Europe, Japan and other countries at the summit were
largely left to rubber-stamp the deal. The Swedish prime minister's office
dubbed it "a disaster."
Ever since the concept of a G2was proposed this year by former U.S.
national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, the idea that the United
States and China together are going to solve all the world's problems has
been pooh-poohed by both American and Chinese officials. China hated the
notion because it put too much responsibility on a country that has done
very well rising in the shadows. Many U.S. officials opposed the idea on
the grounds that the best way to influence China was through multinational
partnerships.
So, more than anything else, critics said, Friday's climate agreement
reflected the domestic political realities in Washington and Beijing. Both
nations, the two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, remain more
cautious than, say, the governments of Europe about establishing a strict
set of international rules to combat global warming.
U.N. climate talks end with bare minimum agreement
Reuters
<http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSGEE5BB07F20091220>
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - U.N. climate talks ended with a bare-minimum
agreement on Saturday when delegates "noted" an accord struck by the
United States, China and other emerging powers that falls far short of the
conference's original goals.
"Finally we sealed a deal," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. "The
'Copenhagen Accord' may not be everything everyone had hoped for, but this
... is an important beginning."
A long road lies ahead. The accord -- weaker than a legally binding treaty
and weaker even than the 'political' deal many had foreseen -- left much
to the imagination.
It set a target of limiting global warming to a maximum 2 degrees Celsius
over pre-industrial times -- seen as a threshold for dangerous changes
such as more floods, droughts, mudslides, sandstorms and rising seas. But
it failed to say how this would be achieved.
It held out the prospect of $100 billion in annual aid from 2020 for
developing nations but did not specify precisely where this money would
come from. And it pushed decisions on core issues such as emissions cuts
into the future.
China blamed as anger mounts over climate deal Beijing accused over
emissions cuts
Campaigners say accord 'a disaster'
Jonathan Watts and John Vidal in Copenhagen Robin McKie and Toby Helm
The Observer
Sunday 20 December 2009
Guardian
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/20/
china-blamed-copenhagen-climate-failure>
A shorter URL for the above link:
An outbreak of bitter recrimination has erupted among politicians and
delegates following the drawing up of the Copenhagen accord for tackling
climate change.
The deal, finally hammered out early yesterday, had been expected to
commit countries to deep cuts in carbon emissions. In the end, it fell
short of this goal after China fought hard against strong US pressure to
submit to a regime of international monitoring.
The Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, walked out of the conference at
one point, and sent a lowly protocol officer to negotiate with Barack
Obama. In the end, a draft agreement put forward by China and backed by
Brazil, India and African nations commits the world to the broad ambition
of preventing global temperatures from rising above 2C. Crucially,
however, it does not force any nation to make specific cuts.
"For the Chinese, this was our sovereignty and our national interest,"
said Xie Zhenhua, head of China's delegation.
Last night, some delegates were openly critical of China for its
intransigence. Asked by the Observer who was to blame for blocking the
introduction of controlled emissions, the director general of the Swedish
environment protection agency, Lars-Erik Liljelund, replied: "China. China
doesn't like numbers." At the same time, others have criticised the
Americans for pushing China too hard.
"President Obama's speech blaming China didn't help," says John Prescott,
writing in today's Observer.
The accord was formally recognised after a dramatic all-night plenary
session, during which the Danish chairman was forced to step aside, a
Venezuelan delegate cut her hand, and Britain's climate and energy
secretary, Ed Miliband, salvaged the deal just as it appeared on the verge
of being rejected.
The tumultuous events concluded a fortnight of fraught and sometimes
machiavellian negotiations that saw a resurgent China link forces with
India, Brazil and African states to thwart efforts by rich nations to
steamroller through a binding treaty that would suit their interests.
A Grudging Accord in Climate Talks
By ANDREW C. REVKIN and JOHN M. BRODER
Published: December 19, 2009
New York Times
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/science/earth/20accord.html>
COPENHAGEN After two weeks of delays, theatrics and last-minute
deal-making, the United Nations climate change talks concluded here early
Saturday morning with a grudging agreement by the participants to take
note of a pact shaped by five major nations.
The final accord, a 12-paragraph document, was a statement of intention,
not a binding pledge to begin taking action on global warming a
compromise seen to represent a flawed but essential step forward.
Robert C. Orr, the United Nations assistant secretary general for policy
and planning, said that virtually every country had signaled that it would
back the accord, and that take note was shorthand for acceptance.
But many delegates of the 193 countries that had gathered here left
Copenhagen in a sour mood, disappointed that the pact lacked so many
elements they considered crucial, including firm targets for mid- or
long-term reductions of greenhouse gas emissions and a deadline for
concluding a binding treaty next year.
Even President Obama, a principal force behind the final deal, said the
accord would take only a modest step toward healing the Earths fragile
atmosphere.
Many participants also said that the chaos and contentiousness of the
talks may signal the end of reliance on a process that for almost two
decades had been viewed as the best approach to tackling global warming:
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and a series of
15 conventions following a 1992 climate summit meeting in Rio de Janeiro.
UN climate change conference issues Copenhagen Accord
www.chinaview.cn
2009-12-20 00:38:49
<http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-12/20/content_12672825.htm>
COPENHAGEN, Dec. 19 (Xinhua) -- The UN Climate Change Conference reached a
legally non-binding Copenhagen Accord on Saturday.
The accord upheld the principle of "common but differentiated
responsibilities" set by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and
the Kyoto Protocol, made arrangements for developed countries' compulsory
emissions cut and developing countries' voluntary mitigation actions, and
included wide consensus on the key issues of long-term global emissions
reduction objects, funding and technology support, and transparency.
Chinas Position on the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference
May 20, 2009
National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC),
People's Republic of China
<http://en.ndrc.gov.cn/newsrelease/t20090521_280382.htm>
Climate change is one of the most serious challenges to humanity in the
21st century and a matter of human survival and the development of all
countries, which requires cooperation and joint efforts by the
international community. Fully aware of the seriousness and urgency of
climate change and with a deep sense of responsibility for the long-term
development of mankind, China is firmly committed to sustainable
development and has formulated and implemented its National Climate Change
Programme, taking a series of strong policies, measures and actions and
making unremitting efforts and commendable contribution to addressing
climate change. China will continue such policies, measures and actions.
In the face of international financial crisis, China remains determined to
take unrelenting efforts to address climate change.
As a Party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol, China is always committed to have the
UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol implemented and very serious about honoring
commitments on its part. International negotiations are underway to give
effect to the Bali Roadmap to enable the full, effective and sustained
implementation of the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol, aiming at reaching a
positive outcome at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen at the
end of this year. China will continue to play an active and constructive
role in such negotiations and hereby presents its position on the
Copenhagen Climate Conference implementing the Bali Roadmap.
12-20-2009 18:16
'Copenhagen Accord'
World Faces Uphill Battle to Reach New Climate Change Treaty
Korea Times
Opinion
<http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2009/12/137_57608.html>
The summit ended with only a nonbinding ``Copenhagen Accord'' Saturday,
which was brokered by U.S. President Barack Obama in his meeting with
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and the leaders of India, Brazil and South
Africa. The accord was not universally agreed upon by all the negotiators
attending the summit. Rather, it is seen as a face-saver allowing major
emitters of greenhouse gases to shirk their responsibility for the
failure.
In short, the accord falls far short of expectations. Under the document,
nations agreed to cooperate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to keep
temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial
levels. Rich nations committed to finance $10 billion a year between 2010
and 2012 to fund poor nations' participation in the fight against climate
change. They also set a goal of mobilizing $100 billion a year by 2020 for
adaptation and mitigation efforts of developing countries.
The climate change summit showed how difficult it is to narrow differences
between developed and developing countries over emission reduction
targets, historical responsibility for global warming, and fairly
distributing the burden of addressing climate change. At the start of the
Copenhagen conference, some negotiators and experts cautioned that no deal
would be better than the wrong deal. In this sense, the summit paid heed
to the caution and only succeeded in avoiding a wrong deal. But what a
disappointment it was for more than 100 heads of state to gather and no
binding deal to have been made!
Copenhagen talks end, close to collapse
Adianto P. Simamora and Stevie Emilia ,
THE JAKARTA POST ,
COPENHAGEN
Sun, 12/20/2009 2:26 PM
<http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/12/20/
copenhagen-talks-end-close-collapse.html>
A shorter URL for the above link:
Copenhagen climate talks ended one day late Saturday, with the release of
an accord that was declared an "attachment" to the conference decision,
deemed the lowest level in international negotiating terms.
The Copenhagen Accord was drafted directly by the leaders of the 26
participating countries including US President Barack Obama and Indonesian
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
<snip>
No legally binding agreement or treaty was produced in the two-week
climate talks, the biggest climate talks in history, attended by over
45,000 people including 119 heads of state and government.
UN climate chief Yvo de Boer said he arrived in Copenhagen convinced that
the conference could produce a legally binding treaty, as required by
Bali.
But he disagreed the conference outcome was a disaster, as he saw a
magnitude of political engagements and commitments, not to mention real
money, being put on the table.
<snip>
The draft text of the accord was tabled at the conference Friday at
midnight; many countries, mainly small island states, rejected it.
UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki moon said he realized the outcome would not
satisfy all delegates, especially those countries most vulnerable to the
rising sea level.
India, US accept 'Copenhagen Accord'; EU, others still unsure
Posted: Saturday , Dec 19, 2009 at 1129 hrs
Copenhagen:
Indian Express
<http://www.indianexpress.com/news/
India--US-accept--Copenhagen-Accord---EU--others-still-unsure/556442/>
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The Copenhagen Accord, as it has been called, was thrashed out in a closed
door meeting involving the United States and the four major developing
economies India, China, Brazil and South Africa -- that go together in
the name of BASIC group. China and the United States are the worlds top
two emitters of greenhouse gases. The heads of states of these countries,
as also many others, had to delay their departures from Copenhagen as a
deal agreeable to all remained elusive even on the last day of the
conference.
The other countries were not involved in finalizing the accord, and
because of this there is a real danger that many countries might refuse to
accept it. India, whose Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was part of the
closed door meeting, said it would sign on the accord.
Editorial: Copenhagen Accord
Arab News
<http://www.arabnews.com/
?page=7§ion=0&article=129895&d=20&m=12&y=2009>
A shorter URL for the above link:
AFTER 12 days of wrangling, the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen
effectively ended with an agreement to agree at some later date. It,
therefore, was not simply all the hot air generated in hours of
often-furious argument that has damaged the climate change issue. The way
in which realpolitik asserted itself to the detriment of the vast majority
of the 192 countries that turned up to have their say, left many very
unhappy delegates heading for home Saturday night.
In the end it all came down to US President Barack Obama. He flew in
aboard Air Force One, lectured the summiteers about the need to reaching
an agreement but offered no further concessions on behalf of a wary United
States. Then he went into private conclave with Chinese Premier Wen
Jiabao, which meeting was later extended to include three other key
countries, India, Brazil and South Africa and within hours there emerged
the Copenhagen Accord. A shell-shocked summit, less a few delegates who
had already flown home in disgust, wearily endorsed the deal Saturday
night and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon lauded the breakthrough.
But how real is a deal that has no reference to legally binding targets,
plumps for a 2 degree Celsius limit when many countries claimed 1.5
degrees was the maximum that should be allowed, promises $100 billion a
year to developing countries without saying who is going to pay these
immense sums, fails to agree on any firm monitoring process and gives no
firm framework on the much-touted carbon-trading markets?
A facesaver in Copenhagen scripted by US and 'friends'
Nitin Sethi, TNN 20 December 2009, 02:21am IST
Times of India
<http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/
A-facesaver-in-Copenhagen-scripted-by-US-and-friends/
articleshow/5357031.cms>
A shorter URL for the above link:
COPENHAGEN: The Copenhagen Accord, the first global agreement of the 21st
century to comprehensively influence the flow and share of natural
resources, was agreed upon by 26 most influential countries in the wee
hours of Saturday morning in the snow drenched capital of Denmark. The US
led the pack of architects with the BASIC four -- China, India, Brazil and
South Africa (in that serial order) -- working as sometimes reluctant and
sometimes willing but always the key partners in framing the agreement.
Global warming, having given rise to the occasion for such a framework,
itself became an orphaned issue though as most of the other 192 countries,
by keeping silent, accepted that this was the template for climate
negotiations from now on.
<snip>
The other developed countries had been asking for peaking of emissions and
international scrutiny of emerging economies, and the small island states
wanted to have a global target of 1.5 degrees embedded in the document
which the others were not to keen upon. As the talks got stuck, those who
mattered proved they did.
India found its place at the high table, many in India would believe
rightly so, but it was asked to book some future costs against the seat it
was filling.
The emerging four economies, for this once, found common cause in
protecting their energy base. Their economic strength lent greater radius
to their circle of influence as they emerged the power brokers for the
developing world. At the end, many would assess, that they may have
sacrificed the interests of those smaller developing countries they rode
on to enter the hallowed portals but, at least this once, they altered the
climate game.
Till now some small island countries and some least developed countries,
with their moral persuasion but economic dependence, had played spoil
sport in the G77 camp, causing heartburn to developing economies. This
time, the big four emerging economies made some common cause with the US
at the cost of smaller players in the developing country block.
------------------------------------------
The complete article may be read at the URL above.
WEBBIB0910
David P. Dillard
.
ENVIRONMENT: GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE :
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND DIPLOMACY: SUMMITS AND CONFERENCES:
Copenhagen: A Great Meeting or Monumental Failure by Humanity?
Copenhagen: A Great Meeting or Monumental Failure by Humanity?
By PATRICK GATHARA
Posted Monday, December 21 2009 at 00:00
The East African
<http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/-/2558/827010/-/pxkpjuz/-/>
Prior to the summit, countries on the continent had agreed on a common
negotiating position based on two key documents, the Kyoto Protocol and
the Bali Action Plan.
The former is the only global instrument that commits rich countries to
reduce their greenhouse gas emissions while the latter, adopted in
December 2007 as part of a roadmap to binding agreement at Copenhagen,
provides a framework for long-term cooperative action.
Under the Bali Action Plan, the developed world would be bound by a
long-term emissions reduction targets (up to 40 per cent of 1990 levels by
2020, 95 per cent by 2050), while Africa would receive financial and
technical help to adapt to the changing climate and to find a less dirty
path to prosperity.
At the conference, developed nations ganged up and unsuccessfully tried to
ram through a text that would have effectively killed off the Kyoto
Protocol. In a victory for the developing world, negotiators agreed to
move forward on a two-track basis, one part of which would maintain the
integrity of the 1997 treaty.
This, though, is not enough as the protocol is set to expire in 2012.
---------------------------------------
The complete article may be read at the URL above.
Sincerely,