Re: "How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room", by Mark Lynas
He, Gang
Blame Denmark, not China, for Copenhagen failure
The decision to override the multilateral process and hold a secret meeting of select nations ruined any chance of success
It's been several days since the chaotic end to the Copenhagen climate conference but the aftershocks from its failure are still reverberating. AsJohn Prescott points out in his letter to the Guardian, the pointing of fingers in the blame game does not help the regaining of trust needed for the positive resumption of talks early next year and to complete them by December 2010, the new deadline agreed to in Copenhagen.
First, the misinformation put out in the past few days has to be corrected. The UK climate secretary, Ed Miliband, backed by individuals such asMark Lynas (both writing in the Guardian) have turned on China as the villain that "hijacked" the conference. The main "evidence" they gave was that China vetoed an "agreement" on a 50% reduction in global emissions by 2050 and an 80% reduction by developed countries, in thesmall meeting of 26 leaders on Copenhagen's final day.
There was indeed a "hijack" in Copenhagen, but it was not by China. The hijack was organised by the host government, Denmark, whose prime minister convened a meeting of 26 leaders in the last two days of the conference, in an attempt to override the painstaking negotiations taking place among 193 countries throughout the two weeks and in fact in the past two to four years.
That exclusive meeting was not mandated by the UN climate convention. Indeed, the developing countries had warned the Danish prime minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, not to come up with his own "Danish text" to be negotiated by a small group that he himself would select, as this would violate the multilateral treaty-based process, and would replace the documents carefully negotiated by all countries with one unilaterally issued by the host country.
Despite this, the Danish government produced just such a document, and it convened exactly the kind of exclusive group that would undermine the UN climate convention's multilateral and democratic process. Under that process, the 193 countries had been collectively working on coming to a conclusion on the many aspects of the climate deal.
Weeks before, it had become clear that Copenhagen could not adopt a full agreement because many basic differences remained. Copenhagen should have been designed as a stepping stone to a future successful outcome accepted by all. Unfortunately, the host country Denmark selected a small number of the 110 top leaders who came, to meet in secret, without the mandate or even knowledge of the convention's membership.
The selected leaders were given a draft Danish document that mainly represented the developed countries' positions, thereby marginalising the developing countries' views tabled at the two-year negotiations.
Meanwhile, most of the thousands of delegates were working for two weeks on producing two reports representing the latest state of play, indicating areas of agreement and those where final decisions still had to be taken.
These reports were finally adopted by the conference. They should have been announced as the real outcome of Copenhagen, together with a decision to resume and complete work next year. It would not have been a resounding success, but it would have been an honest ending that would not have been termed a failure.
Instead, the Copenhagen accord was criticised by the final plenary of members and not adopted. The unwise attempt by the Danish presidency to impose a non-legitimate meeting to override the legitimate multilateral process was the reason why Copenhagen will be considered a disaster.
The accord itself is weak mainly because it does not contain any commitments by the developed countries to cut their emissions in the medium term. Perhaps the reason for this most glaring omission is that the national pledges so far announced amount to only a 11-19% overall reduction by the developed countries by 2020 (compared to 1990), a far cry from the over 40% target demanded by the developing countries and recent science.
To deflect from this great failure on their part, the developed countries tried to inject long-term emission-reduction goals of 50% for the world and 80% for themselves, by 2050 compared to 1990. When this failed to get through the 26-country meeting, some countries, especially the UK, began to blame China for the failure of Copenhagen.
In fact, these targets, especially taken together, have been highly contentious during the two years of discussions, and for good reasons. They would result in a highly inequitable outcome where developed countries get off from their responsibilities and push the burden of adjustment onto the developing countries.
Together, they imply that developing countries would have to cut their emissions overall by about 20% in absolute terms and at least 60% in per capita terms. By 2050, developed countries with high per capita emissions – such as the US – would be allowed to have two to five times higher per capita emission levels than developing countries. The latter would have to severely curb not only their emissions but also their economic growth, especially since there is, up to now, no credible plans let alone commitments for financial and technology transfers to help them shift to a low-emissions development path.
The developed countries have already completed their industrialisation on the basis of cheap carbon-based energy and can afford to take on an 80% goal for 2050, especially since they now have the technological and organisational capacity and infrastructure. For a minimally equitable deal, they should commit to cuts of at least 200-400%, or move into negative emission territory, with net re-absorption of greenhouse gases, to enable developing countries the atmospheric space to develop.
The acceptance of the two targets would also have locked in a most unfair sharing of the remaining global carbon budget as it would have allowed the developed countries to get off free from their historical responsibility and their carbon debt. They would have been allocated the rights to a large amount of "carbon space", historically and in the future, without being given the obligation and responsibility to undertake adequate emission cuts nor to make adequate financial and technology transfers to developing countries.
Fortunately these targets are absent from the accord. The imperative for the negotiations next year is to agree on what science says is necessary for the world to do (in terms of limits to temperature rise or in global emissions cut) but also on what is a just and equitable formula for sharing the costs and burdens of adjustment, and to decide on both simultaneously. By asking for agreement on only a global goal and a very low commitment figure for their own obligatory cut, the developed countries were attempting to fix a global carbon budget distribution that enables them to get away with the hijacking of atmospheric space, a resource worth many trillions of dollars.
Learning from Copenhagen's mistakes, the countries should return to the multilateral track and resume negotiations in the climate convention's two working groups as early as possible.
They can start with the two reports passed at Copenhagen as reference points. There should not be more attempts to hijack this multilateral process, which represents our best hope to achieve final results.
The bottom-up democratic process is slower but also steadier, compared to the top-down attempt to impose a solution by a few powers that will always lack legitimacy in decision-making and success or sustainability in implementation.
----------- Forwarded message ----------
From: He, Gang <stee...@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 9:24 PM
Subject: Re: "How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room", by Mark Lynas
To: "C. S. Kiang" <cski...@gmail.com>
Dear Jiang Laoshi, I know this post, and can not agree with him to blame China so hard, the following view are more balanced.Blaming China for Copenhagen Won't Help the Climate
by Alex Pasternack, New York, NY
on 12.28.09
The Copenhagen Accord was a deal and not a deal, and its real implications remain uncertain. Nonetheless, thanks to fly-on-the-wall accounts by participants like Ed Milliband and Mark Lynas ("How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room"), China's been taking heavy blame for keeping the champagne bottles corked. The country I hoped could have emerged as a promising global environmental leader may have come out looking like the world's "more assertive"environmental enemy.
Now I was only down the hall from the room. But before we call China or anyone the bad guy of the Copenhagen summit, I think we need to take a good look in the mirror.
If China did indeed force the final accord in Copenhagen in its favor, that may point to a failure of the international climate treaty-making process. But more importantly, even amidst a possible redrawing of the climate relations map, China's role at Copenhagen reminds us of the key issue dividing the developing and developed world: while it hurtles towards a clean tech economy, China, like other high-emitting developing nations, is laser-focused on its "right to develop." And it expects the developed world to do much more to prevent climate change. Rightly so.
China's serious
For its part, China is serious about fighting climate change, in part because it's going to make lots of money off clean technology, in part because it's concerned about energy independence and in part because it's going to be hurt by climate change as much as any country. Its pledge to cut energy intensity from 2005 levels by 40 percent by 2020 is evidence of that commitment.In his address to the summit, Wen Jiabao struck some of the most promising notes possible, describing China's own actions as a matter of responsibility, and as unconditional and ambitious: "This is a voluntary action China has taken in the light of its national circumstances. We have not attached any condition to the target, nor have we linked it to the target of any other country. We will honor our word with real action. Whatever outcome this conference may produce, we will be fully committed to achieving and even exceeding the target."
Economic growth first doesn't preclude clean growth
But Beijing's main focus remains its continued economic development. It sees that growth as crucial for the health of the people and also the Party, which knows that economic slowdown could imperil it. How will global warming shape that expansion? Notwithstanding its heavy reliance on coal, China's economy is already growing cleaner, and not only for economic and strategic reasons (China is arguably able to harness its rapidly growing economy and government to go green faster than the US). Primarily the effects of air and water pollution, not of climate change, are driving citizens to the kind of anger and protest that could endanger the Party's rule. (If we're looking to blame the Chinese government for bad, unsustainable behavior, how about its restrictions on freedom of speech and information, for starters?)China's got other interests on the table too: protecting its economy from the challenges of rapid climate change adaptation, staying competitive in energy technology, demanding that the world's biggest historical emitters make their own commitments first, and maintaining its "national sovereignty."
Transparency: check
I'll address the last concern first, as its a controversial but relatively insignificant one in this context. National sovereignty was always a touchy subject for the Middle Kingdom, given its delicate history with the West and its dubious statistics. For much of the summit it created the biggest sticking point: would China ever allow the world to independently verify its emissions reductions, thereby ensuring that the rest of the world's carbon cuts are not for nothing?That's not much of a sticking point anymore, and it may have only been a phantom problem. With the Copenhagen Accord, Beijing backed off its public stance against transparency and permitted "international consultation and analysis." Few doubted this would happen; Beijing and Washington had already laid the groundwork for this kind of transparency during during Obama's Beijing visit in November. China's Copenhagen concession -- and its final, crucial agreement to include its carbon cuts in the appendix to the Accord -- gave the summit some luster of success.
But real success lies ahead. Will Beijing's concession be enough to convince the Senate to pass climate legislation? If it is -- and that's still a big if, especially after the fragile health care win -- Obama's last-minute deal-brokering won't have been in vain, and China will deserve some credit for reassuring the rest of the world that it's serious.
China Sabotaged Copenhagen? Really? Wen?
Given China's remaining concerns -- protecting economic growth, adapting to climate change, staying competitive in energy technology, and demanding equitable cuts -- it's not hard to see why China, according to reports, blocked targets for its own emissions, a 50 percent reduction by 2050.But why did China also block a target proposed by Angela Merkel for developed nations to trim emissions by 80 percent by 2050? Perhaps China wants to ensure it will get to be one of those developed nations by then. Perhaps more relevant, as Wang Yi, an expert at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, told Reuters, such goals are empty unless rich countries vow to make steeper cuts in emissions and agree on how to parcel out the remaining share of the global emissions "budget."
"The coming year of negotiations will be very demanding and nothing will be easy to solve," he said. "We need to be clear about how the 50 percent would be shared out, otherwise it's an empty slogan, and now we need actions, not posturing."The refusal of these more ambitious cuts, as Martin Khor writes in the Guardian, was reasonable. "Together, they imply that developing countries would have to cut their emissions overall by about 20% in absolute terms and at least 60% in per capita terms. By 2050, developed countries with high per capita emissions - such as the US - would be allowed to have two to five times higher per capita emission levels than developing countries." That would also, he notes, "have locked in a most unfair sharing of the remaining global carbon budget as it would have allowed the developed countries to get off free from their historical responsibility and their carbon debt. They would have been allocated the rights to a large amount of "carbon space", historically and in the future, without being given the obligation and responsibility to undertake adequate emission cuts nor to make adequate financial and technology transfers to developing countries."
As for the various controversies and tensions that arose during last minute back room -- and perhaps behind-the-back -- negotiations at Copenhagen, which played out, as Joe Romm notes, like a Shakespearean Comedy of Errors style "wrong door" escapade, I don't think discussing that or casting blame is productive.
Of course, the chaos that took place behind the scenes at Copenhagen is not insignificant in the context of international relations. But whether the Danish sabotaged proceedings by convening closed-door meetings, or if Obama felt snubbed by Wen or the other way around, as a Xinhua piece indicates, the take-away is that tensions in talks like these seemed as inevitable as miscommunication and poor planning, of which much was in abundance.
Ultimately, it was President Obama who seemed to keep talks alive. "I don't want to mess around with this anymore, I want to just talk with Premier Wen," he reportedly told a member of his staff as talks seemed to be devolving into an Upstairs-Downstairsfarce (see also the President's own account, from an interview with News Hour, at Dot Earth). Obama's relationships with world leaders and his determination to get them to agree to something not only prevented back-tracking but kept intact some measure of good will. We need as much of that as possible as we continue trying to forge a climate agreement.
Climate fairness
But Obama's success only highlights the U.S.'s failure in general, which will become the bigger sticking point in climate talks: when will the U.S. (along with other Western nations) step up its own climate change game? Even now, 20 percent of the world's population living in industrialized countries contributes 70-80 percent of all the GHG emissions that are leading to climate change. In October President Obama acknowledged that given their historical impact, developed nations should shoulder more responsibility than poorer ones, providing them with green financing and technology transfer -- key pieces in the puzzle before countries like China can feel comfortable with serious cuts.As Antonio Hill of Oxfam said earlier this year,
We have reached a crossroads, and rich countries get to choose the route we all take.One route leads us out of today's economic and climate crises and towards a low carbon future. The other spells disaster for hundreds of millions of people across the globe.So what did Obama bring to Copenhagen? He offered cuts of 3-4% from 1990 levels (part of an average 11-19% overall reduction by other developed nations) by 2020. In fact, entering Copenhagen, no country seemed prepared to do anything near what scientists say is adequate to help combat climate change (cuts of 40% by 2020).
That makes the question of whether China held Copenhagen hostage moot. There was little to hold hostage, and no ransom to be won.
Missing: technology transfer
Okay, maybe there was a ransom, at least a monetary one. Thanks to a last-minute pledge by the US, the Copenhagen Accord lays out the prospect of a $100 billion fund for developing countries. Even if that's not enough money, as some have contended, and even if the details on financing remain elusive, the fund is a sign of progress, and is commensurate with the responsibilities of developed nations.But the accord only pays vague lip service to the related component of technology transfer, an element in which China has expressed much more interest. Though it wants the legal right to climate financing, Beijing has been careful not to seem greedy or needy. Its real priority is advancing its technology and learning capabilities through international exchange. That needn't necessarily be an invitation to piracy, as many in the West worry. But assuaging the fears of Western politicians and business leaders and striking the right balance between sharing and competition will be crucial if the West is to convince China and other high-emitting developing countries that they can take on more serious carbon cuts.
As Wang Ke, a climate change policy expert at Renmin University in Beijing, toldReuters, "China and other developing countries will feel the negotiations to come will be equally tough as we get into the details ... The funding commitments from the developed countries are still vague, and technology transfer issues were barely mentioned (in the Copenhagen accord)."
Still, he said, "The agreement reached was better than total collapse."
Copenhagen's lessons (for now): too much "messing around"
Ultimately, I left Copenhagen without bitterness or blame, but a head-numbing sense of confusion and conundrum. From the pile of debris left behind, I took these lessons:- The world treated COP15 like a trade treaty, not a peace treaty. Every country, not just China and the U.S. came to the conference to debate on terms and needs specific to their own country, even though the effects of global warming are distributed globally. That points not neccessarily to a problem with the process -- after all, this is the United Nations, and a meeting of every nation -- but an economic and philosophical challenge. As the journal Nature put it, "anyone who uses energy from fossil fuels at a price that does not account for climate-related costs of greenhouse-gas emissions is also 'winning' at someone else's expense. Winners and losers may be the same people, but usually they are not." How do we legislate among them -- or rather, how will they legislate among themselves?
This may also be a question of how much faith we invest in the UNFCCC process. We need to start investing that faith, and the effort that comes with it, into pushing domestic policies that lay the groundwork for a treaty next time that can work well with existing policies and needs while exploring other multilateral avenues for the future. If the world needs the biggest emitters, not every country, to sign onto cuts to launch a global low-carbon economy, perhaps much of the work on a climate treaty should be left up to talks at the G20 or the Major Economies Forum, with the UNFCCC playing a follow-up role.
- However powerful China may now be -- or however powerful people wish to perceive it --the most powerful actor on the climate stage is the United States, led by President Obama. His relations with world leaders and the trust he has built up in the climate arena, notwithstanding the limited outcome of Copenhagen, will continue to prove valuable in future talks. But his role in the future will be determined in no small part by the success of climate legislation in the U.S. If he can succeed at convincing the United States that a low-carbon economy is a sustainable economy in every sense of the word, he will be able to make the U.S. a leader at climate talks and assure an American economic advantage.
- The fragile sense of trust exposed in the aftermath of Copenhagen cuts both ways. For a good-faith deal to come about, the West and China specifically both need to work on improving not just their relationship, but more fundamentally, how they perceive the other. The summit has illustrated China's ascendance to world power, even as it reinforces the country's role as leader of the developing world. We owe it to China to keep the pressure on, as they are the world's largest polluter, and maintain big expectations commensurate with their strength. But we also need to keep reality in mind, recognizing not only the country's limitations but its suspicions that the developed world wants to limit China's growth.
Similarly, China's leaders need to recognize that Western leaders are not just spouting rhetoric when it comes to climate action, but have partly acknowledged their obligations, and see the developed world's participation, however limited it may need to be, as a delicate prerequisite to their own efforts.
- The leaders of the developing world have a lot to do. The developed world has to do more. If the US and rest of the developed world can cap emissions and innovate to meet new standards, they will not only be addressing their historical responsibilities and kick-starting a global low-carbon economy. They could well be assuring their own economic futures. New standards would lead to technologies they could sell to rapidly developing countries like China, which will need such solutions as their own standards increase.
To paraphrase President Obama, we need American and developed world lawmakers to stop messing around with this, and do something.
In any case, blaming China now for destroying the world won't help future negotiations, and it certainly won't change the world's general inaction. It won't help the world get on track to low-carbon economies, nor will it dissuade China from its mission to lead the world in clean development.
But passing around blame could distract us from the crux of the climate treaty issue. Forget how much we can trust the climate efforts of China and the rest of the developing world. How much can it trust ours?
Photo: Flickr/whitehouse
On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 6:17 PM, C. S. Kiang <cski...@gmail.com> wrote:
For your reference.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/22/copenhagen-climate-change-mark-lynas
Worth a read to understand the role of China in the failure of Copenhagen. Certainly puts Lula, Obama, Merkel, Brown and Rudd in a better light compared to the chinese delegation.
Mark Lynas is the author of the impressive book "Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet".
Sean
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CS KIANG
