The highly anticipated UN Climate Change conference in Copenhagen ended with a fraudulent last minute agreement, engineered by the United States, using China, backed by Brazil, India and African Nations as cover-up. What exactly contains the five pages accord? What does it mean? What are the social movements asking for? And what will happen next?
The UN Climate Change conference had for its main objective the formulation of a worldwide agreement on the reduction of greenhouse emissions which would constitute the prolongation of the Kyoto protocols.
What is in that five pages accord? What does it contain?
Although most nations agreed that the global temperature rise must be kept under 2C° to prevent climate run-away effects, they nevertheless did not set any binding reduction targets to stop that from happening. According to experts, industrialised countries should reduce their CO2 emissions between 25% to 40% by 2020, and between 80% to 95% by 2050.
The Kyoto protocol that requires industrial nations to reduce their emissions by 5,2% below the 1990 baseline over the 2008 to 2012 period was preserved but undermined. The Cop15 accord challenged the wider United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process used in the Kyoto Protocol. It moved from a top-down framework aim at setting global greenhouse gas reduction targets for the 39 countries of the Annex I (Industrialised countries) to a bottom-up approach. This latter requires each country to set its own greenhouse gas reduction targets which might not be sufficient to keep the global rise in temperature under 2C recommended by the science.
Although the accord was recognised by the conference as whole, it was not endorsed by the 193 parties/nations present at the Cop15 in Copenhagen. For most nations this all Cop15 conference was a masquerade! According to Michael von Bülow, the outcome was decided 3 weeks earlier at the APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) forum in Singapore. Backed by the US and other leaders, among them most probably China, the Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen proposed a two-step strategy that would yield to a political agreement only.
In monetary terms, rich nations promised to establish a Copenhagen Green Fund to finance adaptation measures to climate change for developing countries starting with US$ 30bn a year to reach US$100bn by 2020. This amount is by far lower than what was requested by the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and African countries, which were demanding US$200bn by 2020 in order to take effective mitigation measure.
Also, experience has shown that without binding agreements and penalties, the promises are hardly kept at all. According to the BBC World Service investigation, when signing the Bonn Declaration in 2001, 20 industrialised nations (the 15 EU countries, Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland), pledged to pay $410 million a year until 2008 into the UN fund, in order to tackle climate change. The date the payments were meant to start is unclear, but the total should be between $1.6bn and $2.87bn. But only $260m has ever been paid into two UN funds earmarked for the purpose.
The Copenhagen accord mentions technological development and knowledge transfer mechanisms in support of developing countries. The shift to a low-carbon economy in developed countries requires a massive investment. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the shift will require $1100bn – the equivalent of 1,5% of the 2030 global GDP.
The worst outcome of Copenhagen is the REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) scheme under the carbon market offsetting mechanism’s Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM).
According to Dag Hammarskjold Foundation this concept assumes that deforestation happens because too little economic value is placed on intact forests, and that providing money for conservation to forested countries in the South will help to protect these. This idea is challenged however by many Indigenous People and forest communities, who warn that putting a price on forests will only encourage further land grabs by large companies and governments. Indigenous People stress that the real drivers of deforestation are the major construction, mining, logging and plantation developments whose owners stand to be rewarded by REDD Funds.
In short, where and how did the Copenhagen conference fall short?
The biggest failure is the renewal of the Kyoto protocol with higher, binding, time limited CO2 reduction targets. Binding targets are essential for a properly functioning international regulated ‘Cap and Share’ carbon market.
José Manuel Barroso, the European Union president commented: “This deal is better than any deal. It’s a step forward, but, of course, below our ambition. I won’t hide my disappointment for it not being binding”.
The EU was hoping that a binding agreement would set a legal ground that would have allowed smaller carbon markets to link-up with its EU Emission Trading System (EU ETS). The final goal is to become the central hub for carbon trading in the world. This said, the EU ETS has generously rewarded polluting companies while failing to reduce emissions. The downside of not having international binding targets is that our governments will not feel pressured to act and set the regulation that will lead us to a low-carbon economy in order to reduce our GHG at home.
What NGOs and Southern nations were pushing for
The increasingly frustrated NGOs and Southern nations, struggling to have their demands heard, attempted to meet to discuss the real solutions outside the Bella Centre on December 16h, under the banner of The Reclaim Power March, lead by the Climate Justice now! coalition. They were confronted with violence from the Danish police preventing them to join the movement.
Climate Justice now! is made up of a huge coalition of organisations such as Climate Camp, Via Campesina and joined by numerous other activists groups. Their demands are summarised in their call ’system change, no climate change’. Read the People’s Declaration from Klimaforum09. They ask that industrialised countries recognise their climate debt, which needs to be repaid, toward the Southern Developing Countries. They further call for Greenhouse gas emission targets to be based on Greenhouse Gas emission reductions achievements at home, and not through cheap offsetting projects in developing countries, which threaten the livelihood of indigenous people. Climate Justice Now! also demands that natural resources such water, land, sky, forest…. stay under public control, giving equal access to essential resources, and insuring fairer repartition of wealth to all this that produce it. Watch how trees are turned into a commodity.
What’s next:
In the coming month, the practicalities of the Cop15 accord will be proposed by each nation and presented at the Bonn UN Climate body’s meeting in May until the next Cop conference in Mexico (Cop16).
The accord requires each country to register their planned emissions cuts by end of January 2010. We want Gordon Brown to remember the promises he made at the London Climate Change protest in December 2009, namely that of a 10% CO2 reduction by end of 2010. Unfortunately, the reality is however, that the UK government has been extraordinarily quiet about their plans of how to go about this promise since their return from Copenhagen.
Between 31 May and 11 Jun 2010, the 32nd session of the UNCCC convention will take place in Bonn. There, the Subsidiary Bodies will examine the targets put forward by each individual country.
Mexico will host the Sixteenth United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 16) in December 2010. There is already a lot of hope on that UNCCC conference to achieve a achieve a binding treaty.
On April 22nd, Evo Morales, Bolivia’s president, is organising a counter-summit to welcome the social movement that grew in Copenhagen and to discuss the “real solutions” in preparation of these next major talks.
Conclusion:
Copenhagen has been a disaster for a just and equitable climate solutions demanded by NGOs and some Southern Developing countries. The major harm was the annexation of forests into the Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM) threatening millions of indigenous people of evictions of their homes. The good news is that the accord did not set further ground for an international Cap & Share carbon market which would have accelerated the damages caused to our ecosystems and the livelihood of the most vulnerable, mainly indigenous populations, women and peasants. The Cop15 is finished but the practicalities are still being negotiated, so keep your eyes open. In the meantime, NGOs have been gathering to organise an action plan strategy for the months to come.
Cop15 will, from a social movement perspective, be remembered as a united, inspiring moment where the voices of the oppressed joined call to ask for ’system change, not climate change’.
