Copenhagen calling

Climate change demonstrators juggle an inflable globe as they gather outside The Parliament during the climate march in Copenhagen on December 12, 2009

A day before the historic summit that began on December 7, the Bella Center, a hi-tech mini city set up in the suburbs of Copenhagen to host the UN’s Conference on Climate Change 2009, was packed with journalists from all around the world.

It has been a long journey just getting here and expectations are running high. Two years ago, it was decided under the Bali Action Plan that global negotiations would be held for an ambitious international climate change treaty to be signed in December 2009 in Copenhagen. The second phase of the Kyoto Protocol (whose first commitment period comes to an end in 2012) is to be decided here as well as finance and transfer of technology to developing countries to help them to de-carbonise and adapt to climate change.

Science is telling us that we need at least 40 per cent reduction in global carbon emissions (at below 1990 levels) to limit global warming to within two degrees centigrade this century. If the planet warms up more than two degrees, then we will find ourselves living in a drastically different world than the one we know today. Melting of the polar sheets and sea level rise is already underway — as are more frequent and intense storms (three typhoons hit the Philippines in one season) and massive flooding (millions became homeless in India). Water scarcity will hit arid countries like Pakistan and our monsoon will be affected (it was already late this year).

Since Bali, negotiations leading up to the 15th Conference of Parties to the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 15) and the 5th Meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (MOP 5) were on track. Negotiators from each country were working hard to come up with a refined text for Copenhagen (where they expected to ‘seal the deal’). Then, at the Bangkok climate change talks held in October this year, the European Union started to backtrack from its commitments. The EU was considered the ‘engine of climate negotiations’ and indeed they were responsible for the Kyoto Protocol (which the US did not ratify) and by 2020 had promised 20 per cent reduction in emissions.

It seems that the global economic recession has hit Europe hard and they have found it difficult to shoulder the responsibility to cap emissions. The fossil fuel industry has also been lobbying hard behind the scenes to sabotage a strong climate treaty. The EU is now playing a conservative role in the negotiations and is withdrawing their leadership. If the US doesn’t come up with good targets (for emissions reductions) in Copenhagen, then the EU will not go it alone.

The US has so far announced an absolute reduction target of 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020. This translates into a mere three per cent reduction below 1990 levels, which is far less than what the Europeans had signed under Kyoto. Worse, the US targets remain domestic targets and they are not under a legally binding agreement. This is also part of the US strategy — to dismantle the Kyoto Protocol and work towards a single political agreement, post Copenhagen, based on a pledge and review system (of national targets).

The Kyoto Protocol was not a perfect agreement but still it delivered the first legally binding cuts in the developed world and developing countries are anxious to keep it alive. China and the G-77 negotiating bloc (of which Pakistan is a member) in particular want to keep up the pressure on the developed world and it is a hard fight. Certainly, public and media pressure can change many dynamics as it did in Bali when the US was convinced to come on board with the Bali Action Plan which called for ‘common but differentiated responsibility’ for action on climate change.

In Bali, the developing countries agreed to take on measurable and reportable mitigation measures (not legally binding though). China later announced that it would cut energy intensity per unit of GDP by 20 per cent by 2020. Now it has doubled its target. Analysts say that this will require the country to take hard steps to restructure its industrial growth to reduce emissions. If this is the case then China would have done much more than the US! In Copenhagen, Pakistan will also back China against any legally binding obligations on developing countries which the developed world might try to enforce to curtail greenhouse gas emissions.

A global climate change campaign currently underway is calling for world leaders to take personal responsibility for a strong climate change deal in Copenhagen. They want the politicians to ensure a ‘fair, ambitious and binding’ treaty. So far, sixty-five world leaders have said they will attend the Copenhagen climate conference and several more have responded positively to invitations. President Obama will now arrive on December 18th to ensure that they ‘seal the deal’. The Chinese government has also confirmed that it will send its Prime Minister to Copenhagen. President Obama is a supporter of ‘climate justice’ but his personal feelings have to be translated into concrete action by the US for a low carbon future to emerge. After all, we are only talking about the survival of the human race!