Despite Opposition Climate Conference Approves Deal

19/12/2009 Copenhagen: The UN climate conference in Copenhagen today approved a deal to tackle global warming proposed by world leaders, despite opposition from a number of countries. After another all-night session of wrangling among negotiators and officials, the accord was finally gavelled through to wide applause in the main conference hall of the talks in Copenhagen.

Last night details of the “meaningful” deal agreed between the US and China, India, Brazil and South Africa emerged, which included references to keeping temperature rises to no more than 2C and provisions for finance to help poor countries fight global warming.
But it has no long-term global targets for emissions cuts or a timetable to turn the agreement into a legally-binding treaty – leading environmental campaigners and aid agencies to brand it toothless and a failure.

 

This morning the conference said it “takes note” of the accord – and said the document setting out the deal would specify a list of countries which agreed with it, as some nations were still adamant they would not accept it. The acknowledgment of the accord by the UN conference of more than 190 countries means that provisions for finance contained within it to help poor nations can become operational, officials said. Under the accord, countries will be able to set out their pledges for the action they plan to take to tackle climate change, in an appendix to the document, and will provide information to other nations on their progress.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and EU chiefs said the deal was a first step but acknowledged there was much further to go to get the ambitious and legally-binding treaty countries such as the UK have been pushing for. But Mr Brown attempted to brush off suggestions that his intense efforts to lead the case for a deal had ended in failure – insisting it was significant that all countries now backed the 2C target for the first time.

 

Overnight, however, the main conference of more than 190 countries struggled to endorse the accord – with the main plenary hearing from a number of countries including Sudan, Venezuela and Bolivia which opposed the deal. Sudan’s delegate, Lumumba Di-Aping, said the accord would condemn Africa to many deaths from global warming and compared it with the Holocaust – a statement which was roundly condemned by others including the UK’s Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband. The deal was brokered in a series of bilateral meetings and talks by a group of up to 30 countries – and appeared to have been sealed after US President Barack Obama turned up unannounced at a discussion between China, India, Brazil and South Africa.

Many leaders flew out late last night as details of the deal emerged, leaving ministers and officials to return to the full conference in a bid to get it passed.

Speaking following the formal close of the talks in Copenhagen, a day after they were due to finish, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said: ``We have sealed the deal. This accord cannot be everything that everyone hoped for, but it is an essential beginning.''
The attendance of 119 world leaders made the Copenhagen talks the largest gathering of heads of state and government in the history of the UN, and Mr Ban urged them to remain engaged as “climate change is the permanent leadership challenge of our time”.

The UN’s chief climate official Yvo de Boer said: “We now have a package to work with and begin immediate action.

“However, we need to be clear that it is a letter of intent and is not precise about what needs to be done in legal terms. So the challenge is now to turn what we have agreed politically in Copenhagen into something real, measurable and verifiable.”

'We are running short on time' :President Barack Obama's speech at UN Climate Conference, Copenhagen

Good Morning.

It’s an honor to for me to join this distinguished group of leaders from nations around the world. We come together here in Copenhagen because climate change poses a grave and growing danger to our people. You would not be here unless you—like me—were convinced that this danger is real. This is not fiction, this is science. Unchecked, climate change will pose unacceptable risks to our security, our economies, and our planet. That much we know.

So the question before us is no longer the nature of the challenge—the question is our capacity to meet it. For while the reality of climate change is not in doubt, our ability to take collective action hangs in the balance.

I believe that we can act boldly, and decisively, in the face of this common threat. And that is why I have come here today.

As the world’s largest economy and the world’s second-largest emitter, America bears our share of responsibility in addressing climate change, and we intend to meet that responsibility. That is why we have renewed our leadership within international climate negotiations, and worked with other nations to phase out fossil-fuel subsidies. And that is why we have taken bold action at home—by making historic investments in renewable energy; by putting our people to work increasing efficiency in our homes and buildings; and by pursuing comprehensive legislation to transform to a clean energy economy.

These actions are ambitious, and we are taking them not simply to meet our global responsibilities. We are convinced that changing the way that we produce and use energy is essential to America’s economic future—that it will create millions of new jobs, power new industry, keep us competitive, and spark new innovation. And we are convinced that changing the way we use energy is essential to America’s national security, because it will reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and help us deal with some of the dangers posed by climate change.

So America is going to continue on this course of action no matter what happens in Copenhagen. But we will all be stronger and safer and more secure if we act together. That is why it is in our mutual interest to achieve a global accord in which we agree to take certain steps, and to hold each other accountable for our commitments.

After months of talk, and two weeks of negotiations, I believe that the pieces of that accord are now clear. [Editor’s note: While the prepared remarks read, “I believe that the pieces of that accord are now clear,” in the delivered remarks, Obama said, “I believe that the pieces of that accord should now be clear.” Emphasis added.]

First, all major economies must put forward decisive national actions that will reduce their emissions, and begin to turn the corner on climate change. I’m pleased that many of us have already done so, and I’m confident that America will fulfill the commitments that we have made: cutting our emissions in the range of 17 percent by 2020, and by more than 80 percent by 2050 in line with final legislation.

Second, we must have a mechanism to review whether we are keeping our commitments, and to exchange this information in a transparent manner. These measures need not be intrusive, or infringe upon sovereignty. They must, however, ensure that an accord is credible, and that we are living up to our obligations. For without such accountability, any agreement would be empty words on a page.

Third, we must have financing that helps developing countries adapt, particularly the least-developed and most vulnerable to climate change. America will be a part of fast-start funding that will ramp up to $10 billion in 2012. And, yesterday, Secretary Clinton made it clear that we will engage in a global effort to mobilize $100 billion in financing by 2020, if—and only if—it is part of the broader accord that I have just described.

Mitigation. Transparency. And financing. It is a clear formula—one that embraces the principle of common but differentiated responses and respective capabilities. And it adds up to a significant accord—one that takes us farther than we have ever gone before as an international community.

The question is whether we will move forward together, or split apart. This is not a perfect agreement, and no country would get everything that it wants. There are those developing countries that want aid with no strings attached, and who think that the most advanced nations should pay a higher price. And there are those advanced nations who think that developing countries cannot absorb this assistance, or that the world’s fastest-growing emitters should bear a greater share of the burden.

We know the fault lines because we’ve been imprisoned by them for years. But here is the bottom line: we can embrace this accord, take a substantial step forward, and continue to refine it and build upon its foundation. We can do that, and everyone who is in this room will be a part of an historic endeavor—one that makes life better for our children and grandchildren.

Or we can again choose delay, falling back into the same divisions that have stood in the way of action for years. And we will be back having the same stale arguments month after month, year after year—all while the danger of climate change grows until it is irreversible.

There is no time to waste. America has made our choice. We have charted our course, we have made our commitments, and we will do what we say. Now, I believe that it’s time for the nations and people of the world to come together behind a common purpose.

We must choose action over inaction; the future over the past—with courage and faith, let us meet our responsibility to our people, and to the future of our planet.

Thank you,

The last best chance: UN climate conference opens

COPENHAGEN – The largest and most important U.N. climate change conference in history opened Monday, with organizers warning diplomats from 192 nations that this could be the last best chance for a deal to protect the world from calamitous global warming.

The two-week conference, the climax of two years of contentious negotiations, convened in an upbeat mood after a series of promises by rich and emerging economies to curb their greenhouse gases. Still, major issues have yet to be resolved.

At stake is a deal that aims to wean the world away from fossil fuels and other pollutants to greener sources of energy, and to transfer hundreds of billions of dollars from rich to poor countries every year over decades to help them adapt to climate change.

Scientists say without such an agreement, the Earth will face the consequences of ever-rising temperatures, leading to the extinction of plant and animal species, the flooding of coastal cities, more extreme weather events, drought and the spread of diseases.

Conference president Connie Hedegaard said the key to an agreement is finding a way to raise and channel public and private financing to poor countries for years to come to help them fight the effects of climate change.

Hedegaard — Denmark's former climate minister — said if governments miss their chance at the Copenhagen summit, a better opportunity may never come.

"This is our chance. If we miss it, it could take years before we got a new and better one. If we ever do," she said.

Negotiations have dragged on for two years, only recently showing signs of breakthroughs with new commitments from The United States, China and India to control greenhouse gas emissions.

But the commitments remained short of scientists' demands, and the pressure was on those major emitters for bigger cuts. Swedish Environment Minister Anders Carlgren, speaking for the European Union, said it would be "astonishing" if President Barack Obama came for the final negotiation session "to deliver just what was announced in last week's press release."

The conference opened with video clips of children from around the globe urging delegates to help them grow up without facing catastrophic warming. On the sidelines, climate activists competed for attention to their campaigns on deforestation, clean energy and low-carbon growth.

Mohamad Shinaz, an activist from the Maldives, plunged feet-first into a tank with nearly 200 gallons (750 liters) of frigid water to illustrate what rising sea levels were doing to his island nation.

"I want people to know that this is happening," Shinaz said as the water reached up to his chest. "We have to stop global warming."

Leah Wickham, a 24-year-old from Fiji, broke down in tears as she handed a petition from 10 million people asking the negotiators at Copenhagen to come up with a deal to save islands like hers.

"I'm on the front lines of climate change," she said.

Denmark's prime minister said 110 heads of state and government will attend the final days of the conference. Obama's decision to attend the end of the conference, not the middle, was taken as a signal that an agreement was getting closer.

"The evidence is now overwhelming" that the world needs early action to combat global warming, said Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an U.N. expert panel.

He defended climate research in the face of a controversy over e-mails pilfered from a British university, which global warming skeptics say show scientists have been conspiring to hide evidence that doesn't fit their theories.

"The recent incident of stealing the e-mails of scientists at the University of East Anglia shows that some would go to the extent of carrying out illegal acts perhaps in an attempt to discredit the IPCC," he told the conference.

The first week of the conference will focus on refining the complex text of a draft treaty. But major decisions will await the arrival next week of environment ministers and the heads of state in the final days of the conference, which ends Dec. 18.

"The time for formal statements is over. The time for restating well-known positions is past," said the U.N.'s top climate official, Yvo de Boer. "Copenhagen will only be a success it delivers significant and immediate action."

Among those decisions is a proposed fund of $10 billion each year for the next three years to help poor countries create climate change strategies. After that, hundreds of billions of dollars will be needed every year to set the world on a new energy path and adapt to new climates.

"The deal that we invite leaders to sign up on will be one that affects all aspects of society, just as the changing climate does," said Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen. "Negotiators cannot do this alone, nor can politicians. The ultimate responsibility rests with the citizens of the world, who will ultimately bear the fatal consequences if we fail to act."

A study released by the U.N. Environment Program on Sunday indicated that pledges by industrial countries and major emerging nations fall just short of the reductions of greenhouse gas emissions that scientists have said are needed to keep average temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees C (3.6 F) by the end of the century.

In Vienna, another senior U.N. official warned that the fight against climate change must not "cannibalize" development financing.

Kandeh Yumkella, director-general of the U.N Industrial Development Organization, said poor countries need "fresh money" to combat global warming, not funds diverted from efforts to improve maternal health or fight world hunger.

Courtesy: ARTHUR MAX, Karl Ritter, Charles J. Hanley &  Veronika Oleksyn