Copenhagen climate conference: more a planting than a burial
By Geoffrey Lean
Did Mark Twain ever fetch up in Copenhagen? Not as far as I can make out, though Samuel Langhorne Clemens (to give his real name) was one of the best-travelled men of his day, visiting Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as Asia, Africa, Australia, the Middle East and, of course, much of North America. But the great novelist and the climate conference due next month in the Little Mermaid’s city have something in common. Reports of their deaths have both, in Twain’s much quoted words, been “greatly exaggerated”.
Solemn obituaries for next month’s summit thronged the media on both sides of the Atlantic on Monday, after both Barack Obama and Lars Lokke Rasmussen – who, as Prime Minister of Denmark, will chair it – admitted that it would not be able to finalise a new, legally binding climate treaty, as originally intended. But these reports were, at the least, premature. The patient’s condition had not even deteriorated, and the supposed cadaver yesterday promptly scrambled to its feet again.
It has been known for many weeks that the treaty would not be ready in time, and a host of authorities – including Ban Ki-moon, Angela Merkel and the Danish government itself – have been saying so. The sclerotic UN negotiating system has been unable to get a text together soon enough, and that equally dysfunctional institution, the US Congress, is dragging its heels over passing the domestic legislation that Obama needs before he can strike a final deal.
What Rasmussen and Obama suggested has also been on the table, as the only likely solution, all autumn – a so-called “politically binding” agreement in which all the elements of the treaty are agreed, even if it cannot be formalised. Far from seeking to string out the negotiations, as reported, the Danish premier actually insisted: “We cannot do half a deal in Copenhagen and postpone the rest till later,” adding that the agreement should be “precise on specific commitments” and “provide for immediate action”.
Yesterday, as if to ram the point home, Obama and President Hu of China – the two men, leading the two greatest polluters, on whom success or failure at Copenhagen most depends – agreed to take “significant” action against their CO2 emissions. Reporting on their talks in Beijing, the US President echoed Rasmussen’s largely unpublicised goal. “Our aim,” he said, “is not a partial accord or a political declaration, but rather an accord that covers all of the issues in the negotiations and has an immediate operational effect.” And a preparatory meeting of environment ministers in Copenhagen made good progress. So the corpse is alive, if not yet kicking.
None of this, of course, prevented the gathering of a raucous cortege. Those opposing a treaty could scarcely contain their glee, while environmental pressure groups vented what they must have known to be untimely outrage. Greenpeace International accused Rasmussen of putting “Obama’s political difficulties ahead of the survival of the world’s most vulnerable countries”. Even Rajendra K Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – who should certainly know better – called it “an abandonment of moral responsibility”.
Little of this is surprising, for many have an interest in reducing expectations for Copenhagen. Some governments seek to cover their backs in case it fails. Polluters, and their supporters, hope that pronouncing its obsequies will be self-fulfilling. And it is central to the green groups’ fundraising strategy to portray governments as hopelessly compromised – and themselves as the only ones who can save the world. The surprise is that so many fell for the synchronised spinning.
Back in the real world, the prospects for agreement in Copenhagen are actually slightly better than before all the hullabaloo, after yesterday’s two meetings, of environment ministers and between Hu and Obama. But they still remain dicey, with failure all-too possible. “It is terribly nerve-racking, I can tell you,” one of those at the heart of working out the deal confessed yesterday. “But it’s still on.”
The broad outlines of a deal have been known for months. Rich countries would agree to make substantial cuts in their emissions, moving towards low carbon prosperity. Rapidly industrialising developing countries would agree to reduce the rate sharply at which theirs are growing. And both would provide money, mainly to help the poorest to reduce their own pollution and adapt to the devastating effects of climate change. But it is bedevilled by the detail.
“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it,” to quote Mark Twain again. There has certainly been plenty of talk. But in recent months there has also been a surprising amount of commitment to action. More and more countries have been announcing targets, placing pressure on the big ones – like the United States, China and India – who have yet to do so.
Rich-country targets for emission reductions are inching upwards, approaching the bottom end of the range – 25 to 40 per cent of 1990 levels by 2020 – that scientists say will be necessary to stop global warming escalating out of control. They are still too low, but provide something to work with: no small thing in the middle of a recession.
But it is developing countries – long expected to be the greatest obstacle at this stage – who have provided the biggest surprise. Brazil has just volunteered reductions of 36-42 per cent on its forecast emissions for 2020, largely by reducing the felling of its forests – followed by the welcome announcement that deforestation has halved in the past year, reaching its lowest level in two decades. Earlier, Indonesia offered similar cuts, of 26 to 41 per cent, and Mexico is doing much the same.
And though countries have been notably slow to offer finance in these straitened times – with the EU repeatedly refusing to make an offer promised for this spring – a consensus is congealing around a proposal, first advanced by Gordon Brown last summer, for a fund that would eventually be worth $100 billion a year. This has encouraged developing countries.
Of the Third World hold-outs, India has agreed to set its own target, with its premier Manmohan Singh telling ministers that “we must be part of the solution”. It is planning a vast expansion of renewable energy. And China – despite only promising a “notable” cut in its emissions growth – is arguably doing more than any other nation.
The world’s most populous country already burns more coal than any other – more than the three runners-up (the US, India and Germany) combined, and famously builds a new coal-fired power station every week or so. Less well-publicised are its efforts to reduce its emissions. But it is cracking down on the use of coal by its 1,000 largest companies, which emit a third of the nation’s carbon dioxide. It is pioneering carbon capture and storage to clean up its emissions, and introducing energy efficiency measures across the board. And it is investing massively in renewable energy, doubling windpower each year and rapidly becoming the world’s biggest producer of solar cells.
Visitor after distinguished visitor to China speaks on their return of their awe at the government’s determination to develop new technologies – and of their concern that it will virtually monopolise them while Western governments dither. The board of Ted Turner’s United Nations Foundation – a hard-headed group of experts with big reputations to lose – has just come away “absolutely clear”, as one member told me yesterday, “that the government of China is serious, committed and worried about long-term environmental prospects.”
All this is heaping pressure on the United States, which has become the biggest problem. That is not down to Obama, despite personal attacks on him by green groups over recent days: he is keener on action than anyone in his White House, just as his predecessor was the opposite. The blockage is in the Senate, where a climate bill is making tortuous progress.
Obama has the 60 Democrats in the upper house needed to force it through, but less than 40 of them are secure votes, with another 10 probables; many of the others represent states with oil, coal or car industries. So he will have to win over some Republicans; not easy, as they tend to vote in an ideological block. But 10 are thought to be persuadable, if they will brave vicious attacks from their colleagues, and this could be enough.
Republican senator Lindsey Graham is now working with Democrat John Kerry and Independent Joe Lieberman to draw up a compromise bill. There is no chance of getting it through before Copenhagen, but the hope is that it will make enough progress for Obama to go with an offer of emission cuts while waiting for the legislation. That, in turn, might make a deal possible.
The chances of failure are great. Time is desperately short. If the US bill cannot be passed by June, it may well never be, as mid-term elections then approach. If a deal is delayed much beyond Copenhagen – as Achim Steiner, the head of the UN Environment Programme said yesterday – the risk of deadlock will be “extremely high”. Mark Twain may have believed that “time cools, time clarifies”, but here it will do the opposite, ruining the uncertain, but real, chance that humanity might control global warming before it ruins the lives of today’s children.
