What Happened at Copenhagen?
By Tom Robertson, Environmental Quality Management, Inc., Suite 250, 3325 Durham Chapel Hill Blvd., Durham, NC 27707
December 29, 2009
On December 19, 2009, the Copenhagen Accord was released. This accord is a three page political declaration that is intended to frame future UN climate change negotiations and codify national policies on adaptation and mitigation. Originally, the plan was for the Copenhagen talks to deliver a comprehensive, legally-binding international deal to tackle climate change. It is safe to say that the Copenhagen accord did not yield a new global climate treaty as was expected or hoped for by many NGO’s and several prominent Heads of State. The most meaningful elements of the declaration are the increased potential for US involvement in a global climate change regime, inclusion of developing country reduction plans in global reporting, and pledges of financial support for developing countries. The Accord makes reference to the need to keep temperature rises to no more than 2 °C and it says rich countries will commit to cutting greenhouse gases and developing nations will take steps to limit the growth of their emissions. It does not set enforceable emission limits or targets. Under the accord, developed countries will finance a 10 billion-dollars-a-year, three-year program starting in 2010 to fund developing nations' projects to deal with drought, floods and other impacts of climate change, and to develop clean energy. It also set a "goal" of mobilizing 100 billion dollars a year by 2020 for the same purposes. Missing elements include a lack of a deadline to negotiate a successor Treaty to the Kyoto Protocol, no legally-binding GHG emission reduction targets, no coverage of aviation and maritime emissions, and no reform of the Clean Development Mechanism market that is seen by many as the ultimate loop hole for project developers.
The negotiations at Copenhagen were contentious because of the very real impact the proposals will have, not only for the environment, but also on national economies. If the negotiations at Copenhagen were tough, just wait until the next meeting in Mexico City (December 2010) where countries will be tasked to fill in details that were only sketched in the Copenhagen Accord.