Copenhagen and After

The officials and experts and journalists who flocked to the 15th United Nations Climate Conference in the Danish capital of Copenhagen in December were probably in no mood to sing the Frank Loesser song from the 1952 movie “Hans Christian Andersen.” They may have appreciated the welcoming Little Mermaid statue in the harbor, but by the time the talking and arguing was all over they were more likely to be badmouthing and complaining than clinking glasses. There were no merry nights, just nightmares, as the conference ended with one lesson learned: the world’s powers, great and small, industrial and developing, all agree that climate change is bad and emissions cuts are needed, but they are nowhere near a binding, disciplined, unified way to combat the danger.

On that note, the mushroom cloud of verbiage from COP 15 (“COP ” for “Conference of Parties,” not Copenhagen), may pose more danger to international atmospherics than the emissions the participants paid lip service to wanting to reduce. The U.S. delegation, more than many of the others at the climate control summit, was clear on one thing: the ambivalence of its view of the Copenhagen Accord, a non-binding document to which about 30 countries said they were committed to adhere. They represented the economies responsible for more than 70 percent of emissions, said the U.S. Climate Action Network, but the conference was a severe disappointment if not a failure to those who wanted stronger action.

No one was impressed when the United States submitted a letter indicating its association with the document after President Barack Obama, in a whirlwind visit to Copenhagen, proposed emission cuts of four percent below the 1990 levels by the year 2020. The letter, addressed to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC ), came with a catch that suggested the vagueness of the commitment. First, of course, the U.S. Senate would have to give its approval. In that spirit, the words of U.S. climate change negotiator, Todd Stern, appeared as so much hot air. Obama’s words showed the United States’ “commitment to meeting the climate change and clean energy challenge through robust domestic and international action,” said Stern, calling on “all major economies” to live up to promises to “submit their mitigation targets or actions.”

The agreement for “major economies” – meaning major greenhouse-gas offenders – to come up with their own targets means that no one really has to live up to anything other than their own interests. The executive secretary of the UNFCC , Yvo de Boer, put the best face on matters when he remarked that the Copenhagen Accord “reflects a political consensus on the long term, global response to climate change.” If only the signatories are able to “follow up Copenhagen’s outcomes calmly, with eyes firmly fixed on the advantage of collective action,” he said, “they have every chance of completing the job.” And, if they miss their targets, who’s going to penalize them or force them to do better? The answer is no one. Todd Stern was frank in an off-hand remark at the UN Foundation in New York when he said the accord was “lumbering down the runway,” but “we need it to gather enough speed to take off.” Or, as the European Commission put it, the European Union needed to give the accord “a life” by playing “a pro-active role in strengthening and expanding support.”

Questions focus on how to discern whatever major developing economies – Brazil, India, China and South Africa, are joined in opposing any binding commitments on growth – are doing. They and more highly industrialized countries all have to live up to their non-binding pledges if all the world’s 194 nations are to achieve the stated goal of the Copenhagen Accord of limiting the average rise in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius.

With the dust settling from Copenhagen, China faces the daunting task of attempting to lower its emission of carbon dioxide by 40-45 percent by 2020 from where it was in 2005. China’s other goals appear equally ambitious, including increasing the share of non-fossil fuels in energy consumption to 15 percent by 2020, according to a letter obtained by Reuters, and adding 40 million hectares of forested land by 2020 from the level in 2005. That should come as a relief to millions of Chinese, and millions more in Korea, who every spring have to breathe air that turns the skies cloudy with yellow dust blowing in from China’s deforested wastelands. The particle level keeps rising as the dust rises not so much from the Gobi desert, as we were told years ago, but deforested lands in Manchuria and Mongolia. China’s willingness or ability to keep its word is critical – and may portend the success or ultimate failure of the international climate control movement.

Remember, China has surpassed the United States as the world’s biggest polluter, contributing 16.64 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas compared to the United States’ 15.78 percent of the global total, and Russia, the third worst, at approximately 8 percent. Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev proclaimed Russia’s determination to slash emissions by 25 percent by 2020 from the 1990 level, but that lofty promise was deceptive since the 1990 figure reflected emissions from the entire Soviet Union, not merely the Russian republic, which accounted for about 70 percent of the emissions of all the Soviet states.

The ability of Brazil, another major player in formulating the accord, to meet its target figure also raises questions. Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed a bill at the end of December that committed his country to a 39 percent cut in greenhouse emissions from the 2005 level by 2020, but a statement read at Copenhagen made clear Brazil had in mind a “voluntary commitment.” Lula da Silva, moreover, vetoed references in the bill to developing “clean energy sources” and the “phasing out of energy from fossil fuels,” meaning that Brazil will rely as much as ever on oil, coal and natural gas.

South Africa, responsible for nearly 1 percent of emissions worldwide, professed great disappointment over the results of the conference but still hoped to cut emissions by 34 percent by 2020. That goal, however, appeared unrealistic. A report by the German Development Institute found that efforts to improve energy efficiency and reduce dependence on fossil fuels had “failed to have any large-scale effect” with the capacity for renewable energy “lacking at every stage of the technology cycle, from research and development to installation and maintenance.”

The European Union, with 11.69 percent of emissions, promised to adhere to an earlier pledge of a 20 percent cut by 2020 from the 1990 level – and said it might even cut emissions by 30 percent but with an important caveat, namely that “other major emitters agree to take on their fair share of a global reduction effort.” Japan came up with a similar condition, pledging to reduce emissions by 25 percent from the 1990 level by 2020 provided “all major emitters commit to ambitious targets” – a condition that might seem counter to serious commitment. In Japan’s favor, however, the nation’s policymakers and business tycoons in recent years have been more sensitive about pollution than those in most other countries. Despite Japan’s enormous industrial output, Japan contributes only slightly more than 3 percent of emissions worldwide, a figure that places it below Indonesia, 4.73 percent, and India, at 4.32 percent. Both Indonesia and India signed on to the accord, promising emissions reductions of 26 and 20 percent respectively, though there was no telling how certain either was to achieve what might be difficult goals.

South Korea, responsible for 1.3 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, sought to appear totally cooperative, signing on to the accord without hesitation while pledging to reduce emissions by 4 percent by 2020 from the 2005 level. Lee Manee, the environment minister, sought to portray Korea before the summit as a good world citizen, pledging Korea would “lead efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and do its best to reduce damages.” This position, refreshing though it was, scarcely hid the reality that Korea’s emissions growth had been the fastest among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD ). Nor was there any guarantee that Korea would be able to keep to the schedule. “Aiming high,” said Lee, “the environment ministry hopes to set up a target as high as possible.”

President Lee Myung-Bak built on the same cooperative spirit, talking up plans for a Global Green Growth Institute that would conduct research on climate control and also announcing Korea’s bid to host the 18th UN climate control summit, COP 18, in 2012. The timing is key. That’s the year in which the Kyoto protocol, adopted in 1997, but approved by only 37 industrialized countries, not including the United States, expires. The protocol calls for an average of five percent in emission cuts from 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012, another dream that at this stage seems impossible. Lee saw Korea, however, as doing more than its share, investing 2 percent of its gross domestic product each year into research and development of green technologies. “Taking on climate change must begin with each of us doing our own part,” he said. “Once we do, then we can start a truly positive cycle around the world.” The Green Growth Institute would demonstrate “the spirit of global partnership,” he said, “as a global think tank and as a bridge between advanced and developing countries.”

Korea’s bridging role could be crucial. Officials of developing countries charged that the 30 or so industrialized nations had put their heads together to draft the final accord, non-binding though it turned out to be, and ignored their interests. They complained that the industrialized countries had the right, under the final document, to pollute the atmosphere twice as heavily with the excuse that they have more than twice as much industry, motor vehicles and all the other accoutrements of relatively advanced and wealthy societies. The summiteers made an enormous effort to answer this storm of criticism, allocating $30 billion a year for 2010, 2011 and 2012 for assisting impoverished and developing countries in emissions control and setting a goal of $100 billion annually for that purpose by 2020. That bait was enough to convince a number of developing countries to go along – albeit with reservations. Botswana, for instance, welcomed the accord – though Kitso Mokaila, Botswana’s environment, wildlife and tourism minister, did say it was “not entirely what the developing countries were after.”

While many countries quietly, if reluctantly, endorsed the Copenhagen Accord by the deadline of Jan. 31, critics could not hide their disappointment over the level of commitment. Niklas Hoehne, director of energy and climate policy at Ecofys, a climate consultancy, put “most of the industrialized countries in the ‘inadequate’ category,” including both the United States and the European Union. “For the major developed countries, it’s still far behind what is expected, except for Japan and Norway,” he said, though he credited some developing, partially industrialized countries, including Brazil and Mexico, with making greater efforts. Alarmingly, Ecofys predicts that temperatures worldwide will rise by 3.5 degrees Celsius by 2020 rather than 2 degrees, the limit stated in the accord.

The debate, and recriminations, will soon pick up as climate diplomacy shifts to Mexico City, the scene of the next climate control summit, COP 16, in November. The atmosphere is definitely cloudy. “People want to reach a conclusion on the negotiating texts in Mexico,” said the UNFCC ’s Yvo de Boer, but no one really expects a binding agreement to emerge. “Things don’t look very good at all,” Rajendra Pachauri told Agence France Presse. “They look very bleak.”

At the bottom of this overwhelming sense of disappointment, if not failure, is simple nationalism. No nation wants another country or entity policing its affairs. “Both China and the U.S. remain skeptical about the prospect of establishing a strict set of international rules, or indeed devolving any power to international organizations,” wrote Joseph Curtin, senior researcher at the Institute of International and European Affairs in Dublin. “This is especially the case with China, and is particularly evident in its spat with the U.S. over the monitoring of mitigation measures. China refused throughout the conference to consider any independent monitoring of its emissions reduction efforts.”

Curtin does see a “silver lining” the target of 2 degrees average rise of global temperatures. “Perhaps stronger commitments will eventually emerge,” he concluded, although not very enthusiastically, “from what are sure to be long and protracted negotiations.”

As the talking echoes through the corridors of other capitals, at other summits, the Little Mermaid goes on welcoming visitors to “Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen” – wonderful again, now that COP 15 is over and fading into the miasma of history.