The lowdown: Copenhagen CoP 15

POST-COPENHAGEN

The Copenhagen climate talks have now closed with the 'Copenhagen Accord'- the culmination of two year’s negotiation by Governments and campaigning by climate activists. 

Post-Copenhagen steps

The UNFCCC is asking parties to indicate their association with the Accord by 31st January to be listed in the initial chapeau, but also providing that parties may join up after that date, and the UNFCCC will continue to update the list of parties associated with the accord. Their notifcation is here. Both Annex I and non-Annex I parties may submit economy wide targets by 31st January, in the form included in the Annex to the Accord, and they are free to "provide clarifications of their inputs they deem appropriate." See CANA's information updates on the Copenhagen Accord and the parties associated with it here.

Analysis of CoP-15

Greenpeace International has published its analysis of the Copenhagen Accord and of what happened in Copenhagen. The Worldwatch Institute has an interview with the Tuvalu Government's climate change negotiator, Ian Fry, on his perspective on what happened.

The Copenhagen Accord

The formal outcome is that the Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC decided to take note of the 'Copenhagen Accord' of the 18th December 2009. Attached to this decision will be the accord itself and the title to the accord. The list of those agreeing to the Copenhagen Accord shall be listed in the title.

The Copenhagen Accord was not adopted by delegates to the United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen.  Instead, delegates merely ‘noted’ the agreement's existence, giving it no force whatsoever.

• The Copenhagen Accord is noted in the COP decision. It is outside the COP/UNFCCC and not part of the COP decision. It is a sign-on document (ie countries who support it will be listed).

• The Copenhagen Accord is not a formal agreement within the UNFCCC framework and thus it is not clear how it will be implemented.

• Many countries called for the Copenhagen Accord to be acknowledged, as the only agreement that can be reached here at Copenhagen, and that countries/parties should re-convene to ensure that a full agreement on climate change is reached in 2010.

• There is reference to two degree temperature limit, commiting the parties to reducing global emissions so as to hold the increase in global

  temperature below two degrees Celsius.

  • There is also reference to 1.5 degree limits, in ambiguous phrasing. There will be an assessment of the Accord implemented by 2015, including

  “consideration of strengthening the long-term goal referencing various matters presented by the science, including in relation to temperature

  rises of 1.5 degrees Celsius.”

  • The agreement includes a goal of Annex 1 parties mobilising jointly US$100 billion a year by 2020 for developing countries and short-term financing “approaching” US$30 billion for 2010-2012.

  • It is agreed that a significant proportion of this money would flow through the “Copenhagen Green Climate Fund.”

  • There is also agreement to establish a Technology Mechanism, without detail of how this would work.

  • Annex 1 parties will commit to quantified economy-wide emissions targets for 2020 to be submitted to the UN by 31st January.

  • Mitigation actions by developing countries will be “subject to their domestic measurement, reporting and verification” to be submitted with national communications every two years.

  • There are also provisions on REDD, adaptation and market mechanisms.

• The texts that were generated through the LCA and KP will be included in the reports of the COP and CMP and used as starting inputs for the negotiations in 2010.

CANA member group reactions:

• Rising Tide: Forty climate activists have closed down the rail line into the world's biggest coal port this morning, protesting the failure of the UN climate talks in Copenhagen to produce a just, effective, and legally binding treaty.

• Australian Conservation Foundation: The Copenhagen deal is disappointingly weak, falls well short of a treaty that would avoid dangerous climate change and still needs serious work.

• Friends of the Earth: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd must take a large share of responsibility for the failure of the Copenhagen climate talks.

• The Climate Institute: The stalled Copenhagen Accord is no excuse for stalling domestic action to address climate change, The Climate Institute said today from the UN Climate Summit.

• Oxfam Australia: The ‘climate deal’ announced in Copenhagen today is a triumph of spin over substance, says international aid agency Oxfam. The agreement – which was announced by the US, India, China and South Africa - has not been endorsed by the EU and many other countries.

Analysis of the Copenhagen Accord:

• Climate Action Network International (of which CANA is a part) considers that:

1. The job is not done.

2. The Copenhagen Accord is not ambitious, it is not fair and it is not binding.

3. This agreement has huge loopholes and gaps.  The goals for reducing pollution keep us on a path that science says leads to catastrophic warming.

4. The financing in this deal to help developing countries confront a crisis not of their making amounts to less than the subsidies nations serve up to the fossil fuel industry.

5. It is essential that countries work to finalise a strong agreement in the next 6 months. Countries should meet as many times as is needed over these 6 months to ensure that there is not another failure to get a deal that gets the job done.

6. In the mean time, we are faced with a very costly delay, with costs measured in human lives, and in dollars.

7. We are confronted with dangerous delay that means millions of families run the risks of unnecessary tragedy.  The impacts of this delay will be felt in every country, and will fall particularly hard on poor people in developing country.

8. The longer the delay the higher the costs will mount, and the fewer opportunities we will have to invest in solutions that drive economic growth.

9. It also means delaying the investments in clean energy that can drive our global economy, bringing jobs and prosperity to millions in every country.  We risk locking in growth on the dirty energy path.

10. Longer we wait the worse it gets: the International Energy Agency tells us that every year of delay costs $500 billion dollars.

11. This delay benefits only the narrow interests of big oil and the fossil fuel industry.  All of the rest of us are losers.  

12. The science is clear, we have the means, all we are missing is the will.

13. We need to commit to cutting pollution as the science tells us.  We need to invest in clean energy growth.  And we need to provide the help developing  countries deserve to confront a crisis not of their making.

• Climate Scientists underwhelmed: Top climate scientists said Saturday that the eleventh-hour political deal hammered out at UN talks in Copenhagen falls perilously short of what is needed to stave off catastrophic global warming.

DURING COPENHAGEN

Copenhagen during the CoP 15 looked a little like a parallel universe, one where climate change was front and centre on the public agenda, and calls for action were loud and many. There were advertisements calling for ambitious action or highlighting the impacts of climate change everywhere, in the metro, on billboards, postcards, taxis, buses – everywhere;  there were huge climate-inspired artworks and installations scattered throughout the city and NGO stalls and information tents, and everyone rides a bike.

Key CoP news

• Good news arising at CoP 15? CANA's International Coordinator, Georgina Woods, writes from Copenhagen that there is a “pervasive feeling that we may have turned a corner... Parties are finally talking to each other again, and although some of the standard blockages are still preoccupying them, there is a real sense of resurrection, after the darkness of yesterday. On Thursday morning, the COP and the CMP met in plenary one after the other and agreed on a process to develop the final decisions of this meeting that was acceptable to all parties. Immediately after the plenary, two contact groups were to be created, one for the Kyoto Protocol track, and one for the long-term cooperative action, or Convention track. Read more of CANA's updates on the members' pages (password required).

• Australia awarded 'fossil of the day' by CAN International (December 17) for pressuring Pacific Islands to accept higher warming. Australia is supporting a deal at the United Nations climate change talks in Copenhagen that would aim to limit the global temperature rise to no more than 2C by the turn of the century. Tuvalu Prime Minister Apisai Ielemia says Australia is pressuring him to drop his demand for global warming to be limited to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. For more, click here .

• Obama heads to Copenhagen as climate talks falter: President Barack Obama will arrive in the Copenhagen on Friday December 18, joining about 120 other world leaders to finish a complicated process of reaching a political agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fight global warming. The president plans to stay in Copenhagen less than a day. That may or may not be enough time to overcome persistent disagreements between developed and developing nations that have marred two weeks of talks, but Obama's presence and contribution could be a potential deal-maker.

• $100 billion climate fund a possibility: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced on December 17 that the US will conditionally support and contribute to an international climate fund that in the long-term will provide $100 billion dollars per year from 2020 to help the developing countries adapt to climate change. UK's PM Brown particularly stressed that the 100 billion dollar finance deal he seeks has to be over and above not just existing development assistance, but the committed assistance under the Millenium Development Goals. Read about it here.

• NGO passes have been severely reduced to 300 only, due to limited space in the Bella Center where the negotiations are being held. Some groups (including Friends of the Earth International) have had their passes annulled.  Two CANA members (Georgina Woods, CANA, and Kelly Dent, Oxfam Australia) have passes for the next two days as part of the 54 allocated to the Climate Action Network International, of which CANA is the Australian arm (December 18).

• Rudd addressed the high level segment of the negotiations on Thursday 17th December. Rudd’s speech early this morning indicated a couple of areas of interest. First,  he indicated for the first time Australia’s acceptance that we are negotiating a two track outcome. That is, that the Kyoto Protocol will continue alongside a new “Copenhagen Accord”. The second interesting signal in Rudd’s speech was his admission that he does not want to go home without success. He asserted that he would do “everything in his power” to avoid dangerous climate change. Since an unconditional 25% target and commitment to long-term finance is clearly within his power, we look forward to seeing announcements on these before the week is out. You can see a full list of the high level addresses in the Daily Program: http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/cop15/od08p01.pdf, and you should be able to watch the speeches live online via: http://www10.cop15.meta-fusion.com/kongresse/cop15/templ/ovw.php?id_kong....

• Flicker of optimism as leaders fly in (Dec 17): Mr Rudd and the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, arrived earlier for the leaders' summit, which will bring together more than 100 presidents and prime ministers for tomorrow's meeting. With Mr Rudd warning that the talks could still fail, both men ramped up efforts with Mr Rasmussen to get some progress on the negotiations. The developing countries that have been raising the level of their angry rhetoric throughout the UN conference pushed for provisions that noted rich countries were historically responsible for the majority of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/flicker-of-optimism-as-...

• Rich-poor divide halts climate deal (late Dec 16): There are still mixed signals coming out of the Danish capital Copenhagen, where 25 environment ministers have been locked in climate change negotiations all through the night: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/16/2773954.htm?site=news

PRE-COPENHAGEN

The Climate Action Network Australia has prepared seven summary sheets to provide a clear track through the climate negotiations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Feel free to share them with all people who would are planning to attend the Copenhagen talks, non-government campaigners seeking to analyse and communicate the Copenhagen outcomes, climate action groups seeking to influence the negotiations for Australian communities, policy analysts wanting to hear a non-government perspective, and all people interested in ensuring Australia plays its part in an equitable, effective and rapid global answer to climate change.

The summary sheets in CANA's international climate series are:

• Summary Sheet #1 What to look for, What to expect
• Summary Sheet #2 International finance for climate mitigation and adaptation
• Summary Sheet #3 Global adaptation to climate change
• Summary Sheet #4 Legal architecture
• Summary Sheet #5 Mitigation
• Summary Sheet #6 LULUCF and REDD
• Summary Sheet #7 International climate acronyms

CANA hosted two well-attended workshops on the processes and issues that will be negotiated in Copenhagen in December this year (14/09/09, Sydney; 21/10/09, Melbourne).

A selection of the presentations are available here:

• Climate change and the need for action (Brett Parris, World Vision Australia)
• UNFCCC process: A Climate Institute perspective (Erwin Jackson, the Climate Institute)
  
• UNFCCC process: A Greenpeace perspective (Trish Harrup, Greenpeace Australia Pacific)
• Issues surrounding climate mitigation (Georgina Woods, CANA)
  
• Needs and plan for adaptation (Louise Collett, Oxfam Australia)
• Forestry and land management associated with REDD and LULUCF (Peg Putt, the Wilderness Society)
• Financing a global deal (Georgina Woods, CANA)
  

Minister Wong urged to seek the best in Copenhagen (November 13): CANA has written to Minister Wong, urging her to play a positive role in the pre-COP 15 to set the highest level of ambition for the Copenhagen negotiations. This letter has also been sent by CANA's international counterparts to their respective Environment Ministers.

CAN International urges Rudd to seek UN support for a global deal (Sept 10): CANA has sent a letter on behalf of CAN-International (and the 480 NGOs it represents internationally), urging Prime Minister Rudd to give the political impetus necessary to ensure a successful outcome at Copenhagen at the high level UN meeting on Sept 22 and at all other opportunities afforded to him. This letter will be sent by all CAN Directors to their Heads of State.

Keeping an eye on the international talks: CANA is supporting 'A Climate for Change', a social networking website that gives you the opportunity to share your experiences and ideas and unite with other like-minded friends to call for global change. To sign up to become an 'e-monitor' and help ensure the Australian Government plays a constructive role in the UN negotiations that will stop catastrophic climate change, click here.

Demands for Copenhagen: Read Greenpeace's demands in the lead-up to Copenhagen.

For additional information, contact Georgina Woods at CANA : 0407 227 633 / g.woods[at]cana.net.au.