The accord is not a legally binding agreement but a political statement. It declares itself to be “operational immediately,” although it was not voted on at the conference and has already become highly controversial. It is now uncertain whether and when it would form the basis of a legally binding international agreement on climate change, although before and during the conference there was speculation that such an agreement would come next year.
The five-page accord, based on the premise that “climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time,” declares that global warming caused by humans, due to the concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, has to be combated globally. But it recognizes that different nations have different capabilities and responsibilities in this common task and that some of them need international financial and technical support. The accord’s discrimination between developed and developing countries reflects the approach of the Kyoto Protocol. (See my previous column.) This is definitely a victory for developing countries which maintained throughout the conference that any global agreement should be either based on or patterned after the Kyoto Protocol.
The accord, which is not legally binding and therefore does not have to be ratified by national parliaments, was forged at a small meeting of President Obama and the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa, with the notable absence of the EU, when the clock began to run out. The way these five countries, but primarily the US and China, took it upon themselves to break the conference deadlock is revealing about the present dynamics of global geopolitics.
As we would expect from a political statement, the accord lacks specificity. Its two significant specific provisions can be summarized as follows: (1) Reflecting the scientific consensus, it states that the rise in global temperature should be less than 2 degrees Celsius. (But it mentions no specific time for achieving this objective; only that it is should be as soon as possible.) (2) It commits developed countries to providing financial and technical aid to developing countries in their mitigation and adaptation efforts. The financial commitment is up to $30 billion during 2010-2012. Developed countries have committed themselves to a goal of providing $100 billion annually by 2020. (But the accord is vague as to where these funds will come from and who will administer them. Will they come from a global Tobin tax on financial transactions as President Sarkozy has suggested? Will the International Monetary Fund [IMF] or the World Bank administer them?) The performance of the accord will be reviewed by 2015.
The accord, whose meager three-page main text is divided into 12 sections, has two blank appendices titled “Quantified Economy-Wide Emissions Targets for 2020” and “Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions of Developing Country Parties,” both of which are yet to filled out. The first appendix is applicable to the Kyoto Protocol “Annex I Parties,” 40 (industrialized) countries, including Turkey, and separately the EU. (Twenty-three of them and separately the EU comprise the “Annex II” developed countries that incur the costs of developing countries.) Appendix I is to be filled out with the individual or joint quantified economy-wide emission targets for 2020 of Annex I Parties by the end of next January in reinforcing their commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.
Appendix II, on the other hand, is to be filled out with the voluntary mitigating actions of non-Annex I Parties, i.e., developing countries, by the end of next January. Moreover, reflecting the demands of developing countries, especially China, these actions, as long as they do not receive financial support from developed countries, will not be subject to any international monitoring to “ensure that national sovereignty is respected.” Developing countries are merely expected to report to the UNFCCC secretariat on their actions every two years. Those actions that are financially supported by developed countries, however, will be subject to international measurement and verification.
The accord has been immediately and widely criticized by proponents of strong measures against global warming as a sham agreement, a pact for delay rather than action, and an abject historic failure. The lack of specific and legally binding commitments either now or at a specific later date to lower emission targets by developed countries is regarded as its Achilles heel. An angry Greenpeace spokesman referred to the Copenhagen conference as “a crime scene with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport.” Those who are skeptical about global warming and therefore oppose any action for its mitigation have applauded the accord for its weaknesses that will render it ineffective. Those who support the accord, however, argue that it is an “essential beginning” in the face of the tough political obstacles to collective action on the global scale and that combating global warming requires patient long-term commitment as in a marathon race.
The bottom line is that the Copenhagen conference has not evolved as much as expected into a “Hopenhagen” on climate change. But it has also not become a “Flopenhagen” and has at least demonstrated the ability of thousands of delegates from 193 countries, including most of their leaders, to convene to discuss acrimoniously but nevertheless peacefully over two weeks the health of our planet. It is indeed a modest but an essential beginning, a significant milestone. Let’s hope that the next year’s UN climate conference in Mexico City will build on the progress made in Copenhagen.
