The last day of the UN climate conference in Copenhagen ended with a group of countries including the US and China agreeing a deal which the EU early Saturday described as "not perfect" but "better than no deal."
EU: "The only deal available in Copenhagen"
While the head of China’s climate delegation thought “everyone should be happy”, it was uncertain late Friday night whether the “Copenhagen Accord” agreed by the US, China, Brazil, South Africa and India would win broader support among countries.
US President Barack Obama said the deal would be a foundation for global action but there was "much further to go". The head of China’s climate delegation Xie Zhenhua thought “everyone should be happy”, according to Reuters.
An EU spokesperson told BBC News: “What could be agreed today, falls far below our expectations but it keeps our goals and ambitions alive…It was the only deal available in Copenhagen.”
Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, said it was still to be seen how the text would be received by the broader group of countries.
“It's great that a small group of leaders gets together and tries to advance the process. But ultimately the way things work here it has to be acceptable to every country," Yvo de Boer said and continued according to Reuters:
"If this makes it through the meeting in a couple of hours' time then I see it as a modest success. We could have achieved more."
Brazil’s Climate Change Ambassador Sergio Serra called the accord “very disappointing” but not “a failure”.
Greenpeace criticized the accord for not having “targets for carbon cuts and no agreement on a legally binding treaty”. Oxfam International called the deal “a triumph of spin over substance. It recognizes the need to keep warming below two degrees but does not commit to do so. It kicks back the decisions on emissions cuts and fudges the issue of climate cash.”
The so-called Copenhagen Accord confirms the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It sets a maximum of two degrees Celsius average global temperature rise, and states that a review by 2016 should consider if it will be necessary to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
On financing, the Copenhagen Accord says developed countries commit collectively to providing 30 billion US dollars in new, additional funding for developing countries for the 2010-2012 period. It also says developed countries support “a goal of mobilizing jointly 100 billion dollars a year” by 2020 from a variety of sources.
Developed countries commit to at least 80 percent emissions reductions by 2050 in the accord. Commitments on shorter terms have to be settled later.
Supported national mitigation actions will be subject to international measurement, reporting and verification, the accord states. Mitigations actions taken by developed countries will be monitored nationally and reported every second year by guidelines adopted later by the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
US, China, India, Brazil and South Africa reach deal
According to a senior Obama administration official the United States, China, Brazil, India and South Africa have reached a "meaningful agreement" on climate change Friday evening.
The official characterized the deal as a first step, but said it was not enough to combat the threat of a warming planet.
Details of the deal with these emerging economies were not immediately clear.
The agreement was reached Friday at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen after a meeting among President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and South African President Jacob Zuma.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the agreement had not yet been officially announced.
New draft for Copenhagen deal
In a newly written draft named the “Copenhagen Accord” a 2010-deadline for reaching a legally binding climate treaty has been dropped, Reuters reported Friday afternoon.
Earlier it was reported by the media, that the heads of state and government could not agree on what to call the text negotiated.
In the new draft a reference to an end-2010 deadline for reaching a legally binding treaty was removed, compared to a previous draft, Reuters reports.
The draft did still include a limit of a maximum two degree Celsius global average temperature rise.
According to Danish media, a probable scenario at the end of Friday afternoon is that the world leaders continue negotiations until the early evening.
Chávez felt excluded
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez criticized the UN climate conference for “a real lack of transparency”, speaking on behalf of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas.
Chávez underlined that “all countries are equal”. He stressed that he would not accept that some countries prepared a text for a climate deal and just “slipped [it] under the door” to be signed by the others. He said he had heard of the existence of such a text, but “we don’t know the paper” and then continued by accusing the conference of “a real lack of transparency”.
Hugo Chávez suggested he would leave the UN climate conference in protest of the way it developed.
“We can’t wait any longer, we are leaving … We are leaving, knowing that it wasn’t possible getting a deal,” he said.
The Venezuelan President spoke on behalf of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, an alliance of among others Ecuador, Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia.
EU challenges US and China
The European Union makes clear it is ready to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2020 compared to 1990 levels - if the US and China "do their part".
The European Union will raise its emission reduction target from the 20 percent previously announced by 2020 to 30 percent "in a global ambitious agreement".
This was announced by Fredrik Reinfeldt, Prime Minister of Sweden that holds the rotating EU presidency, as he addressed the plennary of the UN conference in Copenhagen on Friday afternoon.
"We use the conditional 30 percent reduction as a lever to bring others with us to raised ambitions. We will keep that pressure!" Fredrik Reinfeldt said.
More specifically he challenged the United States and China:
"Together you are responsible for half of the global greenhouse gas emissions. You have different responsibilities and capabilities. From the United States we expect, as from developed countries, a legally binding economy-wide commitment to reduce emissions. From China we expect binding actions. Your ability to reduce emissions will be absolutely critical. It is promising that you have come forward with your contributions in an international context. However, the world needs more and we are confident that you have the ability to deliver more."
The present ambitions of the US and China will not be enough to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius, Fredrik Reinfeldt made clear:
"Therefore I turn to you, as a friend and a committed partner, and I say: United States and China: unleash your full potential and thereby the world's efforts - make it possible for the world to stay below two degrees!"
Obama: I came here to act
"Our ability to take collective action is in doubt," US President Barack Obama warned the plenary at COP15.
Being the world largest economy and second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, America has a responsibility, he said, and added that America would continue to move toward a green economy – "but we will be stronger if we act together," he said.
He told the heads of state and governments that it is imperative with a "mechanism to review whether we are keeping our commitments, and to exchange this information in a transparent manner." Without such accountability, any agreement would be "empty words on a page".
"Mitigation. Transparency. And financing. It is a clear formula - one that embraces the principle of common but differentiated responses and respective capabilities. And it adds up to a significant accord – one that takes us further than we have ever gone before as an international community", Obama said in his address.
Finally he urged world leaders to "choose action over inaction; the future over the past - with courage and faith, let us meet our responsibility to our people and to the future of our planet".
Brazil ready to provide funding
As the first developing country, Brazil offers to contribute to the finance mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol – if an agreement is reached in Copenhagen Friday, says President Lula.
In what he admitted might come as a surprise to his own countrymen, Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva (photo above) opened a door for his country to contribute economically to climate change measures in other, more needing countries.
"I have not said this at home, and not even to my team here in Copenhagen, but if it is necessary for Brazil to tap money to other countries, we will be willing to participate in the (UN) finance mechanisms – IF we reach a global agreement here in Copenhagen today," Lula said as he addressed the plenary of the UN conference shortly after noon Friday local time.
Also on the subject of funding, the President said he understood demands Thursday by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for transparency on the part of developing countries:
"Those countries that provide funds have the right to demand transparency."
Still, Lula underlined that the monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of emerging economy emissions" should respect the sovereignty of each country" and that action on climate change should not hamper economic growth in the developing world:
"For a lot of people in Brazil, in Africa, in India, China and other developing countries three meals a day is still something of the future."
President Lula also said that he did not favor agreeing on a statement "only to be able to say we agreed on something." Instead "we should together, rich and poor countries, establish a common ground for an agreement, so we can leave Copenhagen proud."
World leaders in last-minute climate talks
The UN climate talks were in serious disarray Friday, prompting President Barack Obama to upend his schedule and hold close-door talks with 19 other world leaders to work out a last-minute agreement on fighting global warming.
Delegates earlier blamed both the US and China for the lack of a political agreement that Obama, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and more than 110 other world leaders are supposed to sign within hours.
But French President Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking after the unscheduled meeting with Obama and the other leaders, said progress in the climate talks was being held back by China.
Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said the US president met with world leaders from China and Russia, both seen as key participants in the climate talks, as well as the heads of state from wealthy nations like Australia, the United Kingdom, France and Germany and those from developing countries like Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Colombia.
"Most of the leaders are still working out to produce a meaningful agreement to be adopted," Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kazuo Kodama said.
The lack of a deal caused leaders to throw out the planned timetable for the final day of the two-week UN climate conference, with their informal talks delaying the opening of the regular session.
Broad disputes continued behind closed doors between wealthy nations and developing ones, delegates said — the divide that from the start has dogged the two-week UN climate conference, which aimed to reach agreements on deeper reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming.
No agreed text had emerged as presidents and premiers were gathering at a Copenhagen convention hall, said Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren.
"It is now up to world leaders to decide," he said, suggesting they would be pressed to make last-minute decisions on the thrust of the climate declaration.
Carlgren, negotiating on behalf of the 27-nation European Union, blamed the morning's impasse on the Chinese for "blocking again and again," and on the U.S. for coming too late with an improved offer, a long-range climate aid program announced Thursday by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
A leading African delegate, meanwhile, complained bitterly about the proposed declaration. "It's weak. There's nothing ambitious in this text," Lumumba Di-Aping of Sudan, a leader of the developing nations bloc, said Friday.
Delegates filtering out of the predawn discussions Friday sounded disappointed.
"It's a political statement, but it isn't a lot," said Chinese delegate Li Junhua.
"It would be a major disappointment. A political declaration would not guarantee our survival," said Selwin Hart, a delegate from Barbados speaking for the Alliance of Small Island States, many of which are threatened by seas rising form global warming.
World leaders handed off the draft text of about three pages at about 3 a.m. local time to their ministers and they continued to work on it through the night. But by 5 a.m., negotiators from Mexico and the G-77 plus China said they were nowhere near agreement on the final document.
China and India signal progress on transparency
The world's two largest emerging economies both respond positively to a call from US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. "We are 75 percent underway with a solution," says Indian minister.
Both China and India are prepared to give the international community more insight into their national measures to mitigate climate change. As US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, assured Thursday that the US is onboard a solution for financing for the developing world, she also attached conditions to the offer. Particularly that China - the world's biggest emitter - and other large emerging economies would accept independent scrutiny of their commitments to limit emissions over the coming decade.
"If there is not even a commitment to some sort of transparency, then that’s kind of a deal-breaker for us. There has to be a commitment to transparency." Hillary Clinton told a press conference, according to Times Online.
Several media report China ready to let its climate measures be subject to outside verification.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei told reporters at a news conference that his government is open to "dialogue and cooperation that is not intrusive, that does not infringe on China's sovereignty."
Times Online quotes Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh as saying that Hillary Clinton's offer "demonstrates a seriousness on the part of the Americans to recognize that financing is a crucial element of climate change" and that the question of monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of emerging economy emissions is close to a solution.
"I'm sure that we will be able to arrive at a mutually acceptable solution to this MRV, the MRV issue which the Americans are raising in relation to China, India, Brazil and South Africa. We have a 75 percent solution, we just need to find the 25 percent," Jairam Ramesh says.
Hillary Clinton brings positive momentum
After statements by the US Secretary of State on financing, a number of key players have agreed on a draft text that will be discussed on the UN conference's last day.
Statements Thursday by Hillary Clinton brought new energy to stalled negotiations in Copenhagen. The US Secretary of State assured that the US supports 100 billion US dollars to be provided annually for climate change measures in the developing world by 2020, and that the US is ready to pay its share.
During the night, Ms. Clinton together with heads of state or government from 25 major economies, EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon drafted a text to provide the foundation for the discussions on the conference's final day, Friday.
Clinton's announcement on funding was widely praised.
According to AP, Yoshiko Kijima, a senior Japanese negotiator, said it sent "a strong signal by Obama (due to arrive in Copenhagen Friday morning) that he will persuade his own people that we need to show something to developing countries. I really respect that"; Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren said Clinton added "political momentum"; and India's Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh called it "a good step forward."
The draft text also states that the rise in global temperature should be kept below two degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels.
Source> http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=3064
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