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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Climate effort with several brackets by GS Mudur

A mega conference that may determine the future of the planet opens in Copenhagen tomorrow amid widespread fears that years of labyrinthine, almost tortuous, negotiations won't yield what science demands.

An estimated 15,000 delegates from 192 countries are expected to converge at the 15th UN Climate Change Conference to finalise a set of strategies to reduce or limit emissions of Earth-warming greenhouse gases [GHG] in the period beyond 2012.

But on the eve of the conference, climate policy analysts, environmental groups and even negotiators appear concerned that a contentious, but critical, negotiating point remains unresolved and the outcome at Copenhagen will fall short of expectations.

Scientific studies suggest that global GHG emissions should peak before 2018 to prevent a predicted 2 degrees C rise in global temperature, beyond which climate change is expected to lead to catastrophic impacts. Industrialised countries would have to reduce their GHG emissions by 40 per cent below the 1990 level by 2020, a key requirement to limit future global GHG emissions.

"The biggest hurdle -- right now -- appears to be the reluctance of the industrialised countries to agree to deep and ambitious cuts of up to 40 per cent," said a member of India's negotiating team.

"We do not expect to see a full agreement emerge in Copenhagen," the official said. A 250-page draft negotiating text has been whittled down to 163 pages. But virtually every page has bracketed text -- text over which there is no consensus yet.

Several elements of the agreement including how much money the industrialised countries would commit to help developing countries adapt to climate change and pursue clean energy growth also remain to be resolved, officials said.

Some climate policy analysts and environmental groups also fear that Copenhagen may be laying the foundation for a new climate change agreement that will abandon key principles adopted at a conference in Kyoto in 1997.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, only the industrialised countries were expected to take on legally binding GHG emissions reductions commitments -- both during the first phase until 2012, and during the second phase beyond 2012.

But proposals from Australia and the US ahead of the Copenhagen talks suggest an alternative "domestic pledge-and-review" scheme under which all countries would pledge action at home that would be reviewed internationally.

"A domestic pledge-and-review plan would kill the multilateral legally binding process that climate change negotiations have been centred on," said Kushal Yadav, a climate policy analyst with the Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi.

India's unilateral pledges last week to reduce its carbon intensity emissions by 20 per cent below the 2005 level by 2020 appear to fit in well with the pledge-and-review scheme that is being proposed, said Surya Sethi, former principal advisor on energy.

Denmark has proposed a "Copenhagen Political Agreement" that could be translated into a legal form at a later date. But environmental groups caution that this would lead to a long delay and uncertainty over the nature of the eventual accord.

Not everyone is giving up hope though.

"These [GHG emissions cuts by industrialised countries] are very contentious points. A lot will depend on how the talks play out over the next two weeks," said Hilary McMahon, a senior associate at the World Resources Institute, Washington DC.

"This conference is doomed to success -- it has become too [politically] important to be seen as a failure," said Navroz Dubash, an energy and climate policy analyst with the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.

"Any outcome is likely to be portrayed as a successful outcome," he said.

Concerns about less-than-required targets put forward by the industrialised countries are reflected in advertisements placed in Copenhagen airport by the environmental organisation Greenpeace.

A billboard at Copenhagen airport displays the image of an aged Barack Obama, the way he might look 11 years from now -- in 2020. "I'm sorry. We could have stopped catastrophic climate change. We didn't," says the poster. More billboards in the airport show France's Nicolas Sarkozy, and the UK’s Gordon Brown, among other leaders -- all aged and apologetic, ruing inaction.

The US proposal of 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020 is actually only 4 per cent below 1990 levels. This is lower than what the industrialised countries, including the US, were expected to reduce even before 2012.

Greenpeace staff said they are hoping the ads predict a wrong future. "We're asking them to act now -- and change the future. "We're only asking what science demands," a Greenpeace worker said.