Letter from Copenhagen
Celebration or sorrow? In one major way, the Copenhagen Accord was a big success, writes the Smith School’s Dan Bodansky in his final blog following the end of the climate talks
Although most countries endorsed the Copenhagen Accord, few left Copenhagen in a positive mood. The general lack of enthusiasm about the outcome was exacerbated by the procedural wrangling on the final day about whether to “adopt” or merely “take note of” the Accord, which left delegates in a dispirited mood, both about the prospects for halting climate change and about the UNFCCC process more generally, which was hijacked at this meeting by the likes of Sudan and Venezuela.
Is the Copenhagen Accord a cause for celebration or sorrow? Should it be deemed a success? As always, the answer depends on how we define success (and, of course, on future events).
If our standard is problem-solving, then I think virtually everyone would agree that the Copenhagen Accord does not put us on an emissions pathway that would achieve the UNFCCC’s ultimate objective, namely, to prevent “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”
Most scientists think that preventing dangerous climate change requires us to limit CO2 concentrations to, at most, 450 ppm and to limit temperature change to 2C – and some think that we should be aiming for 350 ppm (less than current concentration levels) and 1.5 degrees temperature change.
A UN report leaked during the conference confirmed what most observers already knew – that the emissions reduction pledges that the US, EU, Japan, China, India, Brazil and other major economies put on the table prior to Copenhagen (which the Copenhagen Accord is intended to memorialise) do not put us on a pathway to 450 ppm / 2C temperature change, much less the more ambitious goals of 350 ppm and 1.5C.
Another test of effectiveness proposed by political scientists is behavioral change: Is the Copenhagen Accord likely to cause states to change their behavior? Again, the answer depends in part on our reference point.
The emissions reduction numbers that are expected to be memorialised in the appendices to the Accord are likely to be the same as those that countries already made public prior to Copenhagen: a 20 per cent reduction in absolute emissions (relative to 1990 levels) by EU countries, a circa 17 per cent reduction by the US (relative to 2005) levels, a 40-45 per cent reduction in carbon intensity by China, a 20-25 reduction in carbon intensity by India, and so forth.
So it would appear that the Copenhagen Accord will merely confirm what states were already planning to do, rather than leading them to ratchet up their level of effort. But I think that Copenhagen supporters are also probably right that, but for the Copenhagen process, countries would not have made these emission reduction pledges in the first place.
So the Copenhagen conference was arguably important as a means of spurring national action (or at least pledges of action – whether countries actually meet their pledges remains to be seen).
A third test of success is whether Copenhagen achieved as much as politically possible. Was it the best that one could have realistically hoped for, or did it leave money on the table, so to speak? This is the test of effectiveness proposed by Arild Underdal (of the University of Oslo) and others.
Scored on this basis, I think Copenhagen was a big success. Granted, the Copenhagen Accord is weak in many respects: it is a political rather than a legal instrument (nor does it even call for negotiation of a legal agreement); it does not include any long-term goal for emission reductions (for example, the 50% reduction by 2050 that OECD countries have endorsed) or greenhouse gas concentrations; it does not contain more ambitious emission targets; and it does not establish a compliance system for either developed or developing countries.
But I don’t think anyone could have reasonably expected any of these outcomes, given the opposition of some developing countries (in particular, China) to emissions reduction commitments or to international verification much less a compliance system, and given the unwillingness of (a) the US to accept binding emission targets if China does not do so and (b) the EU to accept a second commitment period of Kyoto if the US does not have comparable, legally-binding commitments and if China and other major developing country economies do not accept a legal agreement with emissions reduction pledges.
The Copenhagen Conference put in sharp relief the inconvenient truth that the legal position of China and other major developing countries (including India) has moved very little since the UNFCCC process began almost two decades ago: they continue to argue (with some justification!) that they should not be subject to emissions reduction commitments because they did not create the climate change problem and have less capacity to address it.
The 1995 Berlin Mandate allowed the regime to “progress” by focusing only on developed country emissions, leaving developing country emissions to the side. But since the adoption of the Marrakesh Accords in 2001, the central axis in the negotiations has shifted from EU-US to developed-developing.
At each successive COP, the inability to make progress on the core substantive issues has been papered over by decisions that focused either on procedure (setting up the two ad hoc working groups on the KP and UNFCCC in 2005 and 2007 respectively) or on less controversial issues such as adaptation. But this situation could not continue indefinitely, and Copenhagen brought to a head the continued divisions between developed and developing countries.
Given this dynamic, the Copenhagen Accord represents a potentially significant breakthrough, which required direct negotiations between President Obama and the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa (joined later by the EU and another dozen or so other countries).
As a political necessity, the Accord continues to reflect the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. On the one hand, developed countries committed to implement economy-wide emission reduction objectives (which will be listed in an appendix), subject to international monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV).
On the other hand, developing country actions are explicitly subject to international MRV only if they receive financial support. Nevertheless, the Copenhagen Accord reflected a considerable shift by China, India, Brazil and South Africa, which begins to break the so-called “firewall” between developed and developing countries.
For the first time, the major developing countries agreed to reflect their national emission reduction pledges in an international instrument and to report on their mitigation actions in biennial national communications, which will be subject to “international consultation and analysis under clearly defined guidelines that will ensure that national sovereignty is respected.”
This may seem like a rather modest achievement; but it represents the first time that these countries accepted any type of “internationalisation” of their pledges and any kind of international review.
Only the future will tell whether the Copenhagen Accord represents a genuine shift of views by China, India and other developing countries, or a one-time event, grudgingly accepted under unusual pressure. Although the Accord asserts that it will be “operational immediately,” fully operationalising its terms will require further acts – for example, to spell out the “guidelines” for international consultation and analysis of developing country actions, and to establish the various bodies envisaged in the Accord (a High Level Panel to study potential sources of revenue, the Copenhagen Green Climate Fund, and a new Technology Mechanism).
Ordinarily, this work would be carried out by the COP. But given the inability in Copenhagen to get a COP decision adopting the Copenhagen Accord, the prospect for implementing the Accord through COP decisions appears uncertain at best, and it is unclear what other forum could do so. Thus, it would be relatively easy for a subset of developing countries to undermine the Copenhagen Accord through procedural gambits.
The first test will come next month, when countries are supposed to come forward with their emission reduction numbers for the Accord’s appendices. Will some developing countries attempt to block the Accord from taking effect, by not allowing the UNFCCC secretariat to serve as the focal point for receiving these national submissions?
Let us hope not, since the Copenhagen Accord – as the most that world leaders could agree through extraordinary, direct negotiations — is likely to represent the high-water mark of the climate change regime for some time to come.
19 December 2009
Sleepless in Copenhagen
In his third blog from Copenhagen climate talks, the Smith School’s Dan Bodansky describes how the negotiating impasse was eventually broken
The Copenhagen conference limped to a finish mid-day Saturday after “working” throughout the night. These all night sessions on the closing day are becoming a COP ritual, with people spending most of their time waiting around the conference room while small huddles of key delegations try to find a face-saving way to declare victory and go home.
The issue last night was how the so-called Copenhagen Accord that President Obama had personally helped to broker during his 12 hour touchdown in Copenhagen on Friday would be reflected in the official decisions of the conference.
The Danes proposed that the Copenhagen Accord be adopted as a COP decision, but a small group of countries that had played the spoiler role throughout the conference (Sudan, Venezuela, and Bolivia, joined last night by Cuba and Nicaragua) objected, arguing that the Copenhagen Accord be included simply in a “miscellaneous” (or “MISC”) document, with the same status as the submission, say, of Tuvalu.
Ultimately, the impasse was broken through a decision to “take note of” the Copenhagen Accord, giving it some status in the UNFCCC process but not as much as approval by the conference of the parties.
The debate last night continued the theme of legitimacy that I discussed in my second post. The spoiler countries couched their arguments in the language of legitimacy, arguing that adoption of an agreement made by a limited group of countries behind closed doors would be illegitimate and undemocratic (the rhetoric on this was really quite amazing.)
Since the Copenhagen Accord had been initially agreed among the US, China, India, Brazil and South Africa, joined later by the UK, Germany, and France, among others, and since the agreement had been endorsed by all of the UN regional groups, this led to the bizarre spectacle of a handful of countries essentially thumbing their nose (through UN procedures) at a decision personally agreed by the heads of state(or government) of all of the major world powers and endorsed by the vast majority of countries at the meeting.
Two other quick observations about Copenhagen. First, the Conference revealed the deep fissures among developing countries on the climate change issue and the complete breakdown of the G-77 as a negotiating block.
In the closing plenary last night, Papua New Guinea openly said that in the Copenhagen Accord negotiations on Friday, proposals for stronger language about emissions reductions, which small island states had desperately sought, had been blocked by major developing country emitters (i.e., China and India), not by developed countries.
He went on to chastise other developing countries for sending mid-level negotiators to the final meetings where the Copenhagen Accord was hammered out, rather than their heads of state – a signal of disrespect to the heads of state in the room working on the deal.
Second, the Conference brought home to me the power of the internet as a source of information. Throughout Friday, participants inside the Bella Center who had sweated blood to get their names on the small list of those who were admitted had virtually no idea what was going inside the building.
This included not only environmental and business observers, but 99 per cent of government delegates – in essence, all but the extremely small number of people actually working on the deal.
As the day unfolded, I found that the most reliable source of information was not what people were saying inside the conference hall (virtually all of which was simply rumor) but rather the AP pool twitter site, which came from reporters staked out around the room where the negotiations were actually being conducted.
So, ironically, rather than spend the time, money, and carbon emissions to come to Copenhagen, one could have followed the conference equally well or, in some respects, better in the comfort of one’s own home!
17 December 2009
The Illegitimacy of Legitimacy
The Copenhagen text is a mess almost guaranting no deal at Copenhagen climate talks, blogs the Smith School’s Dan Bodansky.
With the hours counting down to the end of the Copenhagen conference, real substantive negotiations have ye to begin. Instead, the focus has been almost exclusively on procedure.
All week, the Danes have wanted to put forward their own compromise text, which would be negotiated in a smaller group – the approach typically used to hammer out an agreement. But some developing countries – most notably Sudan, Bolivia and Venezuela, apparently with the at least tacit support of China – have rejected this approach, arguing that it lacks transparency and is illegitimate.
Instead, they have insisted that the only “legitimate negotiating process” is to continue to negotiate on the basis of the heavily bracketed text that emerged over the last two years in the two ad-hoc working groups, in negotiating groups open to participation by all parties.0
In my view, this process virtually guarantees that the Copenhagen conference will not produce a meaningful agreement, since the texts emerging from the two ad hoc working groups are a mess, with multiple options within options, and negotiating them in an open-ended group, with hundreds of delegations, is a recipe for deadlock.
The refusal by some developing countries to allow the Danes to introduce a text or to negotiate in a smaller group is made in the name of ensuring a legitimate, transparent, democratic process. But another way of understanding it is as a cynical effort by certain countries to use procedural objections to prevent a substantive agreement.
Yesterday, after the Danes said they would table new texts, developing countries objected and the formal meetings were suspended for most of the day while the Danes consulted with developing countries about how to proceed.
Reportedly, the G-77 (the developing country negotiating group) refused to participate in a smaller group organised by the Danish presidency to have substantive negotiations.
Today, in a desperate effort to move from procedure to substance, the Danes accepted the procedural approach insisted upon by developing countries. They promised not to introduce any new texts, and convened two “contact groups” that are open-ended in participation, to consider the texts forwarded from the ad hoc working groups.
Meanwhile, it appears increasingly likely that the conference outcome will be a short political declaration largely devoid of substance, and a procedural decision to continue the “process,” such as it is.
The ultimate question, of course, is whether there is a deal to be had that bridges the gap between the US, which wants a common legal framework for developed and developing countries, including common provisions on monitoring, reporting and verification; the major developing country economies, which want to preserve the strong differentiation reflected in Kyoto; and the European Union, which would be willing to commit to another round of Kyoto-like targets, but only if the US is subject to a comparable regime and developing countries are willing to join a new legal agreement that subjects them to stronger commitments.
14 December 2009
Copenhagen is in chaos
In his second blog from UN climate talks in Copenhagen, the Smith School’s Dan Bodansky says the walk out yesterday by developing countries was difficult to understand.
The climate negotiations ground to a halt for much of yesterday, as negotiators debated the organisation of work for this second and final week of the meeting.
The ostensible cause of the breakdown was concern among some developing countries that the Kyoto Protocol track in the negotiations is moving more slowly, and getting less attention, than the Convention track, the so-called Long-Term Cooperation Action track, or LCA. The LCA track is also moving very slowly, however, so it was a bit difficult to understand the concern.
For many members of the G-77, the 77 developing nations, differentiation enshrined in the Kyoto Protocol between developed countries, which have quantified emission reduction targets, and developing countries, which have not, is sacred.
All last week, developing countries were emphasising the importance of continuing the Kyoto Protocol, rather than merging it into a single comprehensive agreement that addresses both developed and developing countries as the EU, Japan and other industrialised countries would prefer.
At the procedural level, this developing country position is reflected in a desire to maintain complete separation between the two tracks in the negotiations, rather than merging them into a single discussion, as the Danes apparently envisaged.
But whether substantive concerns about the Kyoto Protocol’s future fully explained yesterday’s events is open to question. The organisation of work envisaged by the Danes, as Convention president, had apparently received tacit approval at a ministerial meeting on Sunday.
So there was no reason why developing countries that had accepted the work program then should suddenly object on Monday. One possible explanation is that Sunday’s ministerial meeting included only a select group of about forty countries, and yesterday’s walk out reflected a move by countries excluded from Sunday’s meeting to reassert themselves.
Others speculate that yesterday’s events reflected a reaction by negotiators worried that ministers might be too willing to reach agreement. Whatever the explanation, the Conference lost the best part of a day, leaving only two days before heads of state arrive.
Ultimately, the Danish president convened a ministerial-level group to consider Kyoto Protocol issues, and a series of ministerial-led groups to consider particular issues in the LCA, including: the long-term goal of limiting temperature change to, for example, 2 degreesC; the way in which developing country actions are reflected; and the scale of financial contributions.
The other issues in the LCA, not elevated to the ministerial level, will continue to be discussed this morning in the various LCA contact groups, with the LCA in theory scheduled to wrap up its work tonight and to report back to the Confernce tomorrow morning.
Overall the Conference is chaotic. Some participants apparently spent the most of yesterday outside waiting in the registration line. Meanwhile, inside, NGO observers sang songs, strummed the guitar, and organised a ‘crime scene’ with Sherlock Holmes inspecting a chalk drawing on the floor of Africa.
With the number of registered participants far exceeding the capacity of the conference, security guards will begin restricting access tomorrow, with each NGO receiving only a limited number of slots.
10 December 2009
Letter from Copenhagen
The Smith School’s Dan Bodansky blogs from the Copenhagen climate talks
Under grey skies, the Copenhagen Climate Conference began this week in a sprawling complex at the edge of the city. Whether anything will actually happen here to address climate change remains an open question. But the conference is definitely a happening. Reportedly, more than 40,000 people have registered and the conference has dramatically more energy than the lead-up meetings (although that is an admittedly low standard of comparison). Indeed, my sense is that it’s on a bigger scale than any environmental meeting since Rio. And the energy will only build next week, with the arrival of more than 100 heads of state.
In theory, the outlook here should look bright, since the core substantive elements of the “deal” are already on the table. The major emitters have put forward their provisional national emission targets: 20-30% reductions from 1990 levels for the EU, in the range of 17% reductions from 2005 levels for the US, a 40-45% improvement in carbon intensity for China, and a 20-25% intensity target for India. Although these numbers fall short of putting the world on a pathway towards the goal of limiting climate change to 2 degrees (indeed, there is disagreement whether the Chinese number is any improvement on BAU), I think few realistically expect them to be tightened during the course of the conference (although the EU has criticized both the US and EU numbers as too weak, so I may easily be proved wrong). Similarly, the figure of $10 billion annually in near-term (“fast start”) financial assistance, which the US and EU have endorsed, may not meet the financial needs of developing countries, but I don’t think it will be the subject of further negotiations.
With these substantive elements in place, one might expect a deal to be easy, but the reality is far different. Not only do the various negotiating texts remain a mess, there is still no political agreement on the “architectural” aspects of the regime, including the legal form of the ultimate outcome. The divergence of views is reflected in the two texts that are informally circulating at the meeting: a text that the Danish presidency put forward last month at a pre-COP ministerial meeting, which has drawn significant fire from developing countries; and the BASIC text developed by Brazil, South Africa, India and China (the so-called BASIC group). And the opening days of the session revealed the growing rifts within the G-77 (the developing country negotiating group) between those who favor a weaker and stronger outcome.
The following is a brief summary of the key issues in the negotiations:
Legal form
Although most now agree that Copenhagen will produce only an interim political outcome, there is still significant disagreement about the legal architecture of the ultimate (post-Copenhagen) deal. Countries are now split into three groups. First, most developed countries prefer doing away with the Kyoto Protocol and replacing it with a single new legal agreement that would include both developed and developing countries. Most of the big developing countries (such as China, India and Brazil) support only an amendment to the Kyoto Protocol but no new legal agreement. And AOSIS countries prefer a continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, but supplemented by a new legal agreement that would be more comprehensive in coverage (including the US and major developing countries).
Yesterday, Tuvalu – joined by other islands states and many least-developed countries – proposed the creation of a contact group to consider proposals for a new protocol to supplement Kyoto. This was opposed by China, India, Brazil, and the OPEC states, which are not ready to concede that the Copenhagen process should result in a new legal agreement, rather than simply an amendment to the Kyoto Protocol (limited to new targets for developed countries). When consensus could not be reached to establish a new contact group, Tuvalu demanded that the conference of the parties (COP) be suspended.
The Tuvalu proposal clearly threw down the gauntlet and represented an effort by island states to signal that they intend to play a more central role in Copenhagen, after many years when they have become increasingly marginalized in the negotiations. It is more difficult, however, to understand the substantive rationale for the proposal, since the existing Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperation (AWG-LCA) already has within its purview the proposals made by a number of states (including the US) for a new legal agreement. The debate yesterday is also significant for revealing the growing rifts within the G-77 between the big players (China, India, Brazil, South Africa) on the one hand (joined yesterday by OPEC countries) and the island states and less-developed countries on the other. Interestingly, in a long and contentious session, the developed countries stayed largely silent, apparently content to let the G-77 countries fight among themselves.
Legal character of mitigation actions and commitments
In addition to the overarching question of legal form, there are also a variety of views about the legal character of particular elements of the ultimate agreement:
• For developed country commitments, the EU and developing countries support Kyoto-style targets – that is, economy-wide absolute emission targets, with international accounting. The US, in contrast, has proposed national emissions targets that would be subject to national accounting rules, allowing countries to define their targets in somewhat different ways in their national legislation. This position reflects the calculation by US negotiators that the US would be unable to ratify an agreement that diverged in any respect from US domestic climate legislation.
• For developing country actions (such as the intensity targets put forward by China and India), developed countries would like these to be internationalized through inclusion on a schedule that would be legally-binding. Developing countries want their targets to be purely national in nature.
Long-term vision
There is now widespread agreement among both developed and developing countries on the goal of limiting temperature change to 2 degrees. Developed countries have further agreed on a mid-term emissions target of a 50% reduction in global emissions by 2050 (the 50 by 50 goal). Although developed countries have pledged to reduce their own emissions by 80% by 2050, achieving a 50% reduction in global emissions would still require developing country emissions to peak and begin to decline prior to 2050. As a result, developing countries have refused to accept the 50 by 50 goal. The differing “long-term visions” are reflected in the Danish and BASIC texts. The Danish text accepts the 50 by 50 goal, the 80% emission reduction by developed countries, and the need for developing country emissions to peak and begin to decline prior to 2050. In contrast, the BASIC text accepts only the 2 degree goal and calls on developed countries to “undertake ambitious long-term and mid-term quantified emission reduction targets and to provide adequate and effective finance, technology transfer and capacity building support to developing countries.”
Financial assistance
Although there is general agreement on initial funding of $10 billion annually, the longer term financial arrangements remain unresolved, including the overall scale of funding as well as the institutional arrangements for finance.
MRV and compliance
Finally, MRV (monitoring, reporting and verification) and compliance remain contentious. Key issues include:
• Whether large developing countries will be subject to greenhouse gas inventory reporting and review procedures similar to those for developed countries.
• Whether nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs) by developing countries will be subject only to national verification, or whether there will be any process of international verification.
• Whether there will be only a consultative process relating to compliance or something stronger.
To oversimplify a bit, there are three general approaches to MRV/compliance issues: first, a highly differentiated regime, with strict standards for developed countries and weaker procedures for developing countries; second, a weaker review process (possibly modeled on the trade-policy review mechanism) that would apply equally to all parties; and third, a stronger compliance system (possibly including a procedure for determinations of non-compliance) that would apply equally to all countries.
All of these issues would be difficult to negotiate even in a perfect world. But, as anyone who’s been to a climate meeting knows, the climate negotiations fall well short of perfection. And, despite massive efforts by the Danish hosts, the Copenhagen meeting is an unusually chaotic process, even by the climate regime’s low standards. So while some assume that the presence of more than 100 heads of state next week will create an irresistible pressure for agreement, I think the outcome remains very much in doubt. So stay tuned….
Professor Dan Bodansky is a Smith School Visiting Fellow and a leading academic at the University of Georgia School of Law
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