- photo by Chris Benjamin
Twitter was so right. Hours before the Globe and Mail posted the story rumours started circulating that leaders had failed to make a deal and had been asked to stick it out another day.
The PMO’s office denies it but says “negotiations are still ongoing.” Somebody should tell Russia’s Medvedev that; apparently he left already.
The good news is that today’s draft documents (which amazingly were made public without being leaked) could create an agreement to try and stop the global temperature from rising more than two degrees Celsius. If average global temperatures rise by more than that the heavens will rain apocalyptic hail and winds and so-forth.
The “leaders” have apparently agreed to cut greenhouse gas emission by half from 1990 levels by 2050. Industrialized countries would aim for an 80 percent reduction, putting them in line with Barack Obama’s goals. There would also be a $100 billion-a-year fund for poor countries to help them green their economies. Sounds pretty good except that 2050 is a long way out. Depending how quickly we move on targets we could easily go above that two degree threshold by then.
The commitment will probably be completely toothless, but in my mind it beats coming up with a toothy protocol with namby-pamby commitments like “reduce emissions by one percent below 2020 emissions.” As I’ve been pointing out, cramming the world’s future into three days of actual negotiations is just stupid.
If we end up with a vague agreement in principle, the question then becomes, what next? Do we wait until the next regularly scheduled COP meeting, wasting precious time conducting business as usual? Or do we move quickly to turn “in principle” into something legally binding and quantifiable.
From the sounds of it, it will be the former. The wording of the draft seems to indicate that there will be no firm starting date and no timeline for using any Copenhagen agreement to make a legally-binding treaty.
[By the way, if you aren’t afraid of global warming yet: Wend Travel Magazine reports that hops and barley will fail if the planet keeps warming. That’s right, no more beer.]
This article appears in Dec 17-23, 2009.
An Inconvenient Truth :
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/c…
‘…Yet the key element of the agreement, a timetable for making its commitments legally binding by this time next year, was taken out at the last minute at the insistence of the Chinese, who otherwise would have refused to agree to the deal.’
‘Also removed, at Chinese insistence, was a statement of a global goal to cut carbon emissions by 50 per cent by 2050, and for the developed world to cut its emissions by 80 per cent by the same date. The latter is regarded as essential if the world is to stay below the danger threshold of a two-degree Centigrade temperature rise.
China “systematically wrecked” the Copenhagen climate summit because it feared being presented with a legally binding target to cut the country’s soaring carbon emissions, a senior official from an EU country, present during the negotiations, told The Independent on Sunday yesterday.
The accusation, backed up by a separate eye-witness account from the heart of the talks of obstructive Chinese behaviour, reflected widespread anger among many delegations about the nation’s actions at the conference.
Yet the key element of the agreement, a timetable for making its commitments legally binding by this time next year, was taken out at the last minute at the insistence of the Chinese, who otherwise would have refused to agree to the deal.
Also removed, at Chinese insistence, was a statement of a global goal to cut carbon emissions by 50 per cent by 2050, and for the developed world to cut its emissions by 80 per cent by the same date. The latter is regarded as essential if the world is to stay below the danger threshold of a two-degree Centigrade temperature rise.’
China, with its rapidly expanding economy, has now overtaken the US as the world’s biggest CO2 emitter, and although at the meeting it agreed for first time to a target to constrain its emissions growth in an international instrument, it is desperate not to have that made legally binding, the official said. He added: “This conference has been systematically wrecked by the Chinese government, which has adopted tactics that were inexplicable at first as we had been led to believe they wanted an agreement.”
Even more pointed allegations about Chinese behaviour came last night from another source at the heart of the negotiations.
The source was present as heads of state and government drafted the final document, and gave the IoS an astonishing eyewitness account. He said: “There were 25 heads of state in the room; this was about six o’clock on Friday night. To my right there was President Obama in the corner, with Gordon Brown on one side, the Ethiopian President on the other, the President of Mexico, the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea…
“If China had not been in that room you would have had a deal which would have had everyone popping champagne corks. But this was the first sign that China is emerging as a superpower, which is not interested in global government, is not interested in multilateral governance that affects its own sovereignty or growth. You could tell this lack of engagement through the process; they play a much cleverer game than anyone else. They were running rings around the Americans. ‘
“It’s always easier to block than to try and get something. The Americans will probably be given some of the blame because that’s the conventional narrative all the pressure groups have – that the rich countries are bad, they didn’t give enough money or they would not create enough mitigation targets.”
The source went on: “But the truth is, I was in that meeting and the ‘Annex 1′, rich countries had mitigation targets of 80 per cent by 2050 which everyone supported, and it was taken out by the Chinese. The deal was watered down because the Chinese wouldn’t accept any targets of any sort, for anybody. Not themselves or anybody else. Legally binding stuff was taken out by the Chinese as well and there was a lot of anger in the room. It was controlled but it was very, very clear what the feelings were.’
China cannot be trusted they sell poisoned food, build schools that fall down, run tanks over dissidents and lie.
BOYCOTT Chinese imports !