How Successful Was Copenhagen?

How Successful Was Copenhagen?

The Copenhagen climate conference would arguably have been a total failure if it had not been for the 'Copenhagen Accord' initiated by President Obama.

The Copenhagen Accord was brokered by Barack Obama, Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier. along with 25 other nations. Although most parties to this accord agreed that global temperatures could not rise above 2 degrees Celsius, no firm resolution to reduce emissions was achieved. The accord was effectively one of intent only and is not legally binding. Indeed, parties to the accord merely agreed to ‘take note’ of it.

The Road to Copenhagen

Initially, Copenhagen was intended to lay the basis for a legally binding carbon reduction scheme beyond 2012, when the conditions of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol are due to expire. Alternatively labelled ‘COP 15’, this conference was the 15th Conference of Parties set up by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).COP 11 in Montreal, COP 12 in Nairobi, COP 13 in Bali and COP 14 in Poland involved negotiations leading up to Copenhagen, and much hope was held for the outcomes of COP 15 in these gatherings.

The ‘Bali Road Map’, for instance, which emerged from COP13, included plans to reduce deforestation, and to negotiate issues of mitigation, adaptation, technology and financing among UNFCCC countries. All nations present signed the agreement to consider these issues. Results in Poland were less optimistic; several developed nations, including Japan and Australia, rejected a further decrease in mid-term reduction goals and there was no general consensus among industrialised nations on long term emission targets.

COP14 did, however, produce practical technological and financial emission reduction strategies that could be adopted by developing countries. It was envisaged that Copenhagen would cement these goals into some sort of enforceable extension of Kyoto’s achievements.

What Were the Achievements of Kyoto?

To understand the Copenhagen agreement it must then be viewed in the light of what was achieved in Kyoto. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol involved a legally binding agreement among the 186 countries that have ratified it. It stipulates that the 39 ‘Annex 1’, or developed, countries reduce their collective greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% (compared to 1990 levels) by 2012.

Means of achieving these reductions are permitted to be flexible and range from emissions trading schemes, ‘Joint Implementation’ (in which developed countries receive ‘emission reduction units’ for assisting transitional countries to reduce their emissions) and the ‘Clean Development Mechanism’, where developed countries receive credits for financing emission reduction projects in poorer nations.

Non Annex 1 countries- the so-called ‘developing nations’, were given no legally binding emission reduction targets but were given incentives to develop carbon reduction projects in exchange for carbon credits.

Enforcement of the Kyoto Protocol

The above reductions are enforceable as a result of the Marrakesh Accords, which developed a compliance system for Kyoto. Delegates from the Kyoto enforcement committee are permitted to enforce sanctions against Annex 1 countries that do not meet their emission targets or who fail to regularly submit emission updates. Countries that exceed their emissions targets will be required to make up the difference as soon as possible in addition to reducing emissions by another 30%. They will also be temporarily excluded from emissions trading schemes.

But how enforceable are these emission targets in reality? Ulfstein and Werksman point out that some of the chosen deterrents in the Kyoto protocol, such as increasing emission targets by 30% for infringing parties, may not be as effective as has been predicted. Moreover, Halvorssen and Hovi have stated that ‘ A country that deliberately fails to abide by other legally binding commitments under the Kyoto Protocol is also likely to resist the application of punitive consequences, regardless of whether these consequences are made legally binding or not.’

Outcomes of Copenhagen

In the light of this, the fact that Copenhagen achieved nothing legally binding may not be of consequence. What may be more important is the involvement of the United States, previously notorious for its non ratification of Kyoto, and the intentions agreed to. Some of these include the establishment of the ‘Copenhagen Green Carbon Fund’, which pledges 30 million dollars in the next three years, with a planned 100 billion per year by 2020 to vulnerable developing nations to help mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change.

Another major consensus was that global temperatures should not increase by more than 2 degrees, and that the Accord should be reviewed by 2015 to discuss whether 1.5 degrees would be a better target. In addition, developing nations have agreed to submit reports of their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emission every two years.

Nevertheless, many parties to the conference have left dissatisfied, and for various reasons. Vulnerable low lying nations such as the Cook Islands, Barbados and Fiji wanted no less than a legally binding agreement for a 1.5 degree increase in global temperatures signed both by Annex 1 and developing nations. India and China, on the other hand, wanted to continue the conditions of Kyoto so that they would remain, as non Annex 1 countries, excepted from binding emissions targets. The African group of nations walked out of talks at one stage because they could not see India, China and the U.S., all major emitters, agreeing to any binding targets.

Perhaps, then, the world needs to wait to see what the consequences of the Copenhagen Accord will be. This may happen as soon as the climate talks in Mexico later this year.

References

Copenhagen Climate Council, 2009, ‘What is the Kyoto Protocol’?, copenhagenclimatecouncil.com

Halvorssen, H., and Hovi, J., 2006,’The Nature, Origin and Impact of Legally Binding Consequences: the Case of the Climate Regime’, Springer Netherlands,Springerlink.com , accessed 6/2/2010

The German Marshall Fund of the United States, 2009, ‘Clinging to Kyoto’,gmfus.org, accessed 7/2/2010

Ulfstein, G and Werksman, J., The Kyoto Compliance System: Towards Hard Enforcement, folk.uio.no, accessed 8/2/2010

Vidal, Stratton, Goldenberg, 2009,’Low targets, goals dropped: Copenhagen ends in failure’, guardian.co.uk, accessed 6/6/2010