To Copenhagen and Beyond a Discussion Paper

By Julian Caldecott

1.   Long before Copenhagen

In 2002, Dr John MacKinnon[1] wrote: “The world is in a terrible state.  The situation is worse than most ecologists’ worst nightmares.  The biosphere is literally collapsing ecologically and world leaders are completely unconcerned, unwilling to do anything to help and totally engrossed in quite trivial games...  Our forests are disappearing, the sea is polluted, the atmosphere is damaged, global fisheries are crashing, plant and animal species are going extinct all around us, we are running out of water, deserts are spreading and the climate is hotting up.  Alien invasive weeds are spreading everywhere and GMOs will soon follow.  Population increases almost tenfold each century…  Conservationists have been totally ineffective.”

2.  Just before Copenhagen

Many hopes were invested in CoP15.  All through 2009, the talk was of what might be accomplished ‘once a deal is done at Copenhagen’.  Governments were bidding up each other’s GHG emission reductions.  For instance, the EU with its 20% (or ‘30% with international cooperation’), and even Indonesia, with a 26% reduction (or ‘41% with overseas help’).  Merchant banks like Climate Change Capital were laying plans to manage the vast new funds that must flow from GHG emission cap-and-trade arrangements.  Allianz Global Investors and other pension-oriented companies were contemplating with equanimity a collective investment of €1.5 trillion per year in renewables, if the regulatory environment was right.

But the horizon was also clogged with anxiety.  Brazil worried that if REDD money went to carbon storage in peat swamps, then peat-rich Indonesia would get more than its fair share.  Pension fund managers were concerned about financial bubbles that might result from an investment stampede towards renewable energy.  Indonesian officials fretted about how to meet the GHG reductions to which their president had committed them, and Papuan ones about the ‘carbon cowboys’ who were getting local leaders to sign away the carbon rights in their ancestral forests.  Meanwhile, western greens speculated anxiously that the political compromises needed to do a deal at Copenhagen would sell some key priority down the river: indigenous peoples, perhaps, or biodiversity.  Some even worried that nothing useful would be achieved at all, and those talked darkly about putting off starting a family until the outcome was known.

My own hopes for Copenhagen were high.  From my overview of global environmental problems I knew that urgent, dramatic action was long overdue.  And from my recent projects in Bangladesh, China and Indonesia, and dealings with European and UN agencies as well as private corporations, I knew that the world’s attention was creatively focused on designing that action.  I knew that past agreements, like the Kyoto Protocol, had failed in many ways, but that huge effort had been put into working out what had gone wrong, and fixing it.  So from Copenhagen I hoped for and half-expected at least a strong political endorsement of:

• the science of climate change;
• the extreme dangers of ‘business as usual’;
• the specific trajectory of net emissions reduction needed to keep below a 2^oC increase this century (i.e. a serious array of quantified emission commitments);
• the notion that no one-size-fits-all approach will be equally applicable in all cases (i.e. countries ought to be able to ration, tax or cap-and-trade carbon emissions, or impose national speed limits, apply national transport policies, etc., as long as their carbon emissions fall at the correct target rate);
• the need for an over-arching way to establish a common financial value for avoided emissions, through markets or tax or political agreement or all three;
• the recognition of equivalence for the value of avoided emissions, expressed in tCO₂e, however they are achieved (e.g. whether through industrial carbon capture and storage, or avoided deforestation);
• the relatively higher value of avoided emissions the sooner they occur;
• the need for verifiable emission reductions, with stage payments conditional on confirmed continuation of the action concerned;
• the need for all parties who could influence the outcome and security of an emission-reduction action sharing the benefits generated thereby; and
• the need for all nations to accept the need for rapid decarbonisation of their energy systems and to develop and adopt appropriate policies and laws.

My vision of an acceptable result therefore included all these political endorsements, as well as an agreement to develop a binding treaty by June 2010.  While the track record of quantified emission reduction commitments is not encouraging, I hoped that a pathway towards a high and stable price of carbon would at least be established.  For a high carbon price would induce many changes that would inevitably drive down emissions.  I wasn’t too bothered by the precise amount of cash that might be offered by developed countries for climate change mitigation and adaptation, since making funding pledges is easy but delivering the money is much harder, and spending it effectively far harder still.  Finally, while I knew that countries were posturing at one another in order to obtain the best deal for themselves and their allied groupings, I thought that they would eventually have to agree, and that one or two individuals (Obama? Steiner? Pachauri?) would pull it all together at the last moment, as is usual in UN conferences.

3.  During Copenhagen

According to my son Ben, other attendees and published reports from Copenhagen, the organisation of the conference was a mess, for example with facilities overloaded, people newly arrived from the tropics waiting to register all day in sub-zero temperatures, negotiators first mixed with demonstrators and then prized apart through escalating security efforts.  More importantly, the substantive business of the conference also seems to have been a mess.  As the Financial Times observed[2]: “One wonders how a conference to conclude two years of detailed negotiations, building on more than a decade of previous talks, could have collapsed into such a shambles.  It is as though no preparatory work had been done. Consensus on the most basic issues was lacking.  Were countries there to negotiate binding limits on emissions or not?  Nobody seemed to know…”

Moreover, it turned out that some underlying questions had been fudged right up to the start of the conference. For example, was the aim to replace the Kyoto Protocol with a new treaty (which the West wanted since otherwise the USA would never join in) or to build upon it (which the South wanted because Kyoto bound the West to make emission cuts and give them money).  Furthermore, the Copenhagen process was soon famous for ‘negotiation by leak’, in which delegations’ draft or bargaining positions and internal discussion notes on every issue were being circulated through the press, public and negotiators on a minute-by-minute basis.  Not surprisingly, tempers became frayed and work was delayed as delegations walked out in protest over procedural and other issues.

This level of chaos and lack of consensus undermined what was supposed to be an orderly process of ‘exploding’ brackets in the negotiating text to forge a widely-supported treaty for the heads of state to finalise in the last two days of the conference, and then sign.  A key part of the problem was that this was a UN process - meaning that the body of the conference would mimic the workings of the General Assembly, in that every country would have veto rights since the need was consensus on every decision, but without there being an equivalent of the Security Council to crystallise decisions.

Or was there?  Perhaps the heads of state session at the end of the conference would qualify?  This comprised a gathering of the leaders of the BASIC group (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) plus the main players of the West and various others.  And it was here, in the absence of a treaty text from the main conference, that a deal would have to be done.  The result was described by Mark Lynas[3], who was in the room at the time: “The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country’s foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself.  The diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal … it was China’s representative who insisted that industrialised country targets, previously agreed as an 80% cut by 2050, be taken out of the deal … China, backed at times by India, then proceeded to take out all the numbers that mattered.  A 2020 peaking year in global emissions … was removed and replaced by woolly language … The long-term target, of global 50% cuts by 2050, was also excised.  No one else, perhaps with the exceptions of India and Saudi Arabia[4], wanted this to happen…”

Lynas reasoned that China’s “coal-based economy doubles every decade, and its power increases commensurately.  Its leadership will not alter this magic formula unless they absolutely have to… This is fast becoming China’s century, yet its leadership has displayed that multilateral environmental governance is not only not a priority, but is viewed as a hindrance to the new superpower’s freedom of action.”  Much the same had often been said of the US in the recent past, although this time around Lynas “saw Obama fighting desperately to salvage a deal, and the Chinese delegate saying ‘no’ over and over again…”.

In any case, the deal that emerged in the form of the Copenhagen Accord had four more-or-less substantive elements[5]:

• it recognised the scientific case for keeping the rise in global temperatures to 2^oC (albeit this is seen by many as too high, because of the damage that will be done and the nonlinearities that might be provoked);
• it acknowledged that deep cuts in GHG emissions are necessary, but because of the events described above it provides no targets whatsoever (these are supposed to be filled in on a voluntary basis later);
• it committed US$30 billion in funding from developed countries over 2010-2012 to support adaptation, technology transfer and development, and mitigation efforts for the most vulnerable (least-developed, small island, African) developing countries, including some element of REDD+ avoided deforestation financing; and
• it envisioned that beyond 2012, developed countries would aim to mobilise US$100 billion a year by 2020, to be disbursed through a Copenhagen Climate Fund to support forestry, adaptation and capacity building, and a Technology Transfer Mechanism, both overseen by a panel under the guidance of the UNFCCC CoP.

The accord was not universally welcomed, and the conference as a whole merely ‘took note’ of it rather than endorsing it. Perhaps the best that could be said of it was by Michael McCarthy[6]: “…at least complete collapse of the world’s efforts to fight global warming was avoided last week (though it came very close) and the Copenhagen accord - last-minute, ad hoc, patched-up, full of holes as it is - at least gives the world a continuing way forward in the struggle to contain the greatest threat human society has ever known.”

On the other hand, and much more to the point given the scale and urgency of the challenge and the desperate need to engage private investment, the Financial Times reported[7] that: “Global energy businesses are disappointed and confused by the climate deal agreed in Copenhagen, saying it does not provide enough certainty to justify the huge investments needed to cut carbon emissions… Peter Voser [CEO of Royal Dutch Shell] said ‘We … recognise that the accord reflects a true political willingness to combat climate change [but] it remains unclear how this political willingness will translate into concrete steps.’ … [Meanwhile,] Werner Schnappauf, managing director of BDI, the German industrial association, said ‘The result for our companies is that the creation of a [global] competitive level playing field has receded’.”

After Copenhagen

The Copenhagen Accord is yet another beginning, but one that builds on other beginnings that go back at least to 1992.  Maybe in this iteration there is something to celebrate - it could be the ‘end of the beginning’ at last.  But maybe not, also.  In any case, China, India and Saudi Arabia have defended what they see as their interests, presumably at huge diplomatic cost to China which has been nurturing relationships in Africa for years.  Nations that consider themselves especially vulnerable to climate change do not feel that they have been ‘saved’ by this deal.  Western NGOs, expert observers and several governments are clear that it makes little difference to claim a 2^oC cap on temperature rise when the most optimistic view of their current commitments amounts to at least 3^oC, even if those commitments were actually implemented rather than fudged through notional offsets and sharp accounting.

As Kim Carstensen, head of WWF’s global climate initiative, observed[8], “What we have after two years of negotiation is a half-baked text of unclear substance.  The lack of clarity is illustrated by a call for a global peak in emissions “as soon as possible”, in contrast to the 2007 IPCC call for emissions to peak in 2017. On a more positive note, we will now see a host of new initiatives by countries, cities, companies and communities that are starting to build low-carbon economies from the ground up. We are disappointed with the Copenhagen outcome, but the story continues.”

The outlines of the next chapters of this story are already being explored by various commentators.  James Hansen, for example, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has called for a new way of taxing carbon, by observing that[9] “as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, they will be burned somewhere…, but in the end, energy efficiency and carbon-free energy can be made less expensive than fossil fuels, if the fossil fuels’ cost to society is included.  We need a rising price on carbon applied at the source (the mine, wellhead or point of entry).  The fee will affect all activities that use fossil fuels, directly or indirectly.  The entire fee collected from fossil fuel companies should be distributed to the public … deposited electronically in their bank account … with half shares for children up to two children per family… As time goes on, fossil fuel use will collapse, coal will be left in the ground, and we will have arrived at a clean energy future.”

Meanwhile, the Financial Times put out a rather different call to arms[10]: “Collective action is essential [, but] a global treaty with binding caps on emissions is going to be extraordinarily difficult to achieve… The need is for greater pragmatism and flexibility… Both [the US and China] should lead by example, with unilateral low-cost carbon-abatement policies already announced or under consideration: cap and trade in the US, measures to reduce carbon intensity in China.  The international framework need not insist on lock-step agreement… In the long run, broad parity of effort is necessary, but … monitoring the effective price of carbon is a less demanding basis of cooperation than binding quantitative limits set decades in advance… Generous aid to developing countries for greenhouse gas abatement is warranted, but should be negotiated separately.  Again, the need is to unpack the problem into manageable pieces.”

It seems that the missing link is political will, action, imagination, bravery and leadership on the scale that we see in the Maldives, Guyana and Costa Rica (and in several states and provinces - California, Papua, Amazonas), but that are weak or diffuse elsewhere.  These attributes are now needed in those key countries and groups of countries (like the EU) that have both convening power and the capacity to make things happen unilaterally if needs be. But how to generate this momentum?  The UN-based system of international environmental governance is discredited, but it’s the only one we have.  Or is it?  Perhaps the Commonwealth can be induced to take a more active role - after all, it contains a cross-section of most of the same countries or interest-groups as exist in the UN, but perhaps they have better forums through which to work?

So where does this all leave Our Future Planet? Can the UN, Commonwealth or EU be supplemented and guided by networked OFP citizens?  Can efforts to encourage the US and China to do a deal on carbon pricing (which the EU, Japan and others can endorse, and to which the corporate world can adapt), be promoted effectively by those OFP citizens?  But how can China be encouraged in the right direction - do any of us have anything to offer such a country at this stage in its evolution, or to threaten it with?  Should we seek a carbon tax to be levied at the well-head, an idea with increasing momentum even in the oil industry, and if so how?  Or is the answer somehow simpler and not yet even on the table?  Perhaps there are catalysts yet to be discovered that can take the carbon out of CO₂ and CH₄ at ordinary pressure and temperature, allowing us to run down the carbon content of the atmosphere again and re-bury pure, stable carbon somewhere moist and anoxic.  A high carbon price would make this attractive, but how might OFP stimulate the search for the technology?

We live in interesting times, pre-apocalyptic or pre-revolutionary, or both, yet the quality of debate is conservative, unambitious, pedestrian, wholly failing to match the scale of the issues that must be resolved in the very near future - on climate, on biodiversity, on water, on food, on population.  Radical solutions are needed.  But where are the radicals? I expect a fair few OFP citizens would stand up if we asked them that question.  But what would we then ask them to do?

Comments from there on the Copenhagen accord:

"This was worse than a G8 communique" (Lynas).
"This was worse than no deal at all" (Juniper). 
"This is somewhere between a coin flip and a suicide pact" (Lynas).

References:

[1] Author of Managing Protected Areas in the Tropics, then Director of the EU-financed ASEAN Regional Centre for Biodiversity Conservation, later Director of the EU-China Biodiversity Programme.

[2] Editorial, 21 Dec 2009.

[3] Author of Six Degrees and climate change advisor to the Government of the Maldives, writing in the Guardian, 23 Dec 2009.

[4] India’s Environment Minister and Saudi Arabia’s lead negotiator both later expressed their satisfaction with the outcome at Copenhagen (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8426212.stmand, and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8440181.stm).

[5] http://www.mydigitalfc.com/news/copenhagen-few-successes-many-failures-211

[6] The Independent, 20 Dec 2009.

[7] Ed Crooks and Fiona Harvey, 21 Dec 2009.

[8] (http://www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/working_with_government_and_parliament/recent_successes/?3605/Copenhagen-half-baked-and-unclear).

[9] Writing in the Observer, 27 Dec 2009.

[10] Editorial, 21 Dec 2009.

Comments (2)