Dark clouds are gathering in the run up to Copenhagen's U.N. climate negotiations in December.
Credit: iStockphoto
COPENHAGEN: Environment ministers from 42 key nations in the game of climate poker are meeting this week in a bid to avoid a finger-pointing fiasco at next month's UN conference on global warming.
Just three weeks are left before a planet-wide huddle initially billed as the moment when mankind would start to reduce climate change from behemoth to a manageable peril.
After two years of haggling, the 192 members of the U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) remain badly deadlocked.
Scant progress
After a round in Barcelona this month yielded scant progress, fears have risen that the December 7 to 18 forum in Copenhagen could be an embarrassing failure, witnessed close up by scores of heads of state or government.
It now falls to Denmark, hosting what will be the last ministerial-level parlay, to broker a credible outcome. "Because the time remaining for negotiations is extremely limited, attention... must be focussed on resolving high-order political questions necessary for agreement," said a briefing paper warning ministers.
According to a diplomatic source, Danish Climate Minister Connie Hedegaard will present a proposal for a "binding political agreement" next month. The "five-to eight-page" draft document establishes pledges that would be fleshed out next year, the source said.
It would notably spell out ways of sharing curbs on greenhouse gases. Rich countries would identify their commitments for reductions "over the medium term," a time-frame usually meaning 2020. Developing countries would also urged to spell out their own intended roster of actions to tackle greenhouse gases.
Brave cuts from Brazil
Brazil on Friday became the first emerging giant to make a nonbinding promise of this kind, saying it would make a voluntary pledge to reduce its emisssions by between 36 and 39% by 2020 as compared to anticipated trends.
Underpinning all commitments would be agreement that actions have to be transparent, measurable and verifiable. The deal would give the green light to "fast-start" funding to help poor countries switch to a low-carbon economy and fight the impacts of climate change. This would be the first step to a much larger inflow of funds.
Further negotiations would take place in 2010 to put flesh on the skeletal agreement, with the goal that the completed pact will take effect from the end of 2012, when the current pledging round under the Kyoto Protocol expires.
Hedegaard's proposed draft would have to be approved by consensus in the December 7 to18 UNFCCC talks. Plenty of snags lie in its path, though. They include the legal status of the future pact and the compliance mechanisms to give it teeth.
Another problem is which institutions will be in charge of the climate finance, as poor countries have expressed deep hostility towards the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
"The meeting is an important opportunity for rich countries to get the U.N. climate summit off on the right track and show poor countries that there is still a deal worth fighting for," the British development charity Oxfam International said on Friday. But, it warned, "Poor nations will ... be expecting significantly improved offers on climate finance and emissions reductions."
Falling short
The bloc of developing nations have called for wealthy economies to cut their emissions by at least 40% by 2020 compared with 1990 levels, and to provide around one percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) per year, or around 400 billion dollars, in finance.
So far, no rich country has come anywhere close to meeting such a demand.
They, in turn, are pressing emerging giants such as China, India and Brazil, which are now huge emitters, to strengthen promises to tackle their own greenhouse-gas output.
The position is further complicated by the refusal of the United States, the world's biggest carbon emitter after China, to declare its hand in the UNFCCC while a climate-change bill inches through Congress.
The meeting, to be addressed by Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, is taking place behind closed doors, although a press conference is expected after its conclusion.
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