Before I start off, I will confess to one thing- I am an optimist.,not a merchant of gloom and doom.So, the rest of this blog entry will be looking at all things through rose-tinted glasses.

Okay, now that the disclosure is out of the way, let’s get down to brass tacks. After two weeks of massive wrangling between nation states the culmination of 2 years of global negotiation was a flimsy 2.5 page long draft labelled the Copenhagen accord. It’s not even an accord in the traditional sense of the word-it was hammered by US and the BASIC bloc of countries ,supported by the EU and lambasted by the African and small islands bloc of nations. So, it was a failure, right, if nearly 100 nations condemned it as a suicide pact?

Well, as with all things that depends on your point of view. If the draft of the deal, available at UNFCC”s website can be distilled to a few easy to read bullet points here is what we will get

  • The parties agree that a 2 degree C rise in temperature above pre-industrial level is maximum allowable limit.
  • Developed countries shall provide guaranteed financial assistance and transfer technology to help the vulnerable countries, especially in Africa and the small islands adapt to climate change
  • The  Annex I parties (essentially the first world)  will have to voluntary submit their emission reduction targets for 2020 to the UNFCC secretariat by January 31 2010. These reductions will be verified by a mechanism agreed by the Conference of Parties.
  • The non Annex I parties (in this context big developing countries like China, India, Brazil etc) will also have to submit their targets by the same date, but they have the flexibility of assigning a cut-off date for themselves. They will have to communicate their reduction data to UNFCC every two years. This reporting will respect principles of national sovereignty, an important demand of China.
  • The deal promises to focus on areas like safeguarding of forests by adopting mechanisms like REDD plus (Forestry carbon standards will be the focus of another post)
  • Market based initiatives to reduce emissions, like the cap and trade model will continue
  • The LDC and island states who are the most vulnerable to climate change will get $30bn in cash and technology transfers, divided between adaptation and mitigation. By 2020 this fund will increase to $100bn a year and will be mobilized from various sources-governmental as well as private, most of it flowing through something called Copenhagen Green Climate Fund.
  • A review of implementation of this accord will be made in 2015

If we look at this one thing strikes the eye- there are no hard numbers. There are no defined emissions targets, no legal penalties for ignoring these targets, no mention of how emissions will be reduced. In terms of funding there is a vague mention of how much money will be invested but no breakdown of how much will be paid by whom. This looks like the manifesto of a political party, not an international agreement which deals with an incredibly complicated issue like climate change.

A section of protests at Copenhagen, courtesy ratexla

This is precisely the objections of a large number of activists across the globe. The Copenhagen accord is not a strong consensual agreement but an elitist document that is full of good intentions but short on implementable details. The leaders get to look good without making firm commitments. It also leaves plenty of loopholes- for instance what should be the base year from which the reductions of emissions would be determined? Science says 1990, while many Annex I countries want it to be 2005.

So, why am I optimistic ? Rose tinted glasses are one thing, but I see hope that even this hugely flawed document has given the world something to base our actions on. Look at it this way- all the time the conference was going on the largest emitters -US and China were on the opposite sides of the fence.China wanted money but didn’t want any international supervision. That was a deal-breaker for the US, in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s words.

While nothing is guaranteed, this document indicates that both China and US have reached some kind of middle ground,along with the major emitters like EU and India,Brazil and South Africa. Similarly the positive noises on various topics ranging from REDD to technology transfer is better than silence or negativity.

While there are no fixed legal targets, this document is still a very powerful weapon for civil society. People, who ultimately have to pay the price for climate change can demand concrete steps based on what was promised to by Obama and company. Also, in all certainty it will be the basis of a similar summit in Nov 2010 in Mexico City, where a legally binding agreement is expected to be hashed out.

Maybe, COP 15 won’t turn out to be such a catastrophe, after all.

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