Countdown to the Copenhagen climate conference

Peter Niggli, Director Alliance Sud

The climate negotiations under way since 2007 are proceeding at «glacial speed», remarks UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon with regret, because «the world's glaciers are now melting faster than human progress to protect them – and us». No one still believes in the original roadmap whereby governments were expected to launch a new climate convention in Copenhagen in December. According to the head of the UN Climate Secretariat, it is gratifying today to be able to agree on a few basic parameters.
Here are the stumbling blocks in the way of «government»:

Act now or wait?

The climate sciences tell us that rapid action is needed and that global greenhouse gas emissions must begin to come down in the next decade if global warming is not to overshoot the emergency threshold of 2 degrees centigrade. Rapid and substantial emission reductions by 2020 must be therefore be agreed on.
But this is encountering fierce resistance in those countries that are fast warming up the atmosphere. That resistance is coming from climate change negationists (USA: Republicans; Switzerland: SVP). It is also coming from industries such as Swiss electricity industry, which is keen to make massive new investments in fossil fuels – not in our country, but in Germany: Plans are afoot for 12,000-megawatt coal-fired power stations – twice Switzerland's consumption. Lastly, the opponents also include neo-liberal currents that are relying on «the market» to throw up technical solutions to ward off a climatic disaster in good time.

Yes, we can't?

Barak Obama's election had brought hope for a change of course by the USA, as the leading opponent of a climate convention. Today, the mood is one of disillusionment. The USA is unwilling to lay down binding targets for 2020, but only for 2050, by which time the targets of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) should be met. The USA wants to write these into the climate convention, but to declare them as «binding» only nationally. India's environment minister said this autumn: «It is the height of dishonesty to have a target for 2050 because none of us will be around to be held accountable».

Could it be a little less?

Still, short-term reduction targets for 2020 remain at the heart of the negotiations for a new climate convention.  Based on its own calculations, the IPCC is demanding that by 2020, industrialized countries cut their emission levels by 25-40 per cent from 1990 levels.
At the time of going to press in late September, the following offers were on the table: Japan's newly elected government is offering a 25 per cent cut. The EU, 20 per cent, or, if other important states would follow suit, 30 per cent. Let us hope that Japan will suffice if the other «important state», the USA, should drop out. At the domestic level, the Obama Government is aiming by 2020 to roll back emissions to 1990 levels. By comparison with the EU and Japan, it is therefore offering zero per cent, which does represent progress in that US emissions had risen substantially after 1990. In relation to 2005, emissions would have to be cut by 17 per cent by 2020 under Obama's plan. There is no certainty however that the Obama Government can push through its plan. It is currently under serious attack in the Senate.
Switzerland is aligning itself with the EU, though with a clever twist: in the new CO2 law, the Federal Cabinet is proposing to the Parliament that 20 per cent of the cuts be implemented by 2020, though half of them abroad.

Not me – you too!

Thus, as the EU awaits action from the USA, the latter is waiting for a move by China. The Congress is adamant about not signing off on any agreement unless China is made to do its part. The EU is also taking a similar line. For months now, Western governments have been threatening that the talks would fail unless emerging countries assumed clear reduction commitments. Failing that, the USA, Germany and France are threatening, as a preventive measure, to levy punitive CO2 duties on countries without emission reduction commitments (see article on page XY). China and India are reacting in kind: for as long as the industrialized countries fail to abide by IPCC recommendations, they will not budge one inch.
Both countries are of course working on national programmes to limit emissions. They are unwilling to accept any international obligations in this regard, however. So far, both the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol have exempted developing countries, including the successful ones, from reduction commitments and have bound the industrialized countries, as those historically responsible and the main producers of greenhouse gases, to making the first substantial cuts alone. In the new climate convention, however, the idea is to include the developing countries, and more specifically to persuade the industrially successful ones to adopt a climate reduction policy.

No money – no deal

Looking forward to Copenhagen, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) is calling for climate and development to be considered together.  Developing countries would be ready to tackle the climate problem jointly with the industrialized countries only if they could be assured of strong economic growth to lift them out of poverty. Yet this would call for a greater energy input, which, with present technology, would strongly increase CO2 emissions. The second major point of contention is therefore how the climate convention will manage not to play off climate protection against development: «The idea of freezing the current level of global inequality over the next half century or more (as the world goes about trying to solve the climate problem) is economically, politically and ethically unacceptable», say UNDESA. The developing countries must therefore be able to strike out quickly on a low-carbon development path. This cannot be achieved by means of emission reduction targets and certificates alone. Rather, it calls for an active industrial policy on the part of developing country governments for converting to a low-carbon development path, as well as solid technological and financial support from the industrialized countries. The next two decades will be decisive. The policy change and support must therefore, according to UNDESA, begin immediately and on a large scale.
UNDESA speaks of 500 billion dollars, which is in line with what developing countries (G77) are requesting (see article on page XY). The EU, Japan and other industrialized countries recognize that the new climate convention will require financial commitments towards the developing countries. But not so much, and above all, not so fast. «Had the earth been a bank, you would have saved it long ago», says former World Bank Chief Economist Nicholas Stern about the tightfistedness of the West's climate policy . How right he is! According to the UN Economic and Social Council, governments have spent or promised 20,600 million dollars between 2008 and 2010 to bail out banks and the world economy. That same amount could finance the maximum demands from Third World countries for 41 years.

Peter Niggli, Director Alliance Sud
With the collaboration of Rosemarie Bär

Published in: Alliance Sud News, no. 61, Autumn 2009