COP-15, Final Posting

I wanted to let a few weeks pass before writing my final COP-15 blog post.  In reading through my past postings, each day at COP-15 was an intense blur of networking, information and process.   Media reports, talking heads, and other blogs about COP-15 continue to offer a very broad range of opinions about what actually happened in Copenhagen.  This blog is my attempt to summarize the outcome.

We do know that the main outcome of COP-15 is the draft Copenhagen Accord, a political agreement struck between the U.S., China, India and South Africa, with some involvement from Brazil, Ethiopia and G20 nations.  This was not the “usual” political agreement process where presidents and prime ministers arrive in the final days of the COP to place their stamp of approval on a previously agreed outcome.  Instead, over the course of some 13 hours, U.S. President Obama personally shepherded an agreement that was initially endorsed by 4 developing country leaders, then by the leaders of 28 developed and developing countries, and then–after an intense all-night debate, by nearly every nation on Earth.  Only 5 countries, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Sudan refused to do so. Because the rules of the COP require consensus, the continued objection of these 5 countries made the formal adoption of the Copenhagen Accord by decision impossible.  As a result, COP-15 negotiators found way to persuade these countries to allow a vote for a decision “taking note” of the Copenhagen Accord–a pragmatic action with the same practical effect as a consensus decision.

So what happened?  While pundits from every extreme angle have been quick to point out that the Copenhagen Accord falls short of their COP-15 “expectations”, they also generally fail to recognize the pragmatic achievement of getting the U.S., China and other fast-growing developing countries to agree to the level of commitment that actually did occur.  In this context, it is important to understand that no one directly involved in the drafting of the Copenhagen Accord has been hyping it as a one stop, final solution to address climate change.  Even President Obama has been candid and has called it only “a first step”.  That said, the Copenhagen Accord represents a “mutual action pact” taking a bold “first step” made with a global consensus of focused intention.  It delivers the two principal things that the U.S. Senate has demanded from the international process: meaningful commitments to reducing the emissions of key developing countries, and a transparent framework for evaluating their performance against those commitments.  You can read the three-page document yourself at http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/cop15/eng/l07.pdf

A Summary of the Copenhagen Accord Main Points

A. Emissions Targets:

• “reduce global emissions so as to hold the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius, and take action to meet this objective consistent with science and on the basis of equity”.
• “cooperate in achieving the peaking of global and national emissions as soon as possible, recognizing that the time frame for peaking will be longer in developing countries and bearing in mind that social and economic development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding priorities of developing countries and that a low-emission development strategy is indispensable to sustainable development”.
• developing nations are to publish their emissions reduction commitments by January 31, 2010. Paragraphs 4 and 5 of the Accord create an “open enrollment” period for countries to record their emission reduction commitments and actions in 2 tables. It is important to recognize that many of the principal countries have already announced their commitments over the course of 2009, including China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, South Korea and others.

B. Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV)

• Developing nation’s action under emissions includes only domestic MRV, but will be subject to guidelines adopted by the Conference of the Parties and reported through their national communications every two years.

C. Deforestation (REDD)

• “immediate establishment of a mechanism including REDD-plus” to invest capital from developed countries for “reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation” and enhancing “removals of greenhouse gas emission by forests”.

D. Financing

• Developed countries are to “support a goal of mobilizing jointly 100 billion dollars a year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries.”  Funding for this effort will come from a very wide variety of public, private, alternative, bilateral and multilateral sources.
• A 30 billion dollar fund available between 2010 to 2012 inclusive, balanced between adaptation and mitigation.
• The Copenhagen Green Climate Fund, a new UNFCC mechanism, to support funded “projects, programs, policies” on mitigation, REDD-plus, adaptation, capacity building, technology development and transfer.

E. Technology Transfer

• A new “Technology Mechanism” to further accelerate technology development and transfer under a country by country approach. (in contrast to the project based approach in the existing CDM).

F. 2015 Review

• A review of the Copenhagen Accord’s progress must be completed by 2015, and would consider “strengthening the long-term goal limit the increase in global average temperature to 1.5 degrees.”

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