Published: 12 February 2010
Persistent divergences over UN climate negotiations augur tough times ahead, US and Indian negotiators indicated at a Brussels event on Friday (11 February).
Jonathan Pershing, US deputy special envoy for climate change, put the problems down to a history of fundamental disagreements about what the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) stands for.
"At one end, many countries perceive this as a venue in which all issues are on the table - it's a conversation about development and about the global correction for that. At the other end, you've got a community who see this as a narrow environmental problem," he told the annual conference of the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri).
While Copenhagen brought recognition that the convention can no longer be about a narrow environmental agenda, it will become a roadblock if it seeks to solve every problem, he said.
"It will be a context in which no action can be taken because all action can't be taken at once. And I think to a certain extent, that's what happened in the Copenhagen discussion," Pershing said. But he refused to view the Copenhagen Accord – a non-binding agreement adopted at the end of the gruelling two-week talks – as a failure.
"I've been disappointed and frankly surprised by the kind of reaction the accord has generated," said Pershing.
He argued that in fact the agreement signified a "substantial and significant shift". It inscribed for the first time a clear objective for avoiding dangerous global warming by referring to a 2°C limit, and agreed on the scale of global funds needed for adaptation, he said.
But Surya Sethi, the Indian government's core negotiator on climate change, retorted that 80% of the world's population live in developing countries and they do not view the outcome of Copenhagen as a success.
"I think it has been well documented by now that the poorly-organised COP15 was a failure, if not a total failure," Sethi said. He described US President Barack Obama's negotiation tactics as a "coup d'état" for trying to merge the Kyoto Protocol's two negotiating tracks, under which developing countries are not required to take on emission reduction commitments.
"The structure and the regime that the Copenhagen Accord sought to implant resulted from a new parallel process that was simply incompatible with the UNFCCC's inclusive, democratic process," Sethi stated, repeating the procedural issue that derailed negotiations throughout the latter part of last year.
The Indian negotiator argued that the Accord has little support in the developing world and was not even mentioned by India and China in their submissions to the UNFCCC, in which they outlined their pledges at the end of January.
"In my view, the negotiations going forward – and this is my personal view – are going to be even more torturous because a poorly-drafted accord which is open to multiple interpretations will keep haunting the two-track process under the UNFCCC," Sethi warned.
EU still in the negotiations
The EU is still aiming to secure a legally-binding new climate treaty, said Laurence Graff from the European Commission's environment department. She stressed that it is important to get back to the negotiating table, where the EU hopes to regain its leadership.
Pershing sought to alleviate EU concerns that the block was sidelined in Copenhagen, where the US sat down behind closed doors with the biggest emerging economies to hammer out the accord. He stressed that it was the EU's leadership in the past decade that had made it possible to reach the conclusions drawn in Copenhagen.
"In our discussions with major economies, we consulted on a regular basis with the European Union. And while there was a meeting in the middle of the day that brought the United States, China and India together with Brazil and South Africa, at the end of the day, it was the US sitting with the EU at a table with other countries that brought a successful outcome to this agreement," the American negotiator said.
"So I would fundamentally disagree that the EU was either out or that we can afford to have the EU out," he added, emphasising that the US does not see a solution to climate change without the EU on board.
Nevertheless, the speakers were short of ideas on how to achieve consensus, saying that achieving a shift to a low-carbon economy would be nothing short of revolutionary.
"Let's be honest, we've never done this before," declared Richard Bradley, head of the energy efficiency and environment division at the International Energy Agency (IEA). "I think this is an important factor in explaining what happened in Copenhagen."
"It's improbable, nearly impossible, that in Cancun [Mexico; COP16] we will suddenly negotiate that framework," said Bradley. "Frankly, I don't think we're going to get it in South Africa [COP17]."
Instead, the IEA director said that the world would probably see various national emissions trading systems.
EurActiv
