Copenhagen Accord: U.S Perceptions on Transparency & Commitments

Copenhagen Accord:
U.S Perceptions on Transparency & Commitments

(Madan Menon Thottasseri)
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The Obama Administration on Wednesday December 23, 2009 had emanated buoyancy on the transparency and sufficient data to facilitate for fairly evaluating whether countries are living up the commitments they made as per the Copenhagen Accord.

Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs P J Crowley had declared on the sequence of events during the closing days of the Copenhagen Summit. He said . "One of the significant issues when the Secretary of State arrived in Copenhagen on Thursday (December 17, 2009)morning and worked through these issues during the day on Thursday and the President on Friday (December 18,2009) was in fact to make sure that there was a significant, verification aspect to the accord," Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs P J Crowley said.

This declaration is to be appreciably noticed by members of BASIC BLOC who are part of the Copenhagen Accord. P.J.Crowley had said “We think at the end of the day, through some very intensive dialogue by the President and the Secretary with world leaders, that what emerged from Copenhagen in fact have -- has the kind of transparency and mechanisms so that in fact we can have access to data with -- not in an intrusive way, but just so we'll have sufficient transparency and access to data so that everyone can fairly evaluate whether countries are living up to their agreements,"

In fact these statements came out from Crowley as a clarification to a controversial statement from David Axelrod, Senior White House Advisor, to the CNN last week wherein he had said that the US would not only "review" the implementation of Copenhagen Accord by India and China, but also would challenge New Delhi and Beijing if they do not meet the goals set by the agreement reached by the leaders of these countries at Copenhagen.

Preserve Copenhagen’s spirit for endearing at Mexico

Preserve Copenhagen’s spirit for endearing at Mexico

(Madan Menon Thottasseri)
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U.S President Barrack Obama had an interview with the PBS Newshour programme in which he had openly admitted that "I think that people are justified in being disappointed about the outcome in Copenhagen." According to him, at least he was able to secure non-binding agreements from what he called world’s would be largest emitters, India and China!

He said "What I said was essentially that rather than see a complete collapse in Copenhagen, in which nothing at all got done and would have been a huge backward step, at least we kind of held ground and there wasn't too much backsliding from where we were."

The climate change conference held over the past two weeks in the Danish capital concluded by an Accord, a legally non-binding agreement that skeptical observers believe that it is unlikely to limit emissions sufficiently to halt global warming.

"The science says that we've got to significantly reduce emissions over the next 40 years. There's nothing in the Copenhagen agreement that ensures that that happens," Obama had acknowledged it.

The US President who had attended the summit in its final days to push for a comprehensive agreement, said the deal established an "important principle" but also admitted: "It didn't move us the way we need to."

He said the agreement was hard to win, and came after talks nearly broke down entirely. "The prime minister of India was heading to the airport and the Chinese representatives were essentially skipping negotiations," he said.

Being a person who have kept abreast with the developments of the summit on a day to day basis, I thought it fit to request Obama and all international leaders not to high-light more on the flaws on it’s outcome as each and every nation either directly or indirectly were responsible for the same.

Let me put forth the following for their kind perusal:

The main imperfection in the legally non-binding Accord arrived at the hurriedly concluded Climate Summit was nothing other than one of the missed-out critical points which should have incorporated as a thrust in case a legally binding would have become a reality; it is that the Obama and leaders of Basic Bloc had to ignore in the Accord to commit to a deadline of 2010 for a legally binding global treaty. Further in the last phase of the summit, E.U not only perplexed themselves and made others like African-Island nations to get confused and pre-determined that there will be a just a blemished declaration through the camp of Basic Bloc at the summit.
The global community should not give much credence to the British Environment Minister Ed Milibands’ accusation that China had ‘hijacked’ efforts to agree to significant reductions in global emissions, which tempted Beijing to counter-accuse that U.K and other E.U nations plotted to divide the G77 and basic Bloc at Copenhagen. Fantastic… Obama maintained cool… did not directly accuse any nation or group!

Obama had commented that people are justified in disappointing on the outcome of the Copenhagen Summit. I would like to say like this…. there will be no harm….he and leaders of the Basic Bloc have to positively brag on the subject to motivate themselves and muster support for the mission of getting a legally binding Treaty in the summit to be held next at Mexico City.

Citing too much on the draw-backs of the Accord at Copenhagen should not only dishearten the world community but also disintegrate whatsoever small sketches of mutual understandings and trust gained at Copenhagen. World leaders should not abscond from the spirit gained from Copenhagen and have to remember that the world will slowly get united when each group attempts to take note of grievances of the rival group with a positive mindset.

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Value-Addition to Obama’s Diplomacy

Value-Addition to Obama’s Diplomacy

(Madan Menon Thottasseri)
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Despite a failed summit, the Political Accord arrived at had four benchmarks- a common long-term goal of keeping global temperature rise within two degrees Celsius; a commitment by all countries to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that are warming the atmosphere; progress on tackling deforestation and the start of a fund which developing countries, especially the poorest ones which could use it to cope up with the effects of global warming. The Accord should launch a new era of green growth.

It is to be noted that the climate summit used the phrase that it had "taken note" of the Accord, mainly to satisfy and prompt the reluctant EU members to gesture their acceptance.

As per the Accord, developed nations have to report their mitigation actions by Feb 1, 2010.Large developing countries like India and China also have to report mitigation ambitions by the same deadline. Even though it is a political agreement, the Accord will be effective immediately and will commence the funding of USD 10 billion by Jan, 2010.

U.S had to sacrifice its goal of enshrining a global target of reducing greenhouse emissions in half by 2050, for which the developing nations were concerned and reluctant to embrace. The deal also does not set a 2010 deadline for reaching a formal treaty, which several nations had sought.

Finally the climate debate shifted to the domestic stage before reaching an Accord. Obama could play a good role while broking a deal. The modest agreement may help the Obama administration as it will push Congress to pass the landmark climate-change legislation. By not committing the United States to new standards and by insisting on monitoring cuts made by other nations, the administration can say passage of domestic legislation would not put the United States at a competitive disadvantage with other nations, particularly China.

Despite Obama’s presence, the crucial climate summit failed and did not result in a consensus. But his attempts that brokered a US-BASIC political deal were hailed by political fronts in U.S as ‘commendable’. Political analysts praised the U.S leadership and recent investments in national energy policies. They believed that Obama’s leadership provided the constructive engagement with the world community which helped to arrive at the Accord. Indirectly Obama made U.S a beneficiary of the Accord!

The Copenhagen Accord should give an impetus to consolidate the global strength instead of further intensifying differences in global views.

Let EU relinquish selfish interests and think beyond Europe, gracefully co-operate with U.S and BASIC BLOC for taking the mantle at the ensuing summit to be held in Mexico by Mid 2010.
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An ingenious swerve around Western Perceptions on Climate Change?

An ingenious swerve around Western Perceptions on Climate Change?
(Madan Menon Thottasseri)
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Government on Tuesday rejected Opposition charge of compromising with the country's interests at Copenhagen climate meet, insisting that the Accord will in no way affect India's sovereignty.

The Copenhagen Accord on Climate Change is no “sell-out” as far as India is concerned, Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh assured the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, in response to the Opposition charge that it compromised the nation’s interests.

Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh, while informing the Rajya Sabha on the outcome of last week's Climate Summit, however, admitted that the government had digressed from its pre-Copenhagen assurance given to Parliament ,allowed the provision for "international consultation and analysis" rather than just informing the UNFCCC about domestic mitigation programmes.
He said the decision to this effect was taken collectively by Brazil, South Africa, India and China (BASIC nations) which did not want to be responsible for the failure of the summit and become “blame boys.” “I plead guilty. I moved from information to consultation. [But] there has to be flexibility.”

The Minister asserted that the accord will in no way affect India’s sovereignty as clear guidelines would be evolved. “The guidelines for international consultations and analysis will be devised and defined in due course. We have been able to incorporate a specific provision that these clearly defined guidelines will ensure that the national sovereignty is respected.”

"I plead guilty. I moved from information to consultation. Yes, there has been a shift," Ramesh said responding to Leader of Opposition Arun Jaitley's contention that government had digressed from its commitment on reporting of mitigation actions on climate change.
Equating the Copenhagen Accord with Sharm-el Sheikh Indo-Pak Joint Statement, Jaitley had said the government was trying to interpret the Accord differently by engaging in "spin doctoring".

"These clearly defined guidelines will ensure that the national sovereignty is respected," he said, adding India will ensure that the consultative process is not "intrusive". Normally there will not be any issue on international measurement; reporting and verification (MRV) on projects funded by foreign donors but will never agree for foreign inspection on domestic mitigation projects when submitted on the floor of the House.

The indigenous mitigation projects were to be reported to the United Nation as a part of India’s national communication every two years. A clear diversion in the Copenhagen Accord, therefore, worries many. According to Pradipto Ghosh, a former Union environment secretary and a member of the Indian negotiating team, it was an “extremely difficult and contentious” issue. “The most difficult and contentious task will be finalisation of the guidelines for international consultation and analysis of the mitigation actions while respecting national sovereignty,” Ghosh said.Rajya Sabha Leader of Opposition Arun Jaitley said that in a clear violation of the UN principles the Copenhagen Accord attempted “to obliterate the distinction between supported and unsupported verification.” Similar sentiments were echoed by CPM’s Sitaram Yechury who was part of an Indian delegation.Arun Jaitley had said that there was complete repugnancy between the obligations under the Copenhagen Accord and the Kyoto Protocol. As “Word by word, phrase by phrase the language of the UNFCCC, Bali Action Plan and Kyoto Protocol stands diluted. Obviously, the Copenhagen Accord is the one which will prevail.”

Jairam Ramesh said that India had to relent because the US had insisted on a transparency clause before agreeing to release funds to India’s neighbours like Bangladesh and Maldives. “Transparency clause is directed at China which emits 23 per cent of the world’s total greenhouse gases. Nobody has anything against India,” he said. Ramesh brushed aside apprehensions, arguing that the negotiations, expected to culminate in mexico city, would not undermine India’s sovereignty.

The US wanted words like ‘scrutiny’, ‘review’ and ‘verification’, which was resisted by the BASIC group. BASIC’s suggestion to use ‘dialogue’ or ‘discussion’ was not acceptable to the US. Both sides finally agreed on the clause on “international consultation and analysis.” “India has been holding consultations with the WTO and the IMF for years. There is no erosion of sovereignty. We should not fear the clause as there is no great sell out,” Ramesh clarified.

The Copenhagen accord sparked a heated debate in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday December 21,2009. The opposition’s criticism identified it as “disappointing" and "a compromise-document."Jairam Ramesh reiterated that the accord and the International consultation on climate action it entails will not affect the sovereignty of India.

The opposition had been making hue and cry while expressing concern on the Accord , the contour of which were described in a suo motu statement made by Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh.

Sitaram Yechury called the Accord a “compromised document”.said, “we have opened up windows for the possible jettisoning of the Kyoto Protocol.”

By accepting for the international consultation and analysis of mitigation actions,he remarked that it will be a reframing of measures for reporting and verification and if any developing nation violates the same will be susceptible to face trade sanctions in future.
Yechury described the financial commitments under the accord is vague, and the Intellectual Property Rights regime on ‘Technology Transfer’ was effectively negated in the accord.
D. Raja described the Accord for being “no step forward and several steps backward.” And is an attempt to kill the Kyoto Protocol!

The BJP, the CPI(M) and the CPI described the accord as “several steps backward!"

Jairam Ramesh had said “Our thinking on climate change has to evolve and not remain frozen in time“ in the Rajya Sabha. Political Analysts believe that his Ramesh’s obscure statement whether deliberately intended or not, may be a signal that the current Indian government is becoming more futuristically conscious and dynamic while it could be swerving around the perception of developed nations on the responsibility of growing economies toward emission cuts. Jairam Ramesh’s statement on the back-drop of the deal that struck with U.S on the concluding day of the Copenhagen summit may be a relevant proof for the subtle shift of the climate policy of India and other the developing nations!

Seeking “flexibility within a framework of certain non-negotiable,” Ramesh said that the Copenhagen summit was “not a destination but the beginning of a long process”

Less than week after the climate conference ended, many analysts not only believe that Copenhagen was a failure but they apprehend that the summit may lead to a new climate order deviating from the path charted by the Kyoto Protocol.

Now we have many a number of forward thinking people in our great nation; let them judge who is thinking forward and who are not yet?

Copenhagen’s Reflections in U.S

Copenhagen’s Reflections in U.S
(Madan Menon Thottasseri)
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President Obama who is back in U.S after successfully broking a deal at Copenhagen, described the Accord as a "breakthrough" agreement on climate change. He said that the said Accord reached by him with leaders of India and other emerging economies had laid the foundation of international actions to tackle global warming in the years to come.

For the first time in history all of the major economies of the world could come together to accept their responsibility and take action for confronting the threat of climate change, Obama said. "After extremely difficult and complex negotiations, this important breakthrough lays the foundation for international action in the years to come," Obama said in his first public statement on his return from Copenhagen.

This progress did not come easily and we know that progress on this particular aspect of climate change negotiations is not enough, he said referring to the Copenhagen accord reached by the US and BASIC countries in the final hour of the summit. He said "Going forward we're going to have to build on the momentum that we established in Copenhagen to ensure that international action to significantly reduce emissions is sustained and sufficient over time."

The climate accord reached by world leaders in Copenhagen will drive the US Senate to pass its own blueprint to fight global warming in early 2010, key senator John Kerry said.

"This can be a catalysing moment," the Democratic lawmaker, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement after President Barack Obama announced a deal on the sidelines of global talks in Denmark's capital.

"President Obama's hands-on engagement broke through the bickering and sets the stage for a final deal and for Senate passage this spring of major legislation at home," said Kerry, the lead author of the US Senate's stalled bill to battle climate change, on Friday.

The Massachusetts lawmaker hailed Obama's announcement after talks with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and South African President Jacob Zuma as "a meeting of the minds."

"These are the four horsemen of a climate change solution. With this in hand, we can work to pass domestic legislation early next year to bring us across the finish line," said Kerry.

Unfortunately The summit would have failed. The modest agreement may help the Osama administration as it presses Congress to pass a landmark climate-change legislation. By not committing the United States to new standards and by insisting on monitoring cuts made by other nations, the administration can say passage of domestic legislation would not put the United States at a competitive disadvantage with other nations, particularly China. In fact, Obama made U.S, indirectly a beneficiary of the Accord!

The Copenhagen Accord should give an impetus to consolidate the global strength instead of further intensifying differences in global views.

Let EU relinquish selfish interests and think beyond Europe and gracefully co-operate with U.S and BASIC BLOC and take the mantle at the ensuing summit to be held in Mexico during mid 2010.

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Achievement by Accord: Let some corpus Flow….

Achievement by Accord: Let some corpus Flow….
(Madan Menon Thottasseri)
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One of the most tangible outcomes of the climate agreement announced here Friday, December 18, 2009 turned out to be Money.

The Accord, though not legally binding and thus set no goal for conclusion of a binding international treaty, leaving months, and perhaps years, of additional negotiations before it emerges in any internationally enforceable form. But money in notable quantities should, in principle, start flowing next year.

The Accord was “a big step forward” since talks on climate change in Bali, Indonesia, in 2007, when countries committed to control emissions but offered no financial support mechanisms, Ban Ki-Moon, the U.N. secretary general, said in an interview Saturday.

“This time we have $100 billion a year,” Mr. Ban said, and “$100 billion a year is significant big money.”

To Kumi Naidoo, the executive director of Greenpeace, the environmental group, the funding pledge was one of the few “plus points” in an otherwise grossly inadequate document.
The accord calls for the establishment of the Copenhagen Green Climate Fund to support immediate action to help curb emissions and to help communities adapt to the effects of global warming.

An initial, fast-start fund worth $10 billion annually would operate from 2010 to 2012.
As per the Accord, towards a long-term finance, developed countries have agreed to support a goal of jointly mobilizing $100 billion a year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries.

Naidoo said the long-term fund needed to be closer to $140 billion annually by 2020 to be truly effective.

But he said that the decision to raise and disburse hundreds of billions of dollars to help the most vulnerable nations showed that “the principle that poor countries with least responsibility for climate change need resources for adaptation has been recognized.”

Naidoo said some of the money should go to small island states like Tuvalu that are vulnerable to rising seas and need help in starting to move people to higher ground.

Naidoo said other candidates for such funding were low-lying coastal communities in countries like Bangladesh where levies are needed to channel seawater to keep it from contaminating sources of fresh water.

Ban Ki-Moon said that he foresaw that the fund would oblige recipients to have reporting and verification systems, and that he envisaged a “comprehensive governance structure” to manage the aid disbursements.

“This is a new step toward the era of clean energy security and toward an era of green growth,” he said.

But Oxfam, the anti-poverty campaign group, immediately warned that the offers were full of “caveats and loopholes,” raising questions about whether the money would ever be disbursed in adequate amounts.

Robert Bailey, a senior spokesman for Oxfam International, said the amount of $100 billion was only half of what was needed.Bailey also warned that rich-world governments could end up diverting money from important education and health care projects in poor countries to pay for new projects like flood defenses.

There were also concerns that governments would generate money for the fund on revenue raised from private-sector activities, like taxes on trading in greenhouse gas pollution allowances.

If that turns out to be the case, then forecasting the precise amount of aid flows could prove difficult, as the prices of allowances fluctuate, partly depending on how strongly governments enforce quotas, or caps.

“If the carbon markets are expected to provide any significant portion of that $100 billion, then developed countries will need to commit to cap emissions tightly to drive demand for allowances,” said Tom Brookes, the director at the European Climate Foundation, a research organization based in Brussels.“But right now there are no caps in the accord,” said Brookes, referring to the outcome in Copenhagen.

The E U had pledged $3.6 billion annually to the initial fast-start fund. Japan and the U. S too had made pledges to that fund.

But where large portions of the rest of the money will come from remains uncertain.Announcing that the U.S would contribute to the long-term $100 billion-a-year fund, Secretary of State -Hillary Rodham Clinton insisted that those details could come later.

“There are a number of different ideas about how we can pursue the financing,” Mrs. Clinton said."The important point,” she said, was “not to talk about how we would fund money that we haven’t yet agreed to fund, but to make the agreement that that is what we’re going to do.”

Yvo de Boer, the head of the U.N. climate office had acknowledged that the Accord did not specify how responsibility for the money would be divided up among industrialized countries.
“That means we have a lot of work to do on the road to Mexico,” he said, citing the next U.N. climate conference, which will be held by mid 2010.

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EU’s Frustration on Climate Accord

EU’s Frustration on Climate Accord
(Madan Menon Thottasseri)
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The atmosphere at the European Union pavilion at the Bella Centre was moving into that of a funeral.Depressed-looking European negotiators sipped beer from bottles in dim light while crews began dismantling food stalls, television monitors and giant displays of the Union’s blue and gold flags.

José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, and Fredrik Reinfeldt, the prime minister of Sweden, which holds the bloc’s rotating presidency, were telling European leaders that to reach a strong global deal eventually, they would have to endorse the Copenhagen accord despite its shortcomings.

Brian Cowen, the Irish prime minister, had an air of grim resignation as he trudged out of that meeting shortly before 2 a.m.“It’s less than what we wanted, but the process has to go on,” Cowen said.

And in what appeared to be a sharp reference to the wrangling between China, the United States and African countries that had blocked a more far-reaching accord, Cowen, as he headed for the exits, shouted: “Certainly it’s not Europe’s fault!”

Reinfeldt said President Barack Obama had been “very constructive” at the talks, creating a basis for the accord by smoothing over the dispute with China over an international monitoring system for emissions.Still, the Swedish leader hinted that the Europeans had been caught badly off guard.

Reinfeldt said he had gotten his first signals that a deal had been struck while still engrossed in meetings. “We had very tough negotiations two and a half hours after I read on my mobile telephone that we were already done,” he said.

If there was a rush by the Americans to announce the deal, he said, it appeared to have been because of bad weather in the United States.

“He was in a hurry home, he said, because they were closing the airport in Washington,” Reinfeldt said of Obama. “There was a snowstorm coming in.”

Ed Miliband, the British secretary of state for climate and energy, acknowledged Europeans’ disappointment in the talks’ result but said he was “absolutely not in the blame game.” Rather, he said, negotiating strategies needed to be examined.

Delaying discussion of the toughest issues until the final moments of the conference came close to dooming the chances of an accord, Miliband said. “My biggest frustration at this conference is not talking about substance, apart from the last day, frankly,” he said. Miliband said the months of jockeying leading up to Copenhagen had resulted in some benefits.

“The process has been a nightmare, but the substance of the last year means you have ambitious targets from lots of countries,” he said.

He noted that Brazil, South Africa, India, China and Japan were among the nations that had proposed limits on their emissions before the talks.

“The success of this process has been the fact that it has concentrated minds and has made all the major players put numbers on the table,” Miliband said.

But he added: “I would have preferred a much more comprehensive agreement. I think going forward there are some difficult issues if emerging economies don’t want to be part of a legal treaty — which they obviously don’t — about what is the framework in which you operate. We do want a legal treaty, and we will be campaigning for it, but I think there are some difficult issues there.”

Jo Leinen, a German member of the European Parliament who led the chamber’s delegation, said Saturday that the talks “demonstrated the highly unsatisfactory and inefficient method of U.N. conferences” and that “deep reform of the decision-making in the framework of the United Nations” was “an urgent necessity.”

For European industry — which has long complained that policy makers in Brussels, by passing binding limits on emissions, have been moving too far ahead of the rest of the industrialized world — the result in Copenhagen could scarcely have been worse, according to one of its top representatives.

“Our major economic partners only repeated their limited mitigation commitments,” said Philippe De Buck, the director general of Business Europe, a powerful lobby group representing European industry.

Therefore the Copenhagen accord has not brightened the prospect for a global level-playing field in the future,” said De Buck, adding that “we strongly regret” that result.
He suggested that industries based in Europe would increasingly move their operations to less regulated parts of the world.

Representatives of the renewable energy industry were also bitterly disappointed at what they considered Europe’s marginalization at the talks.

“The E.U.’s strategy of leading by example failed and left them without influence,” said Christian Kjaer, chief executive of the European Wind Energy Association.

China and the United States “managed to get India, Brazil and South Africa on board” before departing Friday, “leaving it to the remaining 188 countries to work through to Saturday morning on accepting or rejecting the empty accord without changes,” Kjaer said.
Apisai Ielemia, the prime minister of Tuvalu, a small island state that could disappear under water if sea levels rise dramatically, said he was “gravely concerned” with the way the conference had gone.

Ielemia said the decision came down to “backroom deals by a select few.”

Tuvalu had pushed strongly for a global agreement that would ensure temperatures would peak at 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above average pre-industrial temperatures.
Instead, in the accord in Copenhagen, there was a reference to limit temperatures to a peak of 2 degrees Celsius and no specific timetable to achieve this.

In the past, Pacific islands like Tuvalu have worked in tandem with their larger neighbors Australia and New Zealand at United Nations conferences. But they appeared to be sharply at odds in Copenhagen.

In an apparent reference to noisy campaigns led by some nations at the front lines of climate change during the two-week conference, Tim Groser, the New Zealand minister of trade, criticized the “extremist negotiating culture” of some delegates.

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