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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Accord On Climate Change

Accord On Climate Change:

Statement To be Submitted in Rajya Sabha
(Madan Menon Thottasseri)
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Jairam Ramesh,Minister of Environment will be presenting a Report of the Accord arrived at Copenhagen Climate Summit, in Rajya Sabha on today Monday- December 21, 2009.Certainly he will have to assure that India’s sovereignty was very much protected under the red lines earmarked and not transgressed his declaration in Parliament ahead of the summit.


The minister had called on Congress President, Ms Sonia Gandhi, on Sunday and briefed her on the deliberations of the two weeks long conference attended by 193 nations around the globe and provisional deal cobbled together by a small group of Basic Bloc wherein India a member and with U.S, for combating the global warming.

Mr Ramesh, who was part of the Indian negotiating team, earlier said on the outcome of the crucial negotiations in the Danish Capital that the accord was "a good deal."The Minister is understood to have taken the view that the Copenhagen accord is the first good step holding
That it was good for India, the world and good for Earth.

Ramesh had earlier said that the Indian side "had very fruitful discussions with Obama and that "India has a good deal."

At Copenhagen, the Prime Minister, Man Mohan Singh had said that there is no question of making India's unilateral commitments as internationally and legally binding.

Man Mohan Singh also said that there was no question of making our unilateralcommitments internationally legally binding, we will reflect them in an international agreement in a suitable way but we are not going to take any internationally legally binding commitments. That is simply not on the cards”. Ramesh said in Copenhagen, quoting the prime minister as having said.
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A Deal Away From Goals

A Deal Away From Desired Goals
(Madan Menon Thottasseri)
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President Obama succeeded in his job at Copenhagen while broking for a climate deal with a group of leading nations that provides for monitoring emission cuts by each country despite no global target for cutting greenhouse gases, and no deadline for reaching a formal international climate treaty.

Actually the deal falls far short of many countries' expectations for the summit and leaves a complete plan for climate change potentially years away. Although the agreement included some major players -- China, India, Brazil and South Africa -- it was not universally agreed upon by the 193 nations attending the summit. In fact, some leaders left early Friday in apparent frustration.

The climate debate shifted to the domestic stage. Though Obama voiced hopes for greater results, the modest agreement may help the administration as it presses Congress to pass 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.

While Obama too attended in the meeting of developing nations on late Friday , December 19, 2009 conceded its limitations- "Today we made a meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough here in Copenhagen.It is going to be very hard, and it's going to take some time" to get a legally binding treaty. He aadded "was not achievable at this conference."

In the deal, spelled out in a three-page document, each country needs only to list its current domestic pledges for emissions reductions and to promise to allow monitoring of their progress. It also outlines steps to help poor countries go green and prepare for the impact of a warming Earth.

But it sparked a rebellion among more vulnerable nations. They said they could not accept an agreement that lacked deep emissions commitments from the industrialized world.

"The science tells us we must act now, and urgently," said Ian Fry, climate-change representative for Tuvalu, which may be submerged by rising seas in a matter of decades. "To use a Biblical allusion, it looks like we're being offered 30 pieces of silver to bargain away our future. Mr. President, our future is not for sale." The summit venue burst into applause.

European officials, for their part, made it clear that although America's climate-change goals had improved compared to where they were under the Bush administration, they still were not in line with those of the European Union and Japan.

"This accord is better than no accord, [but] it wasn't a huge step," said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. "The level of ambition is honestly not what we were hoping for."
Barroso and Swedish Prime Minister Frederik Reinfeldt said the EU would stick to its target of reducing emissions 20 percent by 2020, compared to 1990 levels, rather than going for the 30 percent goal they had pledged in the context of an ambitious agreement.

But Obama, as well as many U.S. environmentalists, said this agreement represents a turning point in international climate policy because it means the developing world, which will account for nearly all the emissions growth in coming decades, has joined in committing to cut carbon output.

The goal was to get the big emitters in the developing world under the tent with some sort of credible monitoring regime," said David Doniger, policy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's climate center.

In fact, there was almost no deal in Copenhagen at all. The contentious talks appeared to break down at several points over recent days, with rich and poor countries at odds over nearly every issue. A group of developing nations staged a temporary walk out earlier in the week, and on the last day of the summit the talks seemed on the verge of collapse.

Obama had scheduled a private evening meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, whose nation, other leaders have said, poses the greatest challenge to forging a global pact. China had strongly resisted proposals for independent monitoring of each country's claimed emissions cuts, whereas the United States has said such scrutiny is integral to a meaningful deal. Wen had earlier declined to attend a pre-plenary emergency meeting with Obama and other world leaders, sending an aide instead.

But when Obama arrived for his meeting with Wen, he discovered that the Chinese leader was in a meeting with the leaders of India, South Africa and Brazil. Obama opted to join them, although at one point he threatened to walk out if no deal was reached. There, the final stages of the agreement came together, sources close to the talks said, with Obama discussing specifics.

Both the United States and the major developing nations agreed to list their existing pledges to fight climate change, and promised unspecified action to prevent the Earth's temperature from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius. In addition, they will provide information on their progress, which would be subject to international consultations and analysis.

To seal the deal, however, the United States had to sacrifice its goal of enshrining a global target of reducing greenhouse emissions in half by 2050 -- something developing countries, concerned the impact this would have on their economies, were reluctant to embrace. The deal also does not set a 2010 deadline for reaching a formal treaty, which several nations had sought.

Ned Helme, president of the Center for Clean Air Policy, said the administration made big concessions because it was unwilling to walk away from the deal. "Failure was not an option," Helme said, "so this deal traded off cutting global emissions in half by 2050 for a better transparency package that insures those promises will be kept."

Yet some environmentalists questioned how a document with an uncertain mandate could provide the foundation for a legally binding agreement.

"This is a sort of 'incomplete, I didn't turn in my term paper,' when it should have gotten a failing grade," said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "It's fill in the blanks, fill in the numbers."

Even on the question of financing to help developing countries cope with climate change, which had appeared to be one of the talks' few tangible outcomes, the document was short on specifics. It included $10 billion in annual funding from rich nations for the next three years but set only an aspirational goal for raising $100 billion in annual funding by 2020.

It doesn't say what the level of public financing will be," Meyer added. "It could be 2 percent, with 98 percent coming from the carbon markets."

Throughout the negotiations, Obama officials advocated a strong provision to ensure the United

States' economic competitors were cutting emissions, saying it was essential to satisfying senators back home, who have yet to pass climate legislation. "It's important that the world knows the Chinese are keeping the promises they are making," Markey said.

The decision to remove a 2010 deadline for reaching a legally binding treaty was significant, because scientists have warned that the longer nations wait to make deep greenhouse gas emission cuts, the harder it will be to avert dangerous climate change.

The deal does include language calling for completing a scientific review of the accord by 2015, the same year the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will issue a comprehensive assessment of the latest scientific findings on global warming. But the document calls only for "consideration of strengthening the long-term goal" of reducing emissions.

Obama conceded that the commitments included in the deal fell far short of what scientists have said is required to avert dangerous warming. "We know that they will not be by themselves sufficient to get to where we need to get by 2050," he said. "But I want to be very clear that ultimately this issue is going to be dictated by the science, and the science indicates that we're going to have to take more aggressive steps in the future."
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Copenhagen Adds Value To Obama in U.S

Copenhagen Adds Value To Obama in U.S
(Madan Menon Thottasseri)
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The crucial Copenhagen climate conference might have failed as it did not resulted in a consensus despite President Barack Obama's presence at the summit but his attempts that brokered a US-BASIC political deal was hailed by Congress leaders here as "commendable".

Top Congressional leaders praised Obama for reaching a "breakthrough" agreement with China, India, Brazil and South Africa but said this is just a beginning to advance climate change objectives. "The President's personal involvement, and the efforts of Secretary (Hillary) Clinton and her negotiating team, have been extremely focused and commendable," House Majority Leader Steny H Hoyer said.

US brokered a political deal with India and three other emerging economies over non-legally-binding emission cuts which was rejected by an overwhelming number of developing nations which called it one-sided and "suicidal".

However, Congress leaders, in their initial reactions said the "breakthrough," including transparency measures, a mitigation target of two degree Celsius and a financing mechanism, was "an important step forward that lays a key marker both in the global fight against climate change and in US participation in such efforts".

As consensus for a deal to tackle climate change eluded the 12-day Conference of Parties (COP), Obama pushed for a pact during parleys that went down to the wire.
Terming it as a bold agreement, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said this will help secure a safer, cleaner and more prosperous future for the world.

"This Copenhagen Accord was made possible by strong US leadership and recent investments in our national energy policies. This agreement was also aided by constructive engagement with the world community a result of President Obama's leadership," he said.

This is a significant and historic agreement, but there is more negotiating and trust building to do before there is a treaty for the Senate to review," Reid said.

Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, said: "The agreement... could not have been reached without President Obama's active involvement and leadership".

Senator Barbara Boxer, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said for the first time, the world's major emitting countries, including China and India, have committed to specific actions to cut emissions. American leadership, especially Obama's personal engagement, fundamentally changed the dynamic at the global warming talks, she said.

With Obama on his way back from Copenhagen, the American media said the deal falls short of key goals, even though it could be considered as a breakthrough by some. "The deal falls far short of many countries' expectations for the summit and leaves a comprehensive battle plan for climate change potentially years away," said The Washington Post in its news dispatch from Copenhagen.

The Wall Street Journal said Obama's very presence made a "significant breakthrough a political imperative, no matter how flimsy".

"The agreement addresses many of the issues that leaders came here to settle. But it has left many of the participants in the climate talks unhappy, from the Europeans, who now have the only binding carbon control regime in the world, to the delegates from the poorest nations, who objected to being left out of the critical negotiations," The New York Times said.

The Post said, the deal, under which each country needs only to list its current domestic pledges for emissions reductions and to promise to allow monitoring of their progress, sparked a rebellion among vulnerable nations. "No doubt under the agreement China will continue to get a free climate pass despite its role as the world's No 1 emitter," it said.

The accord, The New York Times, said provides a system for monitoring and reporting progress toward national pollution reduction goals, a compromise on an issue over which China bargained hard.

"But it was an equivocal agreement that was, to many, a disappointing conclusion to a two-year process that had the goal of producing a comprehensive and enforceable action plan for addressing dangerous changes to the global climate," it said.

Finall we all can say that Obama administraion is also a benificiary of the Accord!

Copenhagen’s Operational Accord?

Copenhagen’s Operational Accord?
(Madan Menon Thottasseri)

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The UN climate summit could reach an accord,which was ,finally passed on Saturday December 19, 2009 after two days of intensive negotiations and backroom maneuvers. The Accord, proposed by India and four other countries, is now ''operational'', a relieved UN chief said.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmuessen, who chaired the UN-sponsored meeting, acknowledged the lack of consensus and the inability to get the deal adopted. But after a break in the plenary session with a number of countries supporting the accord, the Conference chair announced the decision to “take note” of the agreement instead of formally approving it.
The Accord that is meant to be a first step towards fighting the climate change which affects millions worldwide was still held up for hours by four countries.

Tuvalu and Sudan said it was too weak, while Venezuela and Bolivia were upset because it had not been negotiated in the open form by all the 192 countries attending the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference.The stalemate lasted seven hours - including three adjournments - after the final plenary session of the conference was convened at 3 a.m. Saturday, already 12 hours behind schedule.

But when it was reconvened after the third adjournment, the chairman took just 30 seconds to say this conference was "taking note" of the Copenhagen Accord, and brought down the gavel before any of the surprised delegates in the main plenary hall could react.

The chair's only concession to the countries with objections: The countries that approved the Accord would be listed on the title page, he said.
Once they had taken in what happened, almost all the delegates stood and applauded loud and long. Soon afterwards, a relieved-looking UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon came out of the plenary hall to tell the media: "Finally we sealed the deal."

"It has been a long and interesting couple of days," Ban said, referring to the negotiations after US President Barack Obama got together with the heads of India, China, Brazil and South Africa Thursday evening to stitch the Accord together.Ban, who had not gone to his hotel room for two nights and had slept for a total of two hours during this period, said: "Bringing world leaders to the table paid off. This may not deliver what everyone hoped for, but it's an essential beginning."Four benchmarks:

According to the UN chief, the Accord had the four benchmarks. They are- 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 - could use to cope
With climate change effects.

Ban pointed out that the Accord was backed by money - $10 billion a year for the next three years, and then $100 billion a year that the US government had promised to put together from all sources around the globe.He added that now there was "convergence" on "transparency" over actions taken developing countries to control their greenhouse gas emissions, referring to a long-fought dispute between rich countries and emerging economies.

The Copenhagen Accord would "launch a new era of green growth", Ban was confident.
He listed the next steps in the process - turning the accord into a legally binding global treaty; the launch of the Copenhagen Green Climate Fund; and "turning our backs on the path of least resistance when it comes to mitigation actions".The Accord had to be passed by the plenary session of the conference so that these steps could now be taken, explained an expert on UN procedures.

Ban said: "It's a political accord, but with immediate operational effect."He expected the fund to have $10 billion next month. The Accord also says developed countries should report their mitigation actions by Feb 1, 2010, while large developing countries like India and China had to report their "mitigation ambitions by the same deadline.

Asked why the conference used the phrase that it had "taken note" of the Accord, Ban explained it was to satisfy "some member states that were still reluctant. These are very difficult and complex negotiations".The UN chief could not give a timeframe within which the Copenhagen Accord would be turned into a legally binding treaty, but said he would do his best to complete the process nextyear.

The deal was brought to the plenary as a draft document but was strongly opposed by Sudan, Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela and some other countries on the ground it lacked specific targets for reducing carbon emissions. They contended that it was
One-sided and suicidal.

Several countries including Japan, Germany and Britain besides Maldives supported the deal.
It is to be noted that earlier Rasmuessen had said, "If we strictly stick to the principle of consensus, this (the US-BASIC accord) cannot be adopted". Thus later he himself quoted this and said "I really regret it for this reason that we cannot adopt this document".

"It is true that this document cannot be put into operational effect. It is true but it is a reality," he said. But also said that Denmark can be proud of its efforts to secure an agreement.

The 3-page US-BASIC accord, taken as a final conference draft, contained elements like limiting temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, peaking of global and national emissions as soon as possible, factoring in overriding priorities of poverty for developing nations.

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Copenhagen Treaty

Copenhagen Treaty
(Madan Menon Thottasseri)
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US President Barack Obama reached a climate agreement on Friday with India, South Africa, China and Brazil. The deal outlined fell far short of the ambitions for the Copenhagen summit.

Here are key points from the agreement, which is titled Copenhagen Accord.

Long-Term Goals:

Deep cuts in global emissions are required according to science...with a view to reduce global emissions so as to hold the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius.
Legally Binding Deal?

A reference in an earlier draft to adopt a legally binding climate agreement by next year was missing in the final draft. This upset the EU and a number of other nations, such as the Pacific island country of Tuvalu, which fears being swamped by rising sea levels.

Financing For Poor Nations:
The text says that Developed countries shall provide adequate, predictable and sustainable financial resources, technology and capacity-building to support the implementation of adaptation action in developing countries. It mentions as particularly vulnerable and in need of help are the least developed countries, small island developing states and countries in Africa.

Developed countries set a goal of mobilizing jointly $100 billion a year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries. The funds will come from a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral.

An annex carries the following short-term financing pledges from developed countries for 2010-2012:
EU - $10.6 billion
Japan - $11 billion
United States - $3.6 billion

Emissions Reduction:

Details of mitigation plans are included in two separate annexes, one for developed country targets and one for the voluntary pledges of major developing countries.

These are not binding, and describe the current status of pledges -- ranging from under consideration for the United States to Adopted by legislation for the European Union.
Verification

A sticking point for a deal, largely because China refused to accept international controls, the section on monitoring of developing nation pledges is one of the longest in the accord.

It says emerging economies must monitor their efforts and report the results to the United Nations every two years, with some international checks to meet Western transparency concerns but to ensure that national sovereignty is respected.
Forest Protection

The accord recognises the importance of reducing emission from deforestation and forest degradation and the need to enhance removals or greenhouse gas emission by forests, and agrees to provide positive incentives to fund such action with financial resources from the developed world.

Carbon Markets:
Mentioned, but not in detail. The accord says - "We decide to pursue various approaches, including opportunities to use markets to enhance the cost-effectiveness of and to promote mitigations actions."

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Disappointment at Copenhagen

Disappointment at Copenhagen
(Madan Menon Thottasseri)
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The US-brokered deal with four emerging economies, including India, on climate change that places no legally-binding emission cuts on developed countries ran into rough weather on Saturday with a majority of poor countries rejecting it, as it was one-sided.

The deal between the US and BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) bloc is apparently a gain for developing nations which are required under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to take legally binding emission cuts.

The Protocol expires on 2012 and the 194-nation Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations here has apparently failed to get a word on its extension.

Indian negotiators -- Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh and Prime Minister's Special Envoy on Climate Shyam Saran -- themselves acknowledged the fact that the deal is not done until it is approved by the plenary. However, Ramesh claimed that it was "a good deal."
"Right now we have a document that says that we continue with negotiations on what to do about the future, including the Bali Action Plan and Kyoto Protocol," Saran said.

Angry delegates of many countries like Tuvalu, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Venezuela and Cuba slammed the US-BASIC deal for showing them great "disrespect" by leaving them out of the drafting process and imposing their document on vast majority.

Cuban delegates said that US President Barack Obama, who brokered the US-BASIC deal, was "behaving like an emperor" and claimed that the draft was a "gross violation principle of sovereign equality."

Sudanese delegate Lumumba Di-Aping compared the deal to the "Holocaust." "This document cannot be accepted for adoption by the parties present here," said delegates from Costa Rica, adding that there was an absence of a legally-binding treaty.

The final draft contains elements like a limit of 2 degrees in temperature rise on the basis of equity, peaking of global and national emissions as soon as possible, factoring in overriding priorities of poverty for developing nations. It calls on Annex I parties or industrialised nations to set their emission targets by February 2010 and also asks the developing countries to do the same.

In the contentious area of Monitoring, Verification and Reporting (MVR), it provides that unsupported actions could be subject to assessment only by domestic institutions but adds a new provision for international consultations and analysis without impinging on national sovereignty.

On the finance side, it provides USD 100 billion for long-term funding for developing countries and USD 30 billion for short-term, which would go to the poorest and most vulnerable.

The Chinese Premier (Wen Jiabao) took the lead in finding a compromise, and our Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh), President Lula (Da Silva of Brazil) and President (Jacob) Zuma (of South Africa) also participated," Ramesh said.

The four leaders, after holding their own discussions, approached Obama, who was not only negotiating on behalf of the US but was also acting as a mediator between Europe and the BASIC, he said. "Whatever the deal India has got is on behalf of the four (BASIC) countries."
However, Ramesh said they had a draft Copenhagen outcome which had been substantially approved by "this smaller group" .He said "Now this goes to the plenary, the plenary has to approve. There are still some differences of opinion. China and Small Island States are battling it out." During the 60-minute meeting between Obama and BASIC leaders, the US President was very appreciative of the unilateral measures India was taking.

Ramesh mentioned about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statment that there was no question of making our unilateral commitments internationally legally binding;we will reflect them in an international agreement in a suitable way but we are not going to take any internationally legally binding commitments. That is simply not on the cards. he added that Obama had appreciated Singh's statement.

During the meeting, the Minister said, "unfortunately" British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy did not seem appreciative of India's point of view.

"At a couple of moments, there were sharp exchanges between me and President Sarkozy," Brown told a TV channel, adding the Indian side also had some problem with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. However after the meeting these leaders Brown said that they have respect for Singh and knew what a "great Prime Minister he is and what good job India is doing."

Greenpeace UK’s executive director John Sauven said: “There are no targets for carbon cuts and no agreement on a legally binding treaty. It seems there are too few politicians in this world capable of looking beyond the horizon of their own narrow self-interest.”
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At Copenhagen: can Obama win another Nobel ?

At Copenhagen: can Obama win another Nobel ?
(Madan menon Thottasseri)
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Negotiators facing a Friday deadline hammered out an initial draft UN climate pact overnight that calls for a two degree Celsius cap on global temperatures and billions in aid for poor nations, sources said.

US President Barack Obama will join more than 120 other world leaders on the final day of the climate talks, designed to strike a deal to boost international efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions widely blamed for heating up the planet.

The draft still under discussion proposed limiting a rise in global average temperatures to within two degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels, the sources, who declined to be identified, said.
Small islands, called as low-lying countries worried about rising seas want a tougher target of 1.5 degrees. Temperatures have already risen half that level over the past century, the UN climate panel says.

Two sources said the draft pledged rich countries to donate $100 billion annually by 2020 to poor nations to help them adapt their economies and cope with climate change that threatens to bring chaotic weather.

Leaders from 26 rich and developing countries met into the early hours of Friday to try and overcome deep divisions that have plagued the negotiations since they were launched two years ago in Bali, Indonesia..

The draft agreement which may get changed did not currently mention carbon emissions reduction targets for industrialized nations, one source said. The two-week talks in Copenhagen have struggled to overcome deep differences over rich nations' targets to cut emissions, mostly from burning fossil fuels, climate funds and action by big developing countries to curb carbon pollution.

A major issue for rich nations will be of pressurizing China and India, the world's top and fourth-largest carbon emitters, to compromise and agree for outside scrutiny of pledged steps to curb their emissions.

Rasmussen hopes the leaders' meeting will yield a draft document that all 193 nations attending the UN talks could agree will form the basis of an eventual legally binding climate deal to expand or replace the existing Kyoto Protocol. The United Nations hopes this will be sealed next year.
Kyoto's first phase ends in 2012 and a key focus of the talks is finding a formula that captures stronger action by the United States, other rich nations and big developing countries to avoid dangerous climate change.

The United States never ratified Kyoto.

Obama is due to arrive on Friday and is expected to face pressure to pledge deeper emissions cuts. The United States is the world's number two emitter of greenhouse gases.
He is expected to meet Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on the sidelines of the talks, the largest ever climate summit.

Officials said the United States was making progress with China on outstanding issues but could not say whether a deal would result after Obama arrived.
One US official said there was progress on monitoring, reporting and verification requirements by China and other big developing countries on their emissions curbs. China has resisted such requirements.

The United States had helped the mood at the talks on Thursday by promising to back a $100 billion a year fund for poor nations from 2020. Such funds would be more than all current aid flows to poor nations, a UN official said, and in line with demands put forward for African nations. "That's very encouraging," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said of the US pledge.

Accord on finance is one part of a puzzle that also includes a host of other measures, such as saving rainforests, boosting carbon markets and stiffening global carbon emissions curbs. But any deal will have to be agreed by unanimity. Some small island states and African nations - most vulnerable to climate change - say they will not agree a weak deal.

"We are moving out of the valley of death. We are beginning to see the outlines of a compromise, helped by the US offer on finance," said Kim Carstensen, head of the WWF environmental group's global climate initiative.

When the Secretary of State – Hillary Clinton repeated the U.S. would cut emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, China reacted by confirming that its voluntary emissions target was nonnegotiable. China announced last month it would cut its “carbon intensity,” or the amount of emissions in relation to production, by 40 to 45 percent.

The European Union said Thursday that it will not raise its 20 percent cuts to 30 percent, as it has offered, unless it sees more ambitious actions from other countries, especially China.

The money announced by Clinton, to help poorer nations cope with climate change and develop clean—energy sources, was not guaranteed. The secretary of state said the U.S. agreement to an annual transfer of $100 billion in richer nations’ public and private funds to developing countries was contingent on reaching a broader agreement that covers the “transparency” of China’s measures to limit heat-trapping gases.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei told reporters Beijing had no legal obligation to verify its emissions actions, but was not afraid of supervision or responsibility.

“We will enhance and improve our national communication” to the U.N. on emissions, He said. The Chinese official indicated his country’s emissions-cutting actions would then be open to international scrutiny, saying China was willing to provide explanations and clarifications on its reports. Laureate

“The purpose is to improve transparency,” He said, adding that Beijing was ready to take part in “dialogue and cooperation that is not intrusive and doesn’t infringe on China’s sovereignty.”

Still the world is looking at the Nobel Winner to wrest some credible success from the negotiating process. And on Thursday, with almost 120 heads of state and government already in attendance, there were some signs that a meaningful political deal might be at hand, including a slight shift in China’s position and a pledge by the United States to help the poorest nations cope financially with global warming.

Top negotiators suspect that could prove a humiliating failure, because China and the United States, the world’s two largest emitters, remain deeply divided over a number of difficult problems. China, the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases, has brought the talks to a virtual standstill all week over this issue, which its leaders claim to be an affront to national sovereignty.

But the Chinese balkiness on the issue is matched in large measure by Obama’s own constraints. The Senate has not yet acted on a climate bill that the president needs to make good on his promises of emissions reductions and on the financial support that he has now promised the rest of the world.Many U.S experts believe that if the Chinese will not accept monitoring of emissions, then a deal is not worth doing.”

Obama is putting a measure of his and the nation’s prestige on the line by entering a debate with so much still unresolved. It was only 11 weeks ago that he left this same city empty-handed after pleading for Chicago to be selected as the site of the 2016 Olympics!

But the manipulation and brinksmanship that have characterized the final week of the talks is also a sign of their seriousness; never before have global leaders come so close to a meaningful agreement to reduce the greenhouse gases linked to warming the planet.

A Promise worth $100 : Will India and China fall prey?

A Promise worth $100 : Will India and China fall prey?
(Madan Menon Thottasseri)
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World leaders were racing against time to hammer out a deal to combat global warming, Still, a confident India represented by jairam Ramesh interacted with US and other key negotiators in an attempt to reach a "coordinated" position prior to the table at the final meeting.

Ramesh remarked that Todd Stern representing U.S had expressed a desired support for some of the elements but could not agree for other elements that was put forth to them,. He said that India is continuing to work out a coordinated position. In fact India and the US held discussions on the contentious issue of monitoring, review and verification (MRV) and made some progress but there was no major breakthrough.

According to Ramesh Seventy five per cent of the formula has been accepted. The remaining 25 per cent originates to the review mechanism issue wherein India had given the understanding that only informations can be provided and no inspection by outside agencies are not agreeable. US has been pushing up for a consultative mechanism , unacceptable to India and China as well.

Of course Ramesh had welcomed the US secretary of state, Ms Hillary Clinton’s announcement of American contribution to a $100 billion climate cleanup fund.

Earlier on Thursday Denmark seemed to have given up efforts to push a text for the meeting that was strongly resisted by India, China and the G-77 nations. Just a day before the closure of the climate change summit, its fate still hangs in balance as heads of state and government in Denmark began hectic parleys to approve an agreed document which has so far proved elusive. Now it would be up to the leaders of the US, China, India and other G-77 nations to forge a last-minute agreement.

Denmark was said to be working on a “political agreement” text that would postpone the decisions on the Kyoto Protocol and the long-term cooperative action to next year. British PM Gordon Brown was also said to be bringing together negotiators for an agreed text.
After the meeting, Ramesh said that he had told the Americans- "You should be transparent about the word transparency."

The U.N. climate talks ran into serious problems Friday morning as negotiators tried to forge a political agreement for the summit meeting of President Barack Obama, China’s premier and more than 110 other world leaders.

Delegates spoke of continuing disputes behind closed doors between developed and developing countries, the divide that has dogged the two-week U.N. climate conference from the beginning.
Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren said that no agreed text had emerged just an hour before the presidents and premiers were to gather at a Copenhagen convention hall.

With negotiations reaching a final stage at the climate change meet, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived here last night to lead the Indian delegation at the crucial talks.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao on Friday held talks in a bid to consolidate the position of developing countries ahead of the world leaders' meeting in Copenhagen.

In his opening remarks during his meeting with Wen, Singh recalled that the two countries have been cooperating at various front including the G-20.

"We need to continue the cooperation," said the Prime Minister, who arrived in the Danish capital late last night to take part in the high-level segment of the 12-day UN climate talks.

Besides Singh and Wen, US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicholas Sarkozy are among the 110 world leaders who would attend the 15th Conference of Parties (COP) on its final day today.

The developing countries have been resisting attempts by the rich nations to set aside the Kyoto Protocol, which sets legally binding greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets for industrialized nations. The 1997 protocol also has a strong compliance mechanism which penalises the rich nations if they do not meet emission reduction targets agreed upon by them.
Prime Minister man Mohan Singh arrived at Copenhagen at a time when the consensus is getting eluded. He landed there with a message to preserve the areas of consensus on mitigation actions and finances and transfers of green technologies to developing countries enshrined in the Bali Action Plan.

Prior to the meeting of over 110 world leaders at the climate change conference, Singh is scheduled to meet with his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao in a bid to consolidate position of the developing countries for the plenary.

"The UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol embody the international agreed regime for addressing the global challenge of climate change," the Prime Minister had given a press statement before flying from New Delhi.

The 12-day 15th Conference of Parties, which concludes here on Friday, is expected to issue a short communique on the need and urgency to arrest climate change instead of a political statement which could form a basis that could be the basis of a legally-binding agreement in the future.

The rich nations are expected to make a Strong pitch for limiting the global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius, agreeing to achieve 80 per cent emission cuts by 2050 and prompt e developing countries to undertake strong mitigation actions which would see a significant deviation from the business as usual approach.

However, the above points do not mention a base year for from which the emission reductions would be undertaken but stresses on transparent verification actions for all the parties.
As mentioned earlier, the group of four comprising Brazil, South Africa, India and China (BASIC) cannot compromise and will strongly oppose this proposal contending that it makes no reference to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Bali Action Plan and the Kyoto Protocol.

Despite certain nations not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, the Bali Action Plan of 2007 and the UNFCCC were adopted by consensus. It wants nations which have not ratified Kyoto to take commitments comparable to those agreed to it.

The Prime Minister is there just to reiterate the Indian stand and apply pressure by thrusting this point for insisting that it is of prime importance to preserve the areas of consensus and agree to continue negotiations based on the Bali Action Plan and the UNFCCC.
India and other developing countries have been insisting that neither would they take up legally binding emission cuts, nor accept a year by which their emissions would peak.

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Still Violence Outside……. When All Failed Inside

Still Violence Outside……. When All Failed Inside
(Madan Menon Thottasseri)
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There were violence on Wednesday December 16, 2009 also ouside the Bella center. Protestors marched from the Railway Station just a mile away to made their way to the summit venue where representatives from nearly 200 countries are meeting to try to reach an accord on climate Change.Police officers used pepper spray and wielded batons and finally arrested 250 people for violence.

Police dispersed the chanting, drum-beating protesters and few delegates came out ot interact with tem. They were not permitted for the same.

In the meantime, the Danish chairwoman of the conference, Connie Hedegaard, said that she is stepping down and that the Danish Prime Minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, would take her place as heads of state from around the world are arriving in Copenhagen. Hedegaard, a conservative, Denmark’s Minister of climate and energy and her stepping down is be seen as an attempt to shift the global environmental issues from the periphery into the political mainstream.

On Wednesday’s demonstrations, protesters began massing north of the center shortly before noon and pressed into a tight line of riot police blocking access to the hall. Some of the officers wielded truncheons against the chanting, shoving protesters in a close-order scrum. After forcibly removing protesters from a truck parked in an intersection outside the Bella Center, police in blue vans kept moving the protesters backwards, nearly pushing some into a watery marsh.

When Police advanced ,a scuffle broke out with protesters who formed human chains and chanted their commitment to nonviolence so as to people in all parts of the world who will be hardest hit by climate change. A number of protesters encouraged individual groups to keep pushing against the police.

Police deployed water cannon at the southeast corner of the center to push back the marchers if necessary. Climate Justice Action, a Danish umbrella group that has served as the organizing agent for a number of planned and spontaneous demonstrations during the conference, has a permit to march along a specified route south of the venue.

According to one organizer, Anne Petermann, the overarching message of Wednesday’s action is that the U.N process for curbing climate change is a failure, and that there are “thousands of other solutions to climate change that aren’t being considered,” she said.

Another member of the protest group, Richard Bernard, said he expected arrests and possible clashes with policeand said “Danish police have been violating human rights all week.”

Authorities were restricting access to the rail station serving the Bella Center, forcing many conference attendees to walk a mile or more in cold drizzle and biting winds.

Groups of delegates and members of nongovernmental organizations continued to stream on foot past subway stations that had been closed to prevent demonstrators from converging. They passed groups of detained protesters seated in neat rows, their hands tied with plastic police strips. Behind a department store, about a dozen detained protesters under police guard chanted anti-capitalist slogans.

Inside the center, the British P.M Gorden Brown and Australian P.M Kevin Rudd arrived ahead of other world leaders to begin what was expected to be an intense day of discussions to untangle some of the many issues standing in the way of a global agreement.

Negotiators debated until just before dawn without setting new goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions or for financing poorer countries’ efforts to cope with coming climate change, key elements of any deal, The Associated Press reported.

“In these very hours, we are balancing between success and failure,” Hedegaard told delegates Tuesday night before she stepped down. “Success is still within reach. But I must also warn you: we can fail.”

Much of the focus on Wednesday was expected to be on the financing arrangements of the deal, under which industrialized nations would transfer billions of dollars annually to poor nations to help them cope with a changing climate.

One of the proposals to be discussed Wednesday was put forward by Meles the prime minister of Ethiopia, who has been in talks with Goden Brown, Obama and other leaders. The amount and timing of payments were still under discussion.

Norway and Mexico have also offered a financing plan, which envisions annual payments to developing countries substantially higher than the $10 billion annual figure that Mr. Obama said the United States would support in the near term.

Developing countries have said that they will need $100 billion to $200 billion a year by 2020 to pay for low-carbon energy development and adaptation to global warming changes.
Outside the hall, police searched the bags of potential protesters and watched warily as crowds began to gather at rail stops within walking distance of the Bella Center.

Mette Hermansen, 27,a Teacher Trainee and a member of the International Socialists of Denmark, said, “In the Bella Center they are not discussing solutions to climate change. They are discussing how rich countries can continue emitting and how to sell that to the public. We are not preventing leaders from making solutions but encouraging them to make solutions.”

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Count Down…. Less than 48 hours and still no progress at Summit

Count Down…. Less than 48 hours and still no progress at Summit
(Madan Menon Thottasseri)
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With a little over 48-hours left of the two-week Copenhagen climate change conference, there has been no significant progress on any of the major issues.

There are no numbers from individual countries on how much each would be willing to contribute to a global climate protection fund. Nor has any country improved on its opening offer for cutting emissions.

Most developing countries, led by China, are still refusing to commit to legally binding actions to reduce the rate of growth of their emissions. They are clinging to the ten-year-old Kyoto Protocol, which allows them to carry on increasing their emissions indefinitely.

There is no certainty that any of the pledges made to date will be fulfilled because the 193 countries cannot agree on a consistent, independent monitoring system.

Even assuming all the commitments to emissions reductions were implemented, global emissions of CO2 equivalent would still be five billion tonnes, or 11 per cent, higher than they need to be in 2020 to have a 50/50 chance of the average temperature increase remaining below 2C.
It is still possible that the arrival of 115 heads of state today and tomorrow will force a breakthrough. Many, like Gordon Brown, are counting on returning to their countries on Friday night or Saturday morning with a piece of paper to wave at voters to convince them they have secured a planet-saving deal.

Everyone is waiting to see if President Obama will improve the offer from the US when he joins the conference on Friday. There is a widespread reluctance among other countries to make significant concessions until the country which has caused most of the problem takes more of its fair share of the burden of solving it.

Yet the British Government is publicly defending Mr Obama’s weak offer because it has decided it is the best the world is likely to get, given the degree of opposition in the US Congress to making any sacrifices or spending any significant sums to tackle emissions.

The only concrete agreement to emerge on Friday may be a deal on halting the destruction of the world’s rainforests by 2030. Everyone here seems to agree that the rainforests are worth saving and that people in rich countries must pay to protect them by making the trees more valuable alive than dead for their owners. The negotiators seem to find it easier agreeing on something tangible like trees rather than something invisible like CO2.

The communiqué signed by the leaders on Friday will confirm the intention of capping the temperature increase at 2C but the details of how to achieve that will be left to future negotiations. Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Secretary, said that he wants the intentions expressed on Friday to be turned into a legally binding treaty within six months. That timescale is likely to prove wildly optimistic.

Many world leaders are leaving for Copenhagen . Of course Prime Minister Man Mohan Sign too leaves for the capital of Denmark just to witness the disappointing threats while the close of the summit of 12 days!P.M will be there on Thursday and Friday, ie. December 17 and 18, 2009.Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao had epressed that the Danish chairmanship seemed to be working for a political agreement and not a legally binding traty that would cover the immediate and strong action in areas covered by Bali summit in 2007 so as to achieve a comprehensive legal framework during 2010.

The key objective of India and its coalition partners have to ensure that any further work in the post-Copenhagen phase of negotiations has to be proceeded on the basis of the principles and provisions of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Bali Action Plan.

Obviously we have wait for the next summit at Mexico in second half of 2010.
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Two Climate Drafts

Two Climate Drafts
(Madan Menon Thottasseri)
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Connie Hedegaard, the Danish President of the Climate summit who is stepping down enabling Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen declared on two drafts, on the Kyoto Protocol and Long Term Cooperative Action (LCA) tracks of negotiation triggered uproar, stunned many delegates with indignant demands of of 'inclusivity' and 'transparency'.

India’s Vijai Sharma expressed unhappiness as the move was against the essence of multilateralism.

In the plenary session there was confusion while discussing the Kyoto Protocol tough many areas are still heavily-bracketed , ie.unresolved while is presented for conclusion to the respective ministers.

When Hedegaard announced about the preparation of "two texts" -- one on Kyoto Protocol - and another on the Long Term Cooperative Action (LCA), all delegates were at their wits end!
There was a visibly dividing response in the session.Despite the shocking expression against the unprecedented move by China and India, developed nations including Australia, the EU and the U.S have Stated that the G77 and China were responsible for the situation as they have spoiled negotiations.

For 10 days now negotiators from 192 countries, who were later joined by their ministers, have been struggling to hammer out a climate deal to combat global warming.
The overall climate negotiations are moving under two tracks - the LCA under the Bali Action Plan that requires parties to produce a legally-binding treaty before the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ends in 2012.

The second track is the extension of the Kyoto Protocol into the second commitment period from 2013 to 2018 where developed countries listed under Annex B will have to take binding cuts.

The essence of Bali plans are as follows:

For developed countries such as the United States, the result of the exercise was supposed to be "Measurable, reportable and verifiable nationally appropriate mitigation commitments or actions, including quantified emission limitation and reduction objectives, by all developed country Parties, while ensuring the comparability of efforts among them, taking into account differences in their national circumstances."

For developing countries such as China, India and Brazil, the negotiating objective was "Nationally appropriate mitigation actions by developing country Parties in the context of sustainable development, supported and enabled by technology, financing and capacity-building, in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner."

It is to be noted that when the agreement was inked, the Bush administration had made it clear that it did not think this language would preclude binding emission cuts for major emerging economies. But countries like China and India made it clear then itself that they think it does, and their officials have to refer back to the Bali Action Plan any time they're asked to commit to mandatory cuts.
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Australian Recipe for Disaster at Copenhagen

Australian Recipe for Disaster at Copenhagen
(Madan Menon Thottasseri)
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Lumumba Di-Aping , chief negotiator for 'G77 and China' had a reason to accuse Australian Premier Kevin Rudd of misleading his people of his position on climate change.

Lumumba Di-Aping, said that he had high expectations of Rudd, but throughout negotiations Australia has not matched its actions with its rhetoric. "The message Kevin Rudd is giving to his people, his citizens, is a fabrication, it's fiction," he said.

"All that Australia has done so far is simply not good enough. It's puzzling in the sense that here is a Prime Minister who actually won the elections because of his commitment to climate change," he added.

Rudd was the only Prime Minister who came and clearly said "we have to do something, we have to join Kyoto protocol and all the rest". And within a very short period of time he changed his mind,position and started acting as if he has been converted into climate change skepticism.
Di-Aping accused Rudd of trying to gain a strategic economic advantage by siding with the United States and the European Union at Copenhagen.

Di Aping commented "Australia is committed to killing Kyoto,"

Rudd told a news conference in Copenhagen that his aim at the climate change talks is to get the best possible agreement in Australia's national interest.

Very serious differences had emerged out between India and Australia over the direction of talks at the climate summit here while Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh lashed out at Canberra, by dubbing it as an "ayatollah" for its one-way approach.

"Australia is sort of the ayatollah of the single track," That was the quoting by Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh , even reported in Australia’s 'Sydney Morning Herald'.

Developing countries are arguing that Australia and its allies are trying to push the outcome of talks away from the Kyoto Protocol, and Ramesh called it "a recipe for disaster". Ramesh, who cancelled a meeting with Australia's Climate Change Minister Penny Wong aimed at breaking the deadlock on Tuesday, told the daily that he had not "pulled out... as he was unfortunately too busy" to hold the meet. "Penny Wong remains a good friend of mine, a very valued colleague," he said.

Wong said: "You will have to ask him," when asked why the meeting was cancelled.
Ramesh also said he would not be cooperating in a session with her to try to break the deadlock even after a request from the Danish head of the UN conference Connie Hedegaard.

Wong said that it was regrettable that there are some who are willing to fight about process rather than to negotiate on the substance when what is asked of them required so much more.
With Australia and its allies coming under intense attack over claims that they want to "kill" the Kyoto Protocol, Wong attempted to offer lukewarm support for it.

But her rhetoric skills still continue- "I wanted to make very clear there is a lot in the Kyoto Protocol which is good... We need to do what is in the Kyoto Protocol and we need to go further".
If this is diplomacy and negotiation, will Copenhagen reach an accord? Answer is known to all….