Copenhagen summit may end up with two rival texts

The Copenhagen climate change summit is likely to end with two rival texts because the main countries at present cannot agree on the important question of how to share the burden of cutting emissions to a safe level. The amount of disagreement was exposed by the publication on Sunday of two draft agreements, neither of which contain clear numbers or language on any of the most contentious issues. This is despite two years of negotiations before the summit.

The US refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol from 2001 has forced negotiators to work on two separate texts and there is now little chance of the twin-track process producing a single document. Negotiators from 193 countries are hoping that the early arrival at the summit of several leaders next Wednesday, including UK prime minister Gordon Brown, will help to break the deadlock.

In the impasse at Copenhagen, the only issues on which agreement is close are a commitment to a three-year climate fund to help poor countries to adapt to global warming and a pledge to limit the global temperature increase to 2°C, although without a clear plan for delivering it. India has agreed to a two degree centigrade cap on average global rise in temperature by 2050 provided there was a commitment on the part of the international community to come to an equitable sharing deal. Brown had raised Britain’s contribution to the fund by 50 per cent to £1.2 billion, with another £300 million if other countries made comparable efforts, although the government later admitted that it was re-allocating money previously pledged for overseas aid.

The main difference between the two rival texts at the end of the summit will be in how to regulate emissions cuts from developing countries. Many rich countries, including the US, want the bigger developing countries, especially China and India, to make commitments to reduce the rate of growth of their emissions. Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change secretary, said that significant obstacles remained to agreeing a single text. He said, “This remains tough. I don’t want to hide the scale of the challenge that remains. It is very complicated and difficult.”