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After 24 hours of backroom discussions, intense lobbying and high-level diplomacy, the document that emerged was hastily put into the UN records by conference president Lars Lokke Rasmussen, after three adjournments of the plenary called on Saturday morning, when several countries took strong objection to the way the deal had been put together.
“It’s not an accord that is legally binding, not an accord that pins down industrial nations to targets, not an accord that tells what developing countries will do, or how the money will be divided,” said an obviously disappointed executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. But he said President Obama had managed to put in place “a letter of intent, and an architecture of response to long-term climate challenge, though not in precise, legal terms.”
The meeting of 192 countries also decided to keeping the main tracks of negotiation on the Kyoto Protocol and long-term cooperative action open, hoping for a legally binding agreement by next December in Mexico, in time for the conference of parties or COP-16. De Boer said there was a “lot work to be done on road to Mexico.” He said they had $23 billion of pledges by industrial nations for short term financing, but these could not be “captured in a legally binding document.” Nor could the pledges on long-term finance. According to De Boer, it was “roller coaster ride” for 12 days of dramtic twists and turns.
Many among the non-governmental organisations have already terming COP-15 a failure, with the Swedish prime minister’s office calling it a “disaster.” Objections by several African nations and island countries ensured that the Accord could not be adopted by the conference since the UN works under a system of consensus. Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba rejected the document and Tuvalu said it did not go far enough. Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, chairman of the G77+China group called Copenhagen “a failure,” saying Sudan could “not have accepted a deal which would have destroyed Africa.”
The minister for environment and forests Jairam Ramesh said early on Saturday morning after several hours of negotiations that it was “a good deal and satisfactory solution” saying that in forging the deal Obama had spoken to prime minister Manmohan Singh, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, Brazilian president Inacio Lula da Silva and South Africa president Jacob Zuma together for over one hour. Singh returned back to India from Copenhagen early in the morning, after retiring to his hotel late in the night. Obama left for the US after the discussions.
Soon after the session closed in the morning, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon came out to say “finally we sealed the deal," adding that bringing heads of state to the table “had paid off.” According to him, the accord had four achievements —a common long-term goal of keeping average global temperature increase within two degrees Celsius; a commitment by all countries to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases; progress on tackling deforestation and the start of a fund that the poorest amoung the developing countries could use to adapt to impact of climate change. Ban said that apart from short term funds, the US had promised to put together a fund of $100 billion a year from 2020 from a variety of sources. He also said there was "convergence on transparency" on what step developing countries would take. He said the decision in Copenhagen would "launch a new era of green growth."
Earlier, Ramesh said India and the other three countries had agreed to reporting and verification issues after China reached a compromise with the US. But he refused to elaborate on what the compromise was. He said the Indian prime minister had “put his foot down” on the question of a legally binding treaty that the European Union wanted to start negotiations on. “We cannot preside over the death of Kyoto Protocol,” Ramesh quoted Singh as having said. He said 40 countries were working out the details of the political text that would be tabled at the plenary for adoption.
The European Union called it a “positive step, but clearly below our ambition.” The head of European Union executive Jose Manuel Barroso said it was not a perfect agreement, nor would it solve climate threat to mankind. “But it is a good start which needs to be developed.” The European representative also said that the deal was not good enough for EU to offer anything higher than cutting its emissions by 20 per cent by 2020.
Mexican president Felipe Calderon who will host the next climate change conference in December next year said it was lower than the expectations, but it was a move in the right direction. UK Prime Minister called it a “good first step,” saying the deal would bring all countries national action plans to the international table and these would come under a strong monitoring regime. He said Europe would set up a monitoring and verification bureau soon. He said the deal was also a step towards forging a legally binding treaty next year.
There was also widespread criticism of the US-Basic deal from the non-government organisations. “Copenhagen has been an abject failure. Justice has not been done,” said Friends of the Earth Internatinal. ActionAid said president Obama had to shoulder most of the blame for the “failure of the conference to achieve a meaningful global deal.”
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