CEE – Copenhagen News Room

Date: 08.12.2009

Press Release – 2

Will the world come together to get us a deal?

Yvo de Boer, the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention remarked about
the hope generated due to recent unprecedented announcement by countries to
voluntary reduce carbon emissions. Things, as expected, will take several twists
and turns before we reach some conclusive draft before the political negotiations
start.
Interestingly, the US initiative to recognize carbon dioxide as a threat to human
health is a welcome call underlining the need to curtail emissions. It is however
anybody’s guess about the time needed to actualize this intension through real
life mitigation.
The current proposal from United States is not sufficient to achieve the desired
goal. The US stand of forcing deeper cuts post 2020 and achieving 30% by 2025, and
42% by 2030 is not being seen as sufficient by climate observers. The Obama
administration gave the climate talks a boost Monday by announcing steps that
could lead to new U.S. emissions controls that don’t need the approval of the U.S.
Congress.
“This is very significant in the sense that if (…) the Senate fails to adopt
legislation
(on emissions), then the administration will have the authority to regulate,” Yvo
de
Boer, head of the secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC), comments, according to Reuters.
UK Prime Minister Mr. Brown also requested EU for deeper emission cuts and put
pressure on other industrialized countries to agree on higher emission cuts. EU
currently has agreed on 20% emission reduction arguing that they are watching for
response from United States, and China in particular, which can play a important
role to make this deal successful; after hearing firm comittments from them, they
are also willing to raise their bars.
With cracks emerging in the G-77 + China bloc on the common stand at the summit,
it has to be seen how different groups manage their act together on time before it
is too late. With the Indian negotiators joining on Tuesday, we hope the
differences emerging in country positions will be harmonized and confidence
regained.

Expectations are high, and the time short, to reach a common understanding on
various nuances of the draft emerging from major groups. The importance of the
conference is marked by the remark of Denmark’s Connie Hedegaard, President of the
Copenhagen Climate Conference “Don’t believe that anything gets easier if we
postpone things now. This is the time,”

Rajendra Pachauri rightly highlights the importance of taking action on time and
says
“The evidence is now overwhelming that the world would benefit greatly from early
action, and that delay would only lead to costs in economic and human terms that
would become progressively high,”

Prof. Stern highlights the need for concerted efforts in meeting the target in his
latest analysis. The analysis, said that if all countries achieved their targets,
total global emissions in 2020 could be 46 billion tonnes, only slightly more than
the 44 billion tonnes, that is understood to be the upper limit for emissions in
that year; so that a temperature rise beyond 2 degrees Celsius is avoided.
The time is right to deliver substantially especially with reference to financial
resources, and commitments should reflect specific needs. The proposal coming from
EU and other developed nations suggests lack of willingness to support even short-
term finances for the period 2010 – 2012.

Reuters reports China, Brazil, South Africa and India’s willingness to have a
global climate treaty wrapped up by June 2010.The positives coming out from
Copenhagen include the joining of political heads at the summit in its final
deliberations. This has buoyed sentiments even though time has run out to agree
on a full legal treaty, intended for the next year. Copenhagen will instead merely
agree a on “politically binding” text.

“Don’t wait for Copenhagen deal” says Elinor Ostrom, the first woman to win the
Nobel Prize for Economics. She also added “I am very concerned that we not
presume….that the international negotiations are the only thing that can happen
and we just sit around and wait”.

The press release is based on discussions and documents in circulation on the

Copenhagen negotiation along with inputs drawn from media releases. The note does
not reflect the views or stand of Centre for Environment Education on the climate
change position and debate