Faced with the undoubted grandeur of climate change, a grand response seems in order. But, to the immediate disappointment to most of those participating and watching, the much anticipated UN climate conference held in Copenhagen in December led to no such thing.
Initial ambitions for a legally binding agreement with numerical targets for big emitters had already been abandoned in favour of a “politically binding” deal in which developed and developing countries would commit themselves to numerical targets to cut emissions. In the event a few countries produced a short “accord” that sets down no specific limits for future emissions beyond those that its signatories volunteer—and the commitments they have made so far do not look tough enough to limit the rise in temperature to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, the widely accepted boundary beyond which scientists do not recommend going.
Hardly a grand response. Yet the Copenhagen accord is not the disaster that it at first appears. On two issues in particular the Copenhagen conference may yet mark the beginning of a new way forward.
First, the UN’s climate process has for more than a decade been bedevilled by a binary split between developed and developing countries. Under the Kyoto protocol, only developed countries committed themselves to cutting emissions; developing countries made no such promises. That was the main reason why Kyoto failed, because America would not accept a treaty that required nothing of countries such as China, and China insisted that the rich world should bear most of the necessary costs of constraining emissions. At Copenhagen developed countries were determined to move beyond this structure; many developing countries to hang on to it. That was the obstacle on which the conference foundered.
Yet the Copenhagen accord makes some progress towards closing this split. Developing, as well as developed, countries signed up to it, and have agreed to an international role in monitoring any cuts they commit themselves to. That is a crucial concession.
