Core nations struggle towards basis of deal

A DOZEN core countries met into the early hours of the morning in Copenhagen in a desperate effort to put together the basis of a global deal on climate change in the final hours.

All hopes will be on the US president, Barack Obama, who arrives at the conference this morning when he is expected to put more money on the table for developing countries, and perhaps to offer a bigger cut in US emissions.

After days of deadlock over process and with less than 24 hours left to find agreement, the Danes finally cleared the way for serious negotiations to begin yesterday on the central issues.

Environment Minister John Gormley pointed out the challenge facing global leaders when he addressed the conference last night. “For the first time in human history we are attempting to negotiate a global deal which recognises our total interdependence” he said and appealed to China and the US to come on board.

Dozens of sub-committees met throughout the day in a frantic effort to bring sides closer together and negotiate on a range of issues from the commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, financing poorer countries, carbon trading, to how to ensure that countries are actually doing what they promise to do.

Press conferences by key players were cancelled, as the meetings behind closed doors strove to make real progress before the leaders of most of the 193 countries represented at the conference arrived last night.

However, it became obvious around tea time that some tough political decisions needed to be made by countries willing to put figures on the table, and that it could not all be achieved with close to 200 country leaders sitting around a table today.

French president Nicholas Sarkozy when he arrived at the conference warned, “We risk heading straight for catastrophe. There is less than 24 hours left. If we continue like this, it will be a failure.”

Following calls from the EU, it was agreed to hold a late night meeting of key players following the formal dinner hosted by the Danish Queen Margrethe, which was attended by 115 government leaders including Taoiseach Brian Cowen.

Those attending were the members of the G7 including the US, even though the President Obama will not arrive until this morning. China, India, Brazil and the African Union were represented as well as the European Union.

“We need a text and this is designed to bring one about,” said an EU official. There were too many issues open and all were anxious to boil them down to the essentials that need to be agreed preferably today, but it could run into tomorrow.

These main issues are: the level of emission reductions; the money to help developing countries reduce their own emissions and deal with the impact of climate change; and a way of measuring and verifying cuts.

Currently the US offered to cut emissions by 17% over 2005 by 2020, equivalent to 4% over 1990 emissions; the EU will cut by 20% and most likely by 30% over 1990; China has said it will reduce carbon output per dollar production by 47%.

This would result in a carbon emissions of 550 parts per million (ppm), well short of the 450ppm needed to ensure temperatures do not rise above 2 degrees C. To achieve this the US would need to increase its reductions by 20%-25%, the EU to 27% and China 45%. As the world’s biggest emitters, moves by China and the US are seen as vital.

NGOs and some delegates were hoping that the deal will include a more ambitious target of 1.5 degrees C, but the danger, explained Colin Roche from Oxfam Ireland, is that they would commit to this without ensuring they make the corresponding cuts in emissions.

“What we don’t want is a hollow agreement,” he said. The Australian prime minister made a similar point warning against an agreement of “form over substance” when he addressed the conference.

The least developed countries fear that now that the “big boys” were taking control of the talks, their concerns would be forgotten. Their main concern is on money to help poorer countries reduce their own emissions and deal with for some the catastrophic consequences of climate change.

The UN has said about €7 billion a year is needed from next year to help and the EU has said this must increase to €100 billion a year from 2020, while US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put it at $100 billion when she spoke yesterday.

This was seen as a breakthrough, as the US, with China, has been blamed for failing to make any concessions and making demands that the rest of the world could not concede over the past five days.

However, a statement from Lesotho, representing the least developed countries group, said the figures were woefully inadequate and were not based on an economic assessment of the harm climate change was having on poor countries. They added that the money must be in addition to existing development aid. “We cannot be asked to choose between hospitals and schools on the one hand, and climate security on the other,” they said.

They want the long-term figure at $200bn a year.

A major stumbling block was how to reconcile the demand by the developing countries for the Kyoto treaty to remain in force with its rules and signed-up members because they trust it. However, they do not want to become members of it themselves. The Danes solution was a twin-track approach with the current 36 Kyoto member countries – most EU members and including Japan and Russia – working on the details of their proposals and the rest of the world, including the US and China, working separately on theirs.

The result was an initial 16 sub-committees working on the different elements of a new agreement. “This will be broken down in several other sub-groups of experts, some of them working on single paragraphs to get the drafting right”, said one insider.

Officials believe that they can conclude a deal with two separate agreements: one for the Kyoto members and one for the others.

Environment Minister John Gormley said the important issue will be to ensure that commitments made under both will be transparent, measurable and quantifiable.

Whatever agreement is reached this weekend – and there is growing optimism that one will be reached – will be just the start of a process to turn it into a legally-binding document, a process that the experts say will take between six and 12 months to achieve.