Hopefully what happened in Copenhagen won’t stay in Copenhagen.
After two crazy weeks of negotiations, walk-outs, protests, and too-many-planes-and-limos-you-hypocrites blogposts, the world leaders at COP15 finally came up with three pieces of paper that everyone could agree on. The conference ended (pdf) last Saturday, December 19th. The Copenhagen Accord says that all the signers agree that we should not allow the earth to warm up more than 2º C, or 3.6º F above the pre-industrial average. At that point, some of the changes we could see include: rapid melting of Greenland and Antarctica, Africa turning into “a furnace,” and extreme rises in sea level that would flood many low-lying areas (and more than 50% of all Americans live on or near the coast, FYI). To prevent this from happening, the signers pledged to reduce their emissions and raise money for developing countries to do the same.
Here’s the problem. The whole thing is non-binding. Non one actually has to do anything! Empty promises abound! Like I wrote earlier, they’re saving the “real work” for COP16 in Mexico City.
The number of divides that countries had to overcome to reach even this point is astronomical. It’s encouraging to see the names Jiabao, Obama, Singh, Zenawi, and Yang all on one document. But without sanctions, incentives and the like, what can we REALLY expect to come out of this meeting? Here are some reactions to the accord from the NY Times.
Some quotations from the text:
We underline that climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time. We emphasise our strong political will to urgently combat climate change in accordance with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.
This is one of the first lines of the treaty, and probably one of the most important. Common but differentiated responsibilities was a characteristic of the Kyoto treaty as well; even if we can’t (or shouldn’t) reduce the same amount of CO2 in each country, each country is still responsible for giving up something. CDR helps bridge the gap between rich and poor countries, and usually addresses the issue of developing nations not contributing as much CO2 to the atmosphere as the developed world. It’s a vague enough principle that everyone agrees until we put dollar values / tonnage amounts on the end of it .
We agree that deep cuts in global emissions are required according to science, and as documented by the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report with a view to reduce global emissions so as to hold the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius, and take action to meet this objective consistent with science and on the basis of equity.
Fortunately, the fundamental science behind climate change was not questioned, at least by the end of the Conference. Many people thought the ClimateGate scandal might put a damper on the basis for any kind of treaty on global warming, but it looks like all the people who should still be on board with the IPCC, still are. And for good reason – it has highly-respected representatives from nearly every country in attendance.

Enhanced action and international cooperation on adaptation is urgently required to ensure the implementation of the Convention by enabling and supporting the implementation of adaptation actions aimed at reducing vulnerability and building resilience in developing countries, especially in those that are particularly vulnerable, especially least developed countries, small island developing States and Africa. We agree that developed countries shall provide adequate, predictable and sustainable financial resources, technology and capacity-building to support the implementation of adaptation action in developing countries.
Now that’s what Africa wanted to hear! Well, sort of. Fortunately they walked back in on the conference before any permanent damage was done to the negotiations. The money pledged by the industrialized world up thus far is far below what is expected and needed, but we have to start somewhere! But like I mentioned last week, I’m personally concerned with developed nations slapping a long list of contingencies on the loans and traded technologies. The Accord designates the Copenhagen Green Climate Fund and a Technology Mechanism to help the process along.
Annex I Parties commit to implement individually or jointly the quantified economy-wide emissions targets for 2020… Mitigation actions taken by Non-Annex I Parties will be subject to their domestic measurement, reporting and verification the result of which will be reported through their national communications every two years.
They are also required to be stronger targets than the former Kyoto Protocol required. This is why China joined the rest of the world, and probably some other countries: they’re allowed to choose their own targets and don’t have to answer to any international policing group. And since it’s nonbinding, there are no sanctions for not following their own commitments (yet). Non-Annex I parties are the nations still developing (including Brazil, India, and China).

We recognize the crucial role of reducing emission from deforestation and forest degradation and the need to enhance removals of greenhouse gas emission by forests…
I don’t know if it’s true, but I recently heard that if you take all the CO2 emissions from every train, plane, boat, and car in this world, everything they emit in one year does not equal the GHG produced by a year of deforestation. EW. (Can’t find the source, but this article does say that preventing deforestation is the most significant change we can make to prevent climate change.)