To the disappointment of many, but the surprise of few, the Fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP-15) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in December 2009 in Copenhagen, failed to produce an agreement with binding carbon emissions reductions targets.The original plan had been to complete negotiations for a new international legal agreement on climate change that would cover the post-Kyoto period. (The Kyoto Protocol’s commitment period comes to an end in 2012.) As the meeting approached, it became clear that this was unlikely to occur. But nobody expected what did happen . . . .
From all reports, the Copenhagen negotiations were completely deadlocked until December 18th, when U.S. President Barak Obama arrived for the last scheduled day of the conference. Through his meetings with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and South African President Jacob Zuma, a political agreement for the Copenhagen Accord emerged. After world leaders drew on their inner college student and pulled a raucous all-nighter of negotiations, COP-15 agreed to "take note" of this Accord.
This Copenhagen Accord is clearly a political rather than legal agreement. It many flaws (they are well catalogued here and here.) But the agreement did set a January 31 deadline for developed states to declare their own emissions reductions targets and developing countries to declare "nationally appropriate" voluntary mitigation measures. That deadline is fast approaching.
The Copenhagen Accord got something of a boost yesterday when China, Brazil and India announced that they would submit their voluntary mitigation measures by the deadline. No amount of voluntary measures, or self-declared emissions reductions can ensure that we actually reduce our global carbon footprint to a sustainable level, but at least this movement may bode well for the Mexico City meeting this December.
At the same time, countries most threatened by climate change are not waiting around for an international agreement. For example, the Federated State of Micronesia requested that the Czech Environment Ministry to conduct a transboundary Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)before authorizing modifications to the Czech Republic's biggest industrial carbon emitter. Micronesia asserted that it:
has reasonable grounds to believe that its territory will be affected by the significant environmental impacts [from the facility.]As low-lying nations become increasingly desperate, we can probably expect more of them to take this tack.
