Global climate deal at least a year away, negotiators say

Negotiators say they have abandoned hope of signing a legally binding emissions treaty in Copenhagen and are planning only for a meeting of world leaders
John Vidal, guardian.co.uk 5 Nov 09;

A global deal to fight climate change will take at least six months and possibly another year to finalise, according to negotiators at the heart of the UN talks.

In a series of briefings, senior British and EU diplomats said they had abandoned any hope of reaching a legally binding treaty at the Copenhagen summit next month and had now started to plan only for a meeting of world leaders. This final acknowledgement follows weeks of growing pessimism and represents a significant downgrading of the summit's original goal.

The best outcome in Copenhagen will now be a political agreement which rich countries hope will include targets and timetables for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by developed nations and major emitters like China, as well as commitments to provide money for poor countries to cope with climate change. But even that reduced goal is far from certain, with huge gaps remaining between nations on key issues such as emissions cuts and funding for poor nations.

The delay was said to be caused by a combination of time running out in the tortuous UN negotiations and Washington's inability to commit specifically to targets and timetables. The US made clear yesterday that it thought a legal treaty was impossible in Copenhagen.

In Barcelona, a British government source said: "We think it will be impossible to sign up and agree a fully worked-up political treaty."

"It is a Catch-22 situation," said Artur Runge-Metzger, the European commission's chief negotiator. People are waiting for each other so it is difficult to blame anyone. [But] the US position is significant in terms of the delay. Clearly the US has been slowing things down."

In London, Ed Miliband, the UK secretary of state for energy and climate change, gave a similar message to the House of Commons, acknowledging that only a political agreement could be hoped for. "The UN negotiations are moving too slowly and not going well," he said.

The plan now is for world leaders to come to Copenhagen next month to sign a politically binding agreement which would have all the key elements of the final deal in it. "It would be substantive. It would set timelines, and provide the figures by which rich countries would reduce emissions, as well as the money that would be made available to developing countries to adapt to climate change", said a British government official.

But she said a legally binding agreement could take up to a year. "It could [take] six months up to a year, but we would want it to be [signed] as soon as possible".

Gordon Brown, President Lula of Brazil, President Sarkozy of France and other heads of state have already said they will go to Copenhagen, and others are expected to agree in the next few weeks. It is now more likely that President Obama will go because he will not be forced to sign a legally binding agreement which the US senate could then reject. Proposed climate laws presented to the Senate have encountered fierce opposition and on Tuesday, lawmakers accepted it could not be passed before Copenhagen. The battle over US healthcare reform and the recent election defeats for Obama have seriously reduced the president's ability to force through the laws.

However, there is the real prospect that even the political deal that world leaders will be asked to sign in Copenhagen will have little or no substance. The gap between the demands of the developing countries and the offers on the table is great in some areas, and there are fewer than seven days' full negotiating time left before world leaders arrive in Copenhagen.

The news was met with resignation by developing countries and NGOs. "Politically binding agreements are worth very little. Tell me of any politician who delivers a politically binding agreement", said Lumumba Di-Aping, chair of the G77 group of 130 countries.

"The world's poorest communities can't afford to wait. The cost of any delay to a climate deal will be counted in children's lives. We estimate that 250,000 children could be killed by climate change next year," said Benedict Dempsey, Save the Children's humanitarian policy officer.

"If the EU is buying time for Obama and Congress, let them come out and say so. To remove the impetus to push as far and as as hard as possible in the timeframe is reductive beyond belief," said Sol Oyuela, climate change policy officer at Cafod.

"The assumption that developing countries will want to go into a further round of talks is dangerous," added Antonio Hill of Oxfam. "There is no guarantee that anything will emerge."

Progress in Barcelona, the last full negotiating session before Copenhagen, has been particularly slow, with two days' negotiations effectively lost after African countries walked out in frustration at the lack of progress by rich countries. Neither the US nor the G77 group of countries have made any major concessions.

The deadlock has been most serious over proposed emission cuts. Rich countries together have proposed cutting approximately 16-23% on 1990 figures, but developing countries are determined to force a 40% cut to avoid what UN scientists say could be catastrophic climate change.

While the EU has proposed cuts of 20-30% by 2020, many other rich countries have not committed more than 15%. The US, the second largest emitter in the world, has pledged the equivalent of a 7% cut on 1990 emissions, or 17% on 2005 levels.

"There is everything to play for but we should lower our ambitions and get it right. Perhaps we were always being too ambitious," said one European diplomat.

NGOs said the talks were in real danger of losing their momentum, and accused the EU of giving up trying to persuade President Obama to give in.