21st December 2009
Did Copenhagen give us reason to hope?

It was supposed to be the meeting that saved the planet.  Leaders of the world’s nations coming together to agree a deal on the future of the world’s climate.  It was hoped that a deal would be reached to limit future human-made global temperature rises to no more than two degrees centigrade above what they were before the industrial age.  Now it’s being seen by many as a failure.  So did anything good come out of the two weeks of talks?

Well, broadly, yes, it did.  President Barack Obama of the USA, in collaboration with the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa put forward the ‘Copenhagen Accord’.    The Accord recognises the need to restrict temperature rises to no more than two degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels.  This will be achieved by reducing their production of carbon dioxide, which is produced when any fossil fuel (oil, coal, natural gas) or wood is burned.  Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas.  To find out more about climate change, click here.

It also promises $30bn (£18.5bn) of aid to developing countries for the next three years, along with a goal of providing $100bn of aid per year by 2020 to help developing countries to combat the effects of climate change.

However, it is not a legally binding agreement, nor is there any timescale set out for turning it into law.  The Accord was ‘recognised’ by the 193 nations in Copenhagen, but it wasn’t approved by the UN, so it’s kind of unofficial at the moment.

The two degree rise it mentions is not given a timescale, though countries are asked to deliver pledges by February 2010 for delivering cuts to carbon emissions by 2020.  However, there are no penalties outlined for countries that miss their targets.

And as for that $100bn per year in aid by 2020, there are no clear expectations for where that money will come from, other than the fact that it will include ‘public and private, bilateral and mutilateral, including alternative sources of finance.’  In other words, the Copenhagen Accord is a bit vague on the details at the moment.

This is not the global, legally binding treaty that many had hoped for, but perhaps as UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said, it’s an ‘important beginning’ in the fight against climate change.

Perhaps the most amazing thing to come out of Copenhagen is the fact that all of the world’s countries came together to discuss how we tackle climate change.  It has finally achieved recognition as the major challenge of our time and the biggest threat to the future of human life on the planet.  

There is clearly a lot of work to do at next year’s climate conferences in Germany and Mexico.  The foundations for an agreement have perhaps been laid, but there needs to be much more detail, concrete promises and real penalties imposed on countries that fail to meet targets for reducing their carbon dioxide emissions (when targets have finally been agreed).

I have a feeling that if a group of the world’s young people had got together in Copenhagen, we’d have a fully functioning deal by now.  It’s the young who really seem to care the most about what climate change might mean for their future.  As it is, we’ll have to hope that in 2010 the world’s leaders come up with something that will really make a difference.

By Peter Littlewood

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