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UN's Ban defends climate summit as 'step forward'
Last Updated: Tuesday, December 22, 2009 | 1:26 AM ET Comments390Recommend56
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CBC NewsUN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon admitted the UN climate summit in Copenhagen fell short of its goals but called it an important step toward a global agreement needed to combat climate change.UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon admitted the UN climate summit in Copenhagen fell short of its goals but called it an important step toward a global agreement needed to combat climate change. (Heribert Proepper/Associated Press)
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday defended the results of the Copenhagen climate change talks as a significant step toward a binding agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
He made the comments to reporters on Monday in response to criticism from world leaders that the process was flawed.
Coming up with an accord member states could agree on was "quite difficult," Ban said, but he said he was encouraged by the results.
"It is not perfect at this time, but it was a very important and very significant step forward," he said.
The three-page Copenhagen accord, put forward by a U.S.-led group of five nations — including China, India, Brazil and South Africa — recognizes that an increase in global temperature should be kept to two degrees Celsius — the threshold that UN scientists say is needed to avert serious climate change.
But the accord is not legally binding and has no long-term global targets for emissions cuts.
It also promises to deliver $30 billion US in aid over the next three years to help developing nations reduce emissions.
Although the agreement was not formally approved, the conference president said that delegates at a late-night plenary session agreed to "take note" of the document, or recognize that it exists.
Ban urged all countries to sign on to the accord and work toward making it a binding agreement next year.
Finger-pointing after summit
Though Ban was optimistic, the Copenhagen talks revealed deep divisions in the international community.
Several countries, including Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Sudan, called the accord unacceptable and said it had not been reached through a proper process.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday that some countries held the summit under ransom with their demands. Although Brown did not name names, his representative at the talks, Ed Miliband, said China led a group of countries that "hijacked" the negotiations and prevented the establishment of emission-reduction targets.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva also took a shot at the United States on Monday, saying its stance at one point prompted many European nations and Japan to reconsider implementing the Kyoto Protocol.
The UN had hoped the Copenhagen talks could come up with an agreement that could replace Kyoto, which is set to expire in 2012.
Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen, who hosted the summit, complained that lower-level negotiators failed to make enough headway in nearly two weeks of talks, leaving much of the work to be done by leaders at the end of the summit.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/12/21/copenhagen-ban-agreement.html#ixzz0eAWmWaE6
Last Updated: Saturday, January 30, 2010 | 3:08 PM ET CBC News
Canada has aligned itself with U.S. policy as it gave the United Nations its target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions under the Copenhagen Accord.
Environment Minister Jim Prentice on Saturday said that by 2020 Canada would reduce emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 levels, the same target the U.S. announced to the UN on Thursday.
Prentice made the announcement in Calgary, a day before the deadline stipulated in the agreement reached in the Danish capital last month.
"This is in keeping with our commitment, as I indicated in the days leading up to Copenhagen and afterwards, to align our policies with those of our continental partner," the minister said.
Other countries are also expected to submit targets in the coming weeks after UN climate change chief Yvo De Boer said the Jan. 31 deadline was flexible.
The European Union has reiterated a pledge to cut emissions 20 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020 and says it will raise the reduction target to 30 per cent if other large emitters make similar commitments.
Prentice said his government now wants to work toward achieving a comprehensive and binding international treaty, building on the framework agreement reached in Copenhagen, "that applies to all carbon emitters, including China and the United States as well."
He warned there's still much work to be done on getting all major emitters to agree to reductions, adding it took several years to turn the now outdated Kyoto Accord into a binding treaty.
Prentice said in the meantime, the U.S. and Canada will work together on various deals.
"In terms of motor vehicles, starting in 2011, we will have continental tailpipe emissions standards that will deal with carbon emissions for passenger vehicles," he said. "We're also moving forward on harmonization with air transport emissions, marine emissions, as well as those from heavy vehicles, all on a concerted continental basis."
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/01/30/prentice-emission-target.html?ref=rss#ixzz0eAW4evGB
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The take-notice deal that the world is ignoring
Last Updated: Monday, December 21, 2009 |
1:24 PM ET Comments50Recommend25
By Tom Parry CBC News
As it turns out, the UN summit on climate change ended not with a bang, nor with a whimper. And certainly not with a binding international agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The two-week long, lumbering behemoth of a conference here staggered to a close on the weekend with delegates agreeing to "take notice" of what, on the surface, appears to be a weak, vague document now being called the Copenhagen Accord.
What is "take notice," you ask? Here's the pained explanation of UN climate chief Yvo de Boer.
Take notice, he said "is a way of recognizing that something is there but not going so far as to directly associate yourself with it."
Tired eyes. The UN's climate change chief Yvo de Boer at a press conference in Copenhagen. (Reuters)Tired eyes. The UN's climate change chief Yvo de Boer at a press conference in Copenhagen. (Reuters)
How's that for a ringing endorsement?
It's hard to overstate the disappointment and discouragement that most environmentalists felt at the conclusion of this summit.
These NGOs (non-governmental organizations) spent years lobbying, writing reports, compiling research and building the case for a strong international agreement to pick up where the Kyoto treaty left off and tackle global warming.
Copenhagen was supposed to be a turning point.
It turned into a bloated gabfest, one that produced a final document less than three pages long with none of the enforceable targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions that green activists were looking for.
Two steps back?
Maybe it was bound to happen. The idea of getting representatives from nearly 200 countries in one place and having them all agree on what amounts to a fundamental restructuring of the world economy may be just too much to ask.
On the last night of the summit, U.S. President Barack Obama alluded to that fact as he prematurely announced his deal, before anyone had the chance to debate it.
Obama talked about that elusive goal of a binding treaty that would force governments everywhere to cut their carbon emissions and penalize them if they didn't.
"It is still going to require more work and more confidence building and greater trust between emerging countries, the least developed countries and the developed countries before I think you are going to see another legally binding treaty signed," Obama said.
"I actually think that it's necessary for us ultimately to get to such a treaty. And I am supportive of such efforts.
"But this is a classic example of a situation where if we just waited for that, then we would not make any progress. And, in fact, I think there might be such frustration and cynicism that rather than taking one step forward we ended up taking two steps back."
Taking on the West
The president has a point. The Copenhagen conference was defined by a deep split between rich countries and poor ones and by backstabbing and backroom politics on a global scale.
At times it was downright farcical. As when Zimbabwe's dictatorial Robert Mugabe took the podium and began to chide the West for "aspiring to misrule the world."
Does anyone care what someone like Mugabe thinks about climate change? How about Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
For a summit supposedly aimed at saving the planet, much of it was an uninspiring display of tired rhetoric. The limp, watered-down accord that resulted may have been the best possible outcome.
In the wake of Copenhagen, many people are asking whether there's a better way of dealing with global issues as vital as climate change.
The only breakthrough at Copenhagen came when the U.S. and the other large emitters — China, Brazil, India and South Africa — came together and cooked up their own gentlemen's agreement.
It may not jibe with the all-embracing global vision of the UN, but it's a lot simpler. Why not get negotiators for the big boys together and cook up a deal to cut emissions?
If global warming is such a big deal, shouldn't we set aside political niceties and say this is too important a matter to worry about inclusiveness.
Kumi Naidoo, the head of Greenpeace International, says that's not the way to go. Global warming is a global problem and must be dealt with in a global manner.
"The simple fact is we either get it right as a common global family, rich and poor countries acting together so that we can secure our children and grandchildren's future, or, if we don't get it right, we all actually go down together.
"Now, I'm not saying it's easy," Naidoo goes on, "to have all these countries sitting and negotiating together. But until we have and if we ever have a world parliament, the UN - warts and all - is the best option that we have."
Change the process?
So maybe we're stuck with the UN. But could the process that led to so much lethargy and inertia at Copenhagen at least be fixed?
Writing in The Guardian newspaper, Britain's climate change secretary, Ed Milliband, says there needs to be a substantial reform of the UN body overseeing climate negotiations and the way negotiations are conducted.
Good luck with that. Any journalist, NGO worker or delegate who stood in line for hours in Copenhagen, simply waiting to get into the summit knows the UN is a sprawling organization that works at its own pace.
Reforming the UN process may be a worthy goal but is probably an equally Herculean task.
In the short term, talks will continue. There are climate meetings coming up next year in Germany and Mexico. Expect more wrangling and bureaucratic bickering.
Maybe countries will make some progress. Maybe the UN will actually come up with some solutions. If Copenhagen is any example, though, it doesn't look good.
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Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/12/21/f-rfa-parry.html#ixzz0eAX3vEm4
