The world’s negotiations on climate change moved into what the top U. N. climate official described as “a very distinct and important moment in the process” Tuesday, as top ministers searched for a way to ensure the commitments nations made here would stand up over time.
Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, told reporters both developed and developing countries will have to make concessions in coming days because “there is still an enormous amount of ground to be covered if this conference is to deliver what people around the world expect it to deliver.”
The United States and other developed nations are still pressing for a way to verify that China, India and other emerging economies will make the greenhouse gas emissions cuts they’ve pledged to make in the context of a new agreement, while developing countries argue these rich nations have not provided the financing and ambitious climate targets on their part that would be commensurate with their historic culpability for global warming.
Connie Hedegaard, the Danish chairman of the conference, said in an interview that monitoring and verifying future emissions cuts “is one of the very difficult issues because the major players both have serious red lines” on the issue. “One is waiting for the other [to move]. We must solve that problem.”
A blueprint, released Tuesday in Copenhagen, outlines three options for long-term climate aid from developed to developing countries. However, none of the options include any financial commitments, Bloomberg reports.
“This is eyewash. It’s a paper tiger,” Quamrul Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi envoy who coordinates the group of Least Developed Countries on finance issues, says in an interview in Copenhagen. “There is nothing in terms of long-term finance,” he adds according to Bloomberg.
As of Tuesday, United Nations negotiators have failed to agree on the financial aid that the United States, Japan and other developed nations will give to the developing world to cope with climate change, Bloomberg reports, referring to a draft document.
“The Copenhagen climate conference is in the grip of a serious deadlock,” the Guardian concludes in a feature.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Monday urged world leaders to be more flexible as a consensus looks difficult to achieve. Otherwise, the global climate summit is at risk of “failure,” the prime minister told Sky News.
“I think ... to land a strong agreement in Copenhagen we are going to have to see more compromise all round -- from the big developed economies as well as the emerging economies... We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us,” the prime minister said.
Rudd, who has been appointed a deal-brokering “friend of the chair” by the Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, has been forced to head to Copenhagen without parliamentary approval of his proposed carbon trade laws.
On Tuesday Rudd was to meet with his Japanese counterpart Yukio Hatoyama as well as Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada.
In the Danish capital 1,000 protesters have already been arrested, and tomorrow will bring their largest, angriest demonstration in the Danish capital, right outside the building where the crucial negotiations are underway, according to the U.K.’s Independent.
Mass arrests are likely as a predicted 5,000 demonstrators descend on the Bella Center on the same day as many world leaders are scheduled to arrive.
Climate-change activists have come prepared with maps, bicycles -- and swimming goggles, to protect against police use of tear gas and pepper spray. The event is being billed as “Reclaim Power” day, threatening both the security of the building and the fragile state of the talks within.
The activists have divided into several groups coordinated by Climate Justice Action. One group has been awarded an official permit allowing them to demonstrate just outside the site, while another will remain mobile. Still more protesters will form “bike blocs,” arriving on wheeled devices made from reclaimed bicycles welded together. All will be provided with maps of road blocks and precise instructions on where to go. Protesters have signed up to a text message service allowing them to change their plans at short notice, according to The Independent.
Richard Bernard, a spokesman for Climate Justice Action, said: “It’s going to be a day where we really disrupt the summit and say ‘You’re not talking any more, we’re talking now,’ because we are the people who are affected by this. We don’t wish to be violent in any way, but we do want to get our voices heard.”
The group said they intended the demonstration to be “nonviolent but confrontational,” admitting that there was no way they could prevent activists who might have different ideas from attending.
The demonstration will put added pressure on the conference organizers, who have been struggling to cope with the sheer number of people descending on the site each day. Yesterday, hundreds of delegates, NGO representatives and journalists were left standing outside in freezing temperatures for up to 9 hours after the UN’s accreditation system broke down.
Police have adopted a zero-tolerance approach to the activists, handcuffing anyone who commits minor misdemeanor and sitting them on the street for at least an hour.
Watch the NCR Ecology channel and the NCR Today group blog for updates on the Copenhagen climate conference.
[Rich Heffern is an NCR staff writer. His email: rheffern@ncronline.org]
