Hopenhagen to Flopenhagen

It's taken me a while to recover from Copenhagen and when I read the news reports I still find it hard to acknowledge what happened and what it means for the future. The news stories haven't gotten better with climate deniers getting media space, the UNFCCC executive secretary leaving and climate policy implementation both in the USA and Australia looking grim. I'm also trying hard to find something to blame. Was it the tedious queues in the freezing weather, or the lack of toilets in the conference centre, the lack of Vitamin E (I didn’t see the sun for 3 weeks), was it the fact that for months expectations for Copenhagen were lowered to such an extent that there was never any chance to get a “legally-binding deal” or was it the Chinese, the Americans, the Europeans or the egotistical Danish President? ...whatever it takes to get rid of the hangover that is Cop-out-hagen.

To say I’m disappointed about the outcome is obvious but the question on everyone’s mind is what now? Kyoto was supposed to be the first step and now everyone is saying that the Copenhagen Accord – a political declaration – is the first step. It feels like we’ve just got backwards. Politicians, the media and negotiators have a way of lowering expectations – and these were lowered below sea-level in Copenhagen. And with 115 Heads of State coming to Denmark – something, anything had to happen. So they lowered the expectations and instead of negotiating on real text to deliver a strong legally-binding solution – they wasted time arguing about killing the Kyoto Protocol, arguing about what compensation oil countries should receive if developed countries reduce emissions, argued about how much to pay, how much developed countries could use the carbon market to offset their emissions or gain credits from forestry instead of reducing fossil fuel emissions, about what to measure and verify and about who was in charge. Environment Ministers came to this meeting and sat around for 5 days, instead of negotiating and providing the political input that was necessary to get a deal. Because of this Heads of Government had to sit down to write text. The Brazilian President put it the best when he articulated that he had to participate in meetings that quite frankly heads of state shouldn’t participate in.

The biggest question is what does this mean for the UN system? If five countries can agree on a deal that the rest of the world is suppose to accept how is this democratic? The spirit of compromise meant that those countries with the most to lose had to compromise and those that didn’t have anything to lose got their own way (i.e. USA and China). What does this mean now for Kyoto? The first commitment period ends in 2012 and the intention at Copenhagen was to negotiate a second commitment period and find a way to bring the USA and other more advanced developing countries in. It took 5 years to negotiate Kyoto, 10 years to implement it and now we have to negotiate something new. A Brazilian negotiator once said does that mean it will take 15 years to negotiate the next one? If it takes that long we’re in deep trouble. The small island states were negotiating that greenhouse gas emissions peak by 2015 to ensure that we can stay below 1.5 degrees because the real impacts of sea-level rise, ocean acidification and more extreme hurricanes are becoming a reality. My colleagues have done an analysis of what the pledges countries have put forward really mean and it leaves the world heading to over 3°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100 http://www.climateactiontracker.org/

I’ve been working on the UN climate negotiations now for over four years and Copenhagen was the busiest and the messiest I’ve ever seen - the politics was to blame and so was the process of the Danish President. The overwhelming emotion is one of utter exhaustion. 2009 was filled with 6 official UN meetings, one trip to Grenada for a small islands states meeting and long office hours. I got through with the help of Simon, his never-ending support and excellent kitchen skills, friends coming to visit and living with us, emails and skype video and finally having Jennifer in Copenhagen in the media centre. So now I’m regaining my strength to continue the fight. I’ve learnt heaps from my colleagues who understand the science all too well and the negotiators from the small island states who understand what the impacts will be all too well. The ABC did this excellent interview with the Prime Minister of Tuvalu highlighting just how important this is... http://www.abc.net.au/rn/breakfast/stories/2009/2774089.htm

In the new year Simon and I travelled through Copenhagen on our way to Germany from Sweden on the train. I was really daunted about going back to the city where it had all gone so horribly wrong but Simon took me on a bicycle tour of Copenhagen, the sun came out and we were bicycle tourists, checking out all the fabulous bicycle lanes all over the city. Each new bicycle lane boosted my optimism. I learnt that the traffic lights are set to the average speed of cyclists going around the city so that they don't have to stop at red lights. We also saw the huge offshore wind farms that were introduced by the previous Danish government and I managed to leave the city with a glimmer of hope that people can really make a difference, and a rekindled fire to keep fighting the good fight.

The IPCC has been getting a hammering lately from conservative bloggers and climate deniers - but check out this excellent piece from Real Climate which gives the real facts from the spin. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/02/ipcc-errors-facts-and-spin/