Can a Deal Be Reached at Copenhagen?

Although the upcoming negotiations at Copenhagen are highly anticipated, the actual prospect of reaching a deal that can be ratified is increasingly unlikely.  Yet there is a general consensus that the world cannot afford for the negotiations in Copenhagen to end with inaction. The stakes are too high: the survival of many developing nations, particularly small island states, is at risk.  Margot Wallstrom, vice president of the European Commission, Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, and Mohamed El-Ashry, senior fellow at the UN Foundation, joined Carnegie’s Jessica T. Mathews for a discussion of the potential outcomes at Copenhagen and the steps needed to ensure that the negotiations can be viewed as at least a partial success.

Challenges to securing a deal at Copenhagen

• Political Will: The EU has served as the de facto leader on climate change for the past several years, imposing a unilateral target to decrease greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and laying out concrete measures for reaching this target.  However, the EU is only responsible for 14 percent of global GHG emissions.  
  
  To further encourage a global deal, the EU has stated that it will increase its target to 30 percent by 2020 if it sees comparable cuts from developed nations and commitments of some sort from developing nations.  While El-Ashry believed Europe should continue to lead on this issue, others indicated that it is time for the United States, as one of the world’s largest emitters, to step up to the plate. Claussen noted, however, that there are significant limits to President Obama’s ability to legitimately commit to any goals without domestic legislation in place to support him. 
   
• Financing: Financial assistance must be offered by developed nations to facilitate mitigation, adaptation, and technology transfer in developing nations. To date, the European Union is the only entity that has publicly committed a set amount towards global financing efforts. Other countries, particularly the United States, must make similar statements.  
  
  One proposal, which El-Ashry sees as viable, is for developed countries to pay $1-2 billion to help implement existing adaptation action plans. This money would not cover the full cost of adaptation, but it would indicate a serious commitment by developed countries to helping developing countries cope with climate change.
   
• Structure: There is no consensus about the legal form of an agreement at Copenhagen, which Claussen views as a major challenge. The United States, which never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, wants an entirely new agreement. The EU and Japan want to incorporate the Kyoto Protocol into a new agreement. Most developing countries want to keep the Kyoto Protocol as the basis of any further agreements, because it does not require action on their part.

Key Elements of a Global Agreement

• A global agreement will likely center on the principle of common but differentiated responsibility, which requires developed countries to set targets supported by science and developing countries to enact measures to control rapid growth of emissions.  The IPCC says that to limit rising temperatures to 2°C would require developed countries to commit to a 20-45 percent emissions reduction below 1990 levels by the year 2020, yet the reduction targets developed countries have announced thus far only reduce emissions by 9-15 percent, indicating the progress that remains to be made. 
   
• All developed countries, particularly the United States, must set forth ambitious but achievable targets.  Claussen believes these targets must be absolute and cover all GHG source in a country’s economy. Such an effort in the United States would be enhanced by domestic climate legislation, which is unlikely to see a vote before early 2010.
   
• There is a general consensus that developing countries, particularly China and India, will need to make commitments of some sort in order to reach a deal. Claussen believes there should be a flexible framework for tracking efforts by developing countries.  Goals could cover a wide variety of fields, ranging from renewable energy to energy efficiency, but they should be measurable, reportable, and verifiable.

• Development will be a crucial element of climate change efforts.  A global agreement should not neglect the importance of education and economic development, but rather should combine climate change and development efforts to promote the emergence of low-carbon economies around the world.  Europe’s efforts to date illustrate many of the potential benefits of the transition to a low-carbon economy, including increased energy independence, increased energy efficiency, higher quality of life, and the creation of new, green jobs. These experiences can serve as a model for other developed countries, which can also learn from areas where Europe has struggled.  

Possible Outcomes

• A global deal at Copenhagen is still possible, Wallstrom said, but only if the world as a whole, and the United States in particular, dramatically increases its efforts. 
   
• Claussen said that the ideal outcome would be a solid framework that could later be filled in with details, but pointed out that developing countries are unlikely to agree to such a framework without a solid U.S. target.  Another possible outcome would be a commitment to limit temperature rise to 2°C, accompanied by a definite date for reaching a comprehensive agreement, ideally six months after Copenhagen.
   
• El-Ashry advocated for a return to the four pillars of the Bali Action Plan: mitigation, adaptation, financing, and technology transfer.  Building on these core elements, nations could set ambitious but achievable targets for energy efficiency, renewable energy, and forest rehabilitation and preservation, which a McKinsey study indicated could lead to 75 percent of the reductions required by 2020 with a net benefit of $14 billion.  Such efforts would build confidence, laying the groundwork for a bolder deal in the future.  However, as Claussen pointed out, at this point, it may be difficult to engineer such a dramatic change in focus in time for the Copenhagen negotiations.

Conclusion

Wallstrom emphasized the importance of keeping the momentum going for Copenhagen because the expectations are so high, but others agreed that for the same reason, expectations must be managed so that Copenhagen is not perceived as a failure. This might take the form of preparing constituents for not achieving a deal, and emphasizing that the international community might well end up with a stronger better agreement in the future, even without a comprehensive agreement at Copenhagen. Positive signals from the U.S. would go a long way towards keeping the negotiations moving forward. If the focus can shift from issues surrounding the language used in the agreement to substantive content, then Copenhagen may yet represent a significant milestone on the path to a comprehensive global agreement.