16 Dec 2009

COP 15 Daily Summary

Climate talks stalled on their tenth day as secret negotiation meetings were held by many of the delegations, their ministers and heads of states to agree on the fundamental issues required before the presentation of a new Danish text – referred to as the ‘Chair’s text’. Previous texts have been widely disputed and negotiations seemed to remain inconclusive, despite the round of ministerial consultations which were expected to inject some political guidance into the process. Late at night, according to a Danish daily, he Presidency has abandoned its attempts to create a consensus on the text.

The Guardian reported that UK PM Gordon Brown had been engaged in talks with the US delegation to rally them, and other delegations to make some traction on agreement for developed country commitments and other areas of divergence regarding the text. Negotiations continued into the night as the pressure builds for some resolution on the new text – although there are expectations that it will be widely rejected by the LDCs upon presentation.

During the morning session, before the commencement of the high-level segment, Yvo de Boer announced that Connie Hedegaard has resigned from her role as COP president, and that Danish prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, will be taking over as president. Her resignation seems to be a matter of protocol, as with so many heads of state arriving it is more appropriate – in her words – that the PM presides over the proceedings. Rasmussen has appointed her as his ‘special representative’ to the talks, meaning that her role in the actual talks remains the same, while the prime minister chairs the official high-level segment which will consist of country statements by about 115 heads of state.

Meanwhile, both outside of the Bella Centre, and within it, demonstrations have been taking place over the exclusion of civil society representatives on the one hand, and lack of progress on the other.

REDD+

Five countries, including the US, Australia, France, Japan, Norway, and Britain have pledged a collective $3.5 billion USD for protecting rainforests over the next three years. This stop-gap measure roughly doubles current funding for REDD, but it is nowhere near the estimated $30 billion USD needed to build and sustain a global REDD mechanism. The US portion of this, $1 billion USD, was announced by Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack on Wednesday, as part of a larger pledge of $10 billion USD to fast track financing in developing countries. As is the concern with adaptation, a lack of long term investment in REDD will make it difficult for investors and nations alike to truly begin work on long term strategy, further stalling a process that urgently needs to be jump-started, now.

Meanwhile, REDD+ has been heralded in the international media as the silver lining of the climate summit, with the New York Times’ Elisabeth Rosenthal saying, if signed, “it is expected to be the most significant achievement to come out of the Copenhagen climate talks.” Sadly, it now appears this hope is a long way from being verified.

FINANCE

The Japanese delegation announced that Japan pledges a total of 15 billion USD for climate aid for developing countries up to 2012. This amount includes 11 billion dollars from public money.

TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

A new draft negotiating text was published during Wednesday which shed some more light on the state of play in the technology transfer debate. A new institution – the Technology Executive Committee -would oversee the technology component of the new agreement, while a Climate Technology Centre and Network would be used to support developing countries in implementing technology transfer.

The references in the draft text reflected a draft Addendum published on Wednesday which sets out the detail of the proposed technology transfer mechanisms. This texts still contains a number of bracketed sections but reflect a relatively broad consensus across a range of issues.

DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, was denounced by many hard line environmental groups by his agreement to a $10 billion dollars a year to 2012, increasing to $50 billion by 2015 and up to $100 billion by 2020. Many under the African group, which Zenawi was representing, were unhappy with the compromise which had apparently been decided upon during meetings held before the conference began. However Zenawi’s flexibility was a crucial point as talks deadlocked yesterday, with divided rifts across country blocks.