COP15 Daily Brief: Day 8

Today was a critical one in the two-week marathon of talks under way at the Bella Center. It was the last chance for negotiators to make headway on outstanding issues, of which there are many, before first ministers and then 115 heads of state take over the negotiations in the conference's closing days.

At a press briefing this afternoon, UNFCCC chief Yvo de Boer and COP15 President Connie Hedegaard, the chaperones of this process, gave a detailed – and urgent-sounding – update on the talks.

Hedegaard began by listing the major areas of disagreement being discussed today in informal consultations hosted by herself and co-facilitated by ministers: developed country targets under the Kyoto Protocol (KP); long-term financing for adaptation and mitigation; a long-term emissions reduction goal; developing country mitigation efforts; and trade issues, especially bunker fuels (according to a report today at adopt a negotiator, progress on this last item is being single-handedly blocked by the United States).

Ministers need to get busy

It was evident from the force of their words that de Boer and Hedegaard were concerned about the pace of, and progress achieved, at the talks thus far.

"It's very clear that ministers have to be extremely busy and focused over the next 48 hours if we are to make the success we are trying to make," Hedegaard said.

De Boer added: "There is still an enormous amount of work and ground to be covered if this conference is to deliver what people around the world expect us to deliver: ambitious emissions reduction targets, significant engagement by developing countries, and immediate and robust finance to help developing countries adapt to the impacts of climate change.

"We, at the end of this week, need to nail down in very clear conclusions if world leaders are to be in a position to go back to the people that elected them and say that they did here what they were supposed to do here."

You can lead 192 nations to the negotiating table ...

Hedegaard and de Boer also addressed some of the concerns – a perceived heavy-handedness and lack of transparency on the part of the Danish presidency – that precipitated yesterday's walk-out by the G77 block.

De Boer said that this COP is "the most transparent climate change conference I have ever witnessed in the 14 I have been to." Hedegaard noted that the ministers she hosted in informal talks over the weekend were a "representative" group from developed and developing countries, and 27 of the 48 ministers in attendance were from G77 countries.

They both sought to dispel that notion that the Danish Prime Minister's Office and a handful of industrialized countries were collaborating in a power play to secure a pre-arranged outcome that shortchanges the developing world.

"We cannot dictate anything, in the end, that the parties don't want," Hedegaard said. De Boer added that these talks are "not about ramming the interests of the few down the throats of the many."

The Danish government had done all it could to elicit input and the participation of all parties, said de Boer. In a riff on the familiar expression, he said, of Hedegaard, that she's brought 192 nations to the table, but she can't force them to reach agreement.

Signaling, positioning

The situation isn't as dire as it appears at first glance. Hedegaard let slip today an open secret: much of the public rancor or discord at these talks, is, in private, very different.

"There is a lot of signaling out there, a lot of positioning. It's not always representative of feeling when the doors are closed," she said. In other words, pay less attention to US lead negotiator Todd Stern and his Chinese counterpart trading barbs and pay more to each day's – even incremental – gains.

For example, in another boost for de Boer's proposed $10-billion per year quick-start adaptation fund, which would send $30 billion through 2012 to countries most at risk of severe climate change impacts, Japan today announced that Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama will unveil an increased aid offer at the Bella Center on December 18. Japan reportedly will provide $10 billion over three years to the short-term fund.

Another good example was provided today by Todd Stern. The US short-term emissions reduction target brought to Copenhagen, in the range of 17% below 2005 levels by 2020, is almost universally maligned as too low and lacking ambition. But is it? As I wrote last March, there are good reasons for Europe to favor a 1990 base year for emissions reductions.

Stern compared the provisional US target, as well as longer-term ones through 2030 (30% below 2005 by 2025 and 42% by 2030) to the current EU target: a reduction of 20% from 1990 levels by 2020. Even compared to 1990, Stern said, the US targets in 2025 and 2030 would amount to a reduction of 18% and 33%.

Stern went on to say that if you translated the EU target to the 2005 base year, it becomes a 13% reduction – less than what the US is offering. It's similar, he said, for emissions reductions compared to business as usual and per capita. On reduction from business as usual, the US figure is a 17% reduction, the EU's about 12%, Japan 10%, and Australia 20%; for per capita (even against 1990), the US proposal target is a 29% reduction, the EU a 25% reduction.

In the end, in five out of six measures cited by Stern, the US is equal to or more ambitious than the EU or many other rich countries. The only measure by which it doesn't compare favorably is the 1990 base year – which is the one used in the Kyoto Protocol and favored in these talks.

"It's only in the hermetically-sealed world of global climate change negotiations that a baseline year of 1990 to measure the reduction of emissions from now to 2020 would be treated as sacrosanct," Stern said.

It's obviously in the US' interest to use a baseline year that it favors. My point is that the EU does likewise. And that the use of the 1990 baseline year has become a litmus test by which many measure a country's commitment to emissions reductions in these talks.

When so much is on the line, a little perspective helps.

Justin Gerdes,

Journalistic Web Editor

Read the COP15 Daily Brief: Day 7, Day 6 (Kronborg), Daily 5, Day 4, Day 3, Day 2, Day 1. Follow me on Twitter.

Photo credit: Flickr/UN_Climate_Talks