Dateline: Copenhagen

The beaches of Cancun will be hosts of COP 16. After a lukewarm result from Copenhagen it will be up to the Mexican government to create the environment that will make a legally binding international agreement more likely. Beyond excellent logistics and security, the COP in Mexico will have to tackle the challenge of reaching consensus from a group of countries that appears to be even more fragmented after COP 15. The division has led many analysts to speculate that this year the Climate Change debate will shift to regional or G forums (G8, G8+5, G20 etc.), or even to bilateral negotiations between the most influential states. Reducing the number of Parties might be a good strategy to reach concrete results more efficiently, without the hassle of building consensus, but it threatens principles embedded in broader multilateralism (like equity and transparency). Historically, Mexico has been a keen adherent to these principles. The COP presidency will give the Mexicans an opportunity to uphold the UNFCCC process as the forum to reach a Climate Change global agreement.

Politically, the Mexican government has a large stake in the COP 16 success. President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa has made Climate Change a top priority for Mexico. Indeed, the Special Climate Change Program (PECC) published in the Official Gazette of the Federation late last summer offers a 51 MMt CO₂e unilateral reduction target by 2012. On the international stage, Mexico’s Green Fund proposal is one of the most significant contributions from a single country to the international climate debate, designed to work effectively with broad participation from developed and developing countries alike. President Calderon was part of a handful of heads of state to drill down the Copenhagen Accord last December. And he has been active behind the scenes as well: Last November, along with Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, he brought in the Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, to host an unofficial breakfast on Climate Change during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in November in Singapore. It’s safe to say that Mexico’s Administration has adopted Climate Change as the centerpiece of its foreign policy (some internal Mexican bureaucratic divisions non-withstanding).

The Mexican government faces the urgent need to “walk the talk.” A key piece for Mexico to meet its domestic emission reduction target will require the Energy Ministry to mandate the national public utility company (CFE) to double its renewable energy installed capacity from 3.3 to 7.6 % by 2012. This transition, neglected for too long, would mainly rely on expanding the wind energy base operated by private developers, mostly for self-supply – a scheme that makes CFE uncomfortable as it weakens its monopolistic power. Other actions contemplated in the PECC’s mitigating strategy like a REDD pilot project and the expansion of the “Green Mortgage” initiative will also face similar power struggles.

In the international sphere, consensus building needs to start now as well. President Calderon and his team need to enhance their facilitator role in the months leading up to COP 16. There is a strong opportunity this year to frame one of the most ambitious global agreements in history. It will require flexing high-level diplomatic muscle on three different fronts. First, they need to build on the willingness to cooperate from latecomer countries like China, India, Brazil and the United States to close the dividing line between Annex 1 and Non-Annex 1 countries. Second, it is essential for them to address the concerns of the most vulnerable countries, like Tuvalu, and least developed countries, like Mali, to ensure a smooth flow of discussions. Third, they should reach out to countries like Venezuela, Ecuador and Saudi Arabia that consider a Climate Change accord as another plot for developed countries to get their way. This three-tier strategy will have to move forward while keeping an eye on talks behind closed doors at forums in which Mexico does not participate, as well as U.S. domestic politics. Mexico appears to have the diplomatic willingness to lead on this effort, and its international climate initiatives are not only sound and well-received but are also fairly consistent with its domestic policy. If President Calderon and his team manage to succeed, negotiations at COP 16 could be as rejuvenating as a sunny day at the beach.

This blog has been contributed by Juan Pablo Osornio, International Policy Analyst at the Center for Clean Air Policy in Washington DC, and Jonathan Pinzon, Research Director at Cassals & Associates in Mexico City.

COP 15 attendees queue outside the Bella Center

The Copenhagen UN climate conference ended last Saturday with a weak agreement, not the groundbreaking treaty many had hoped for. Not only did Worldwatch send its biggest team ever to the Danish capital; with more than 100 heads of governments and many more parliamentarians and dignitaries, COP-15 became the largest assembly of world leaders in diplomatic history. The Copenhagen conference had been planned out for two years in many small informal and large official meetings, following the 2007 Bali Action Plan in which nations had agreed to finalize a binding agreement this December. The outcome falls far short of this original goal. Delegates only “noted” an accord (“the Copenhagen Accord”) struck by the United States, Brazil, China, India, and South Africa that has two key components: first, it sets a target of limiting global warming to a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times; second, it proposes $100 billion in annual aid for developing nations starting in 2020 to help them reduce emissions and adapt to climate change.

2 degrees Celsius is seen by mainstream science as a threshold for dangerous climatic changes including sea-level rise and accelerated glacier melt, as well as more intense floods, droughts, and storms. Many scientists also believe that a majority of worldwide ecosystems will struggle to adapt to a warming above that mark, and more recently have set the threshold even lower, at 1.5 degrees Celsius. The accord, however, lacks any information on how this goal of preventing “dangerous” climate change, which had already been set by the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention, would be achieved. It is generally assumed that in order to keep global warming below 2 degrees, worldwide emissions have to peak before 2020 and have to be at least halved before mid-century, but the Copenhagen accord doesn’t outline global emissions scenarios nor individual countries’ pathways towards either of these two goals. Regarding the money for developing countries, the declaration does not specify precisely where the $100 billion annual support would come from nor who would profit from it.

Accordingly, the assessment of the accord was mixed. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon praised the Copenhagen Accord as “an important beginning” and U.S. President Obama said that “for the first time in history, all of the world’s major economies have come together to accept their responsibility to take action on the threat of climate change.” Others, like German chancellor Angela Merkel, could hardly hide their disappointment. “The decision has been very difficult for me. We have done one step, we have hoped for several more,” Merkel said. Likewise, many U.S. commentators considered the deal just a small step forward, however an essential one in the domestic context. A friend of mine wrote to me that “without the accord, the Senate process would be dead. I think we can push forward domestically with the elements in the accord.”

The next COP is set for November 2010 in Mexico City, with a likely high-level preparatory meeting mid-year on invitation of the German government. “We have a big job ahead to avoid climate change through effective emissions reduction targets, and this was not done here,” said Sergio Serra, Brazil’s climate change ambassador. Worldwatch might have to send an even bigger team to the Mexican capital.

As I made my way to the Bella Centre here in Copenhagen this morning for the first day of the two week-long international climate talks, there was something historic in the air. Walking down into the subway, out of the cold morning air, I passed beneath a sign that said, in bold letters, “The time is now.”

And indeed, if there ever was a time for action on climate change, now is that time. Climate change impacts are growing in number and severity day by day in every region of the world. In addition, new threats to our national security, economic stability, resource availability and the very ecosystems that sustain us are emerging. There is no more time to wait for action.

These global climate negotiations are one of the most important and complex political negotiations to have taken place in humanity’s long and winding history. Indeed, this meeting in Copenhagen alone has brought together 25,000 attendees from every corner of the earth. They will be joined by an astonishing 110 heads of state and government next week. The sheer size and level of this meeting signifies its importance and the potential it brings.

So, as the first in a series of dispatches from Copenhagen, I, along with my fellow delegates, am taking the opportunity today to ask the question: What do I really want to see from this historic meeting? What took me by surprise was the difficulty I experienced in answering this question, as I found myself met by the conflict of so-called “political reality” and “personal aspiration.”

Despite a more collaborative political dynamic on climate change than there has ever been, we are still very far from achieving the kind of ambitious, equitable, and binding deal that our global society needs to see in Copenhagen. Yet time is running out. The challenges of domestic politics and the barriers they represent loom large in the negotiating arena, but in truth, what kind of “political reality checks” will we continue to impose on our survival that are stronger than the ecological, economic and social stability of our world?

In reality, anything is possible and the only true limit to change is our ability to imagine it and truly wish to make it happen. Perhaps that is aspiration, but we have the capacity as a global community to achieve the change we wish to see; if only we can work together, and make commitments in line with science and with our past and future responsibilities and capabilities.

With this in mind, I choose to hope that here in Copenhagen, at this historic meeting, we will see aspiration win out over “political reality.” That we will see true political leadership, meaningful acceptance of responsibility from all nations and true change-making politics to give us the strong, global deal on climate change that the world needs.

In the words of Yvo de Boer at the opening conference plenary, “After two years negotiating Copenhagen, the time has come to deliver. Copenhagen will only be successful if it delivers solid action that will begin the day Copenhagen ends. I urge you to…deliver [and] reach for success.”

Or, as Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Denmark’s Prime Minister said, “Let us not focus on what divides us, but on what brings us together. We can change and we have to change.” The time is now.

In a pre-Copenhagen briefing for press last week, UNFCCC Chair Yvo de Boer summed up the now-revised outlook for COP15, which kicks off today in Copenhagen. De Boer made a repeated call for clarity: clarity on the emissions limits that all countries are willing to accept, clarity on actions that all countries are willing to take to mitigate their emissions, and clarity on the financial support that will go to developing countries for adapting to climate change effects. The hope is that negotiators, cheered on by a massive crowd of global climate action advocates, will negotiate an agreement that parts the fog that has gathered on international climate action.

The Worldwatch Institute is sending the largest delegation we have ever sent to a COP event. Vice President Robert Engelman will present his recent Climate and Population work for the United Nations. Senior Researcher Janet Sawin and Project Associate Amanda Chiu will launch their new report on renewable energy and efficiency, Renewable Revolution: Low-Carbon Energy by 2030. Worldwatchers Heidi VanGenderen and Saya Kitasei will officially launch the Institute’s new Natural Gas Initiative. India Fellow Anna da Costa will describe the design of our India Program at a high-level roundtable. And Worldwatch President Chris Flavin and Energy and I will weigh in on several panels throughout the week.

Our team will be enhanced by a number of top-motivated students from Stanford University as well as staff from the Bank Information Center. Expect to see both blogs and Eye on Earth stories throughout the two weeks from our team, including our staff writer Ben Block and COP15 chief of staff John Mulrow.

For an overview of Worldwatch events, please click [here]. We hope to return with relatively clear skies for climate action in 2010.

November Pre-Copenhagen Calendar

If October was for optimism, November is for ambition.  Yvo de Boer said it himself this morning at the opening of the UNFCCC talks in Barcelona.  With only 5-days of negotiations planned for this final round before Copenhagen, Mr. de Boer insisted that success will require “a level of ambition commensurate with the scale of the problem.”  Unfortunately the scale of problem requires ambition larger than the Barcelona negotiating table seems to provide for.

That doesn’t mean that no progress is in store in the final month before COP-15.  Rather, if true ambition comes through at several of the high-level meetings planned this month, the prospects for a progressive deal in Copenhagen will be much brighter. We’ll be keeping an eye on the bilateral agreements that could come out of tomorrow’s EU-US Summit and German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s address to the U.S. Congress, President Barack Obama’s visit to Beijing in mid-month, and the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh’s visit to Washington DC on November 24^th.

These talks will need to make sincere agreements about the building blocks of a post-2012 treaty architecture. These include indications of where concrete emissions reductions targets for industrialized countries could be set, as well as financial and technology transfer agreements. Developing and industrialized country leaders must also perceive each other’s climate goals (be they financial commitments or mitigation commitments) as ambitious and equitable. If these conclusions are reached during this month’s high-level meetings then there is still a realistic chance to finalize a global climate deal in Denmark.

If in November the issue is not picked up and carried forward by world leaders – the Presidents, the Prime Ministers, the Chancellors – themselves, or if they cannot forge an agreement amongst themselves on the key features of the agreement (the negotiation of the details can well be left for 2010), then the prospects for December are bleak.

Barcelona alone cannot produce the breakthroughs needed at this late point in time. Thus far, climate negotiators are stuck without a green light for serious concessions from their leaders back home. So look to this month’s high-level meetings. You’ll know ambition when you see it.

Co-authored with John Mulrow