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	Humanity has no time left for procrastination. by Christian Schwägerl Spiegel International / Germany   Dec 2009   Who is to blame for the summit failure.   The US? China? The EU? The G-8? In Copenhagen, the outlines of a dangerous world were there for all to see. It was palpable that this is a world in which trust is harder to come by than oil, and where there is more mistrust than CO2 emissions.   And yet Copenhagen has proven that trust is the most important resource for the transformation of the current oil-based system towards a greener civilization. It is more important than all the money that will be required for new technology, more efficient machines, dams and the survival of forests.   It is a question of trust that China does not flood Europe with even more products made using cheap coal-based power, instead of replacing coal with alternative power stations; that Europe is not isolated as an island of environmentalism, while in Africa entire countries are becoming inhospitable. That America, China and India curb their fossil fuel consumption for reasons of climate protection.   In order for 7 billion people to live together on one planet, a circle of trust is required, one that rewards solutions and punishes the wrong economic activities of the past. That does not describe some kind of paradise. Rather it is the prerequisite for preventing a world without hope.   In Copenhagen a vicious circle of mistrust came in to being, one that engulfed all the good intentions and plans.   The climate deal that was presented by the leaders of the United States, China, India, Germany and around 20 other states offers no concrete CO2 targets for 2020 and 2050. There is no clear strategy to distribute financing of the promised $100 billion in aid pledged to developing nations to adopt CO2-curbing green technologies and to help pay for the damage caused to those countries by climate change. And there is no consistent monitoring of reductions and of how they are to be achieved.   To announce a target of limiting global warming to an increase of 2 degrees Celsius is meaningless as long as there is no limit to the CO2 that humanity allows itself to emit by 2050: 750 billion tons, according to the best available science. At the current level that would already have been emitted by the 2020s. Yet there was not enough trust to commit to this kind of CO2 budget.   The deal reveals a crisis of trust between the states. The fact that Barack Obama flew in, gave a speech, made a separate deal and then simply announced this - before the international community had even been made aware of it or had agreed to it - has corroded the UN process. Obama lacked the trust in this process and the courage to diagnose his own people with a case of energy obesity.   One could seek culprits for the debacle: " Chimerica" or the emerging countries, the EU, the G-8 or the G-77. The closest fit is "Chimerica against the rest of the world."   The Europeans could also have done a bit better, by unilaterally upping their reductions target from 20 to 30 percent. That, however, was too much for Italy and Poland. There was plenty of selfishness to go around. Everyone wants to be the first to strike oil, but when it comes to the much more sensible policy of protecting resources, then it"s all about waiting.   The extent of the addiction to fossil fuels was apparent in many actors at Copenhagen, but especially in one. He was decisively responsible for the chaos that marked the negotiations: James Inhofe, a US Republican politician who does whatever he can in Washington to inhibit Obama"s efforts to impose CO2 limits. He is not only ridiculous in describing climate change as made up by "the Hollywood elite," but outright dangerous. For men of his ilk, oil and coal are tantamount to power.   They believe that Americans have a God-given right to release twice the level of emissions as the Europeans and four times as much as the planet"s average inhabitant.   But there are plenty of Chinese, Indians and Australians who think similarly. Working together in Copenhagen, they prevented humanity from starting to work together to solve a number of shared problems - to the detriment of every start-up investment that has the prospect of a hundred years of green profits.   Men like Inhofe, who in Copenhagen warned that nations shouldn"t be "deceived into thinking the US would pass cap-and-trade legislation," have the effect of poison when it comes to the urgently needed global trust-building. As in nuclear disarmament, the expectation is pivotal that the other side will take the same difficult steps. But as long as the danger persists that a party could again come into power in America that would wipe the findings of climate science from the table there won"t be much trust towards the US. And the Chinese may be talking the talk on climate issues, but as long as they are only spending a small part of their cash reserves on green investments, their credibility will be compromised.   The consequences Copenhagen will have on other policy areas should not be underestimated: How can people maintain hope that the megaproblems of our planet can be entrusted to the type of major summit round that just took place in Copenhagen?   The trust that is needed right now to revive the seriously injured political process can no longer be expected to come from the top down. This is the hour for a new global environmental movement, as Nobel Prize-winning economist Elinor Ostrom says. A movement that isn"t just reflected in dutiful survey answers, but in the new lifestyle choices it makes and in the persistence with which it raises troubling questions for oil and coal companies and the major political parties.
	Copenhagen global climate accord fails expectations by International Herald Tribune & agencies   Dec 2009   The outline of a weak global climate agreement was last night concluded in Copenhagen, but it fell far short of what many countries were seeking and leaves months of tough negotiations to come.   The deal - known as the Copenhagen accord - "recognises" the scientific case for keeping temperature rises to no more than 2C but did not contain commitments to emissions reductions by countries to hit that goal.   Even US President Obama admitted, "This progress is not enough," he said, "we have come a long way but we have much further to go".   "Climate change threatens us all, therefore we must bridge all divides," he said. "The time has come for us to get off the sidelines and shape the future we seek. "That"s why I believe what we have achieved in Copenhagen will not be the end, but the beginning."   The climate accord bitterly disappointed Africa and other vulnerable countries who had been holding out for far deeper emission cuts in order to hold the global temperature rise to 1.5C this century. As widely expected, all references to 1.5C in previous versions of the agreement were removed at the last minute, but more surprisingly, the earlier 2050 goal of reducing global emissions by 80% was also dropped.   The agreement also sets up a forestry deal which is hoped to significantly reduce deforestation in return for cash. It also lacked the kind of independent verification of emission reductions by developing countries that the United States and others demand.   Britain"s climate change minister Ed Miliband has blamed China for blocking an accord on legally-binding emissions targets and a 50 per cent cut in greenhouse gases by 2050 at the Copenhagen summit.   Miliband admitted on Sunday that the results of the Copenhagen conference were "disappointing" but insisted that progress was made in the fight against global warming.   "The eventual outcome was disappointing. Efforts to give legal backing to the commitments in the Copenhagen accord met with "impossible resistance from a small number of developing countries, including China, who didn"t want a legal agreement", he said.   "If leading countries hold out against something like "legally binding" or against the 2050 target of 50 per cent reductions in carbon emissions - which was held out against by countries like China - you are not going to get the agreement you want."   Many observers also blamed the US for coming to the talks with an offer of just 4% emissions cuts on 1990 levels. The final text made no obligations on developing countries to make cuts.   Negotiators will now continue to work on individual agreements like forests, technology, finance but without strong leadership the chances are that it will take years to complete.   Lumumba Di-Aping, chief negotiator for the G77 group of 130 developing countries, was scathing: "This deal will result in devastation in Africa and small island states. It has the lowest level of ambition you can imagine. It"s nothing short of climate change scepticism in action."   John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK said: "The city of Copenhagen is a crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport. There are no targets for carbon cuts and no agreement on a legally binding treaty."   "This is a disastrous outcome for people around the world who face increasingly dire impacts from a destabilizing climate", said a spokesperson for Friends of the earth.   Lydia Baker, Save the Children"s Policy Adviser said: "By signing a sub-standard deal world leaders have effectively signed a death warrant for many of the world"s poorest children. Up to 250,000 children from poor communities could die before the next major meeting in Mexico at the end of next year."   Andrew Hewett, executive director of Oxfam Australia issued the following statement.   “It"s hard to see how the Copenhagen Accord delivers justice to people in poor countries that are least responsible for climate change but suffer its impacts right now".   "The accord is an empty political statement, shredding two years of negotiations down to 2½ pages of purely aspirational goals.   While it recognises the scientific view that the increase in global temperature should be kept below 2 degrees, it does not set out a trajectory for achieving this.   In February, countries will list their emissions reduction targets, which will be voluntary. They will have little to do with climate science and everything to do with the political climate in capitals around the world.   If this is all the world can muster, we can expect a world that is 3.9 degrees warmer, year-round droughts in southern Africa, and water shortages affecting up to 4 billion additional people.   The promised $US100 billion a year by 2020, aimed at helping poor countries reduce their emissions and adapt to a changing climate, is less than half the amount needed. And the sad reality is the most vulnerable people will be lucky to get even a fraction of this amount, with rich countries likely to divert cash from existing aid commitments.   Nor is it clear how much will come from the public purse. But unless it does, there is no guarantee it will reach the right people in the right places. Crucially, the accord excludes the innovative revenue-raising mechanisms that could guarantee predictable flows of public money.   Developing countries were faced with an impossible choice between endorsing this inadequate compromise or watching the talks collapse.   Access to money was offered only to those countries that agreed to the accord. But the accord is not legally binding, nor does it set a timeline for reaching a legally binding agreement. It has as much chance of being honoured as a New Year"s resolution. We have no choice but to continue negotiating as soon as possible. A fair, safe and legally binding agreement must be reached in early 2010”.   Andreas Carlgren, the environment minister of Sweden, the country holding the rotating E.U. presidency, said that the Copenhagen climate summit meeting had been a “great failure” because other nations had rejected targets and a timetable for the rest of the world to sign on to binding emissions reductions.   “It was obvious that the United States and China didn’t want more than we achieved at Copenhagen,” Mr. Carlgren said at a news conference in Brussels. The obstacles created by those countries were “part of what we regretted,” he said.   The agreement finally patched together in Copenhagen set a commitment to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 Fahrenheit. The so-called Copenhagen Accord also promised $100 billion dollars in yearly payments by the end of the next decade to poor nations that risk bearing the brunt of the global warming fallout.   But the accord failed to provide a fixed payout plan for the money, and more important for the E.U. it did it not spell out crucial global emissions targets for 2020 or 2050.   The result was a bitter disappointment for European leaders, who had insisted, by offering to cut their emissions by 30 percent by 2020 compared with 1990 levels, that they could pry more concessions from China and the United States. In the end, that offer cut no ice with the Americans and the Chinese, who offered nothing new.
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