By HAIDER RIZVI

At the Copenhagen climate change summit, poor nations challenge Western domination

Is the glass half empty or half full? As the year 2009 approached its end, the leaders of developing countries who attended the UN summit on climate left the Danish capital of Copenhagen with this question constantly nagging in their minds.

At the end of the Copenhagen climate talks that continued for about two weeks, developing nations seemed relatively satisfied with the final outcome, but not all of them. Those from Africa and small island nations declared it was nothing but another empty promise.

“[It’s] the lowest level of ambition in terms of emissions reductions imaginable,” the Sudanese envoy, Lumumba Di-Aping, who chaired the G77 group of developing countries plus China, told reporters at the end of the summit. “[It’s] a climate change denial in action.”

The deal became final at the last minute on December 19 after U.S. President Barack Obama met with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao,Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,South African President Jacob Zuma and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Di-Aping accused the U.S. and Danish governments of “superimposing a deal on the rest of the world,” but eventually went along with the rest, amid hopes that a real deal on climate change was more likely to be signed through further negotiations.

In early December, during the first round of talks, delegates from African nations walked out of talks in protest against what they described as “undemocratic” behavior by the president of the conference, who held private meetings with the representatives of rich Western nations to shape the summit’s outcome.

Delegates from the emerging economic giants in the developing world, such as China,Brazil, India and South Africa, also joined that boycott for a few hours. Those representing the G77 and China charged that Western nations were conspiring behind the scenes to derail the summit agenda.

The five-hour suspension came after the summit president seemed to lead talks in the direction of canceling the Kyoto Protocol,which limits carbon emissions by rich nations. The 1997 agreement does not put limits on carbon emissions by developing countries.

Developing nations want to extend the Kyoto Protocol—the only treaty that currently commits industrialized nations to reduce emissions responsible for global warming. But that approach does not have the support of rich countries, particularly the United States.

U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern told reporters in Copenhagen on December 9, “We are not going to become part of the Kyoto Protocol, so that’s not on the table.”

“If you mean basically taking the Kyoto Protocol and putting a new title on it, we’re not going to do that either...We’re not going to Kyoto, and we’re not going to do something that’s Kyoto with another name,” said Stern.

But under immense pressure from developing countries, which enjoyed strong support from China, the United States and other industrialized countries changed their stance toward the end. The accord signed by 194 parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)now con firms the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol.

According to the agreement, developed countries will provide $30 billion in new,additional funding for developing countries in the next three years. It also says developed countries support a goal of mobilizing jointly$100 billion a year by 2020.

The Copenhagen Accord, however, does not specify precisely where this money would come from. It has set a target of limiting global warming to about 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times—seen as a vital step in dealing with morefloods, droughts, mudslides, sandstorms and rising seas.

“This basically is a letter of intent ... the ingredients of an architecture that can respond to the long-term challenge of climate change,but not in precise legal terms. That means we have a lot of work to do on the long road to Mexico,” said Yvo de Boer, the top UN climate official.

Another round of climate negotiations is due to take place in Mexico in November 2010. At stake is a proposed deal to fight global warming and promote a cleaner world economy. Negotiators are hoping they will be able to create a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

Holding high moral ground

Despite having signed the Copenhagen agreement, many delegates from the developing world expressed great disappointment at the final outcome and held the United States and other industrial nations as chie fly responsible for failing to create a legally binding treaty.

Toward the end of the summit, Bruno Sekoli of Lesotho, Chair of the Least Developed Countries’ Group, said, “1.5 degrees are non-negotiable—more than that means death to Africa. It will cause unmanageable consequences.”

The industrial nations stated they were willing to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 2 degrees or less. That, according to the UN, is not enough to keep the rise in the global average temperature under control.Scientists say it will leave millions of people suffering from hunger, diseases, floods and water shortages.

Shortly before the end of the conference,106 countries publicly opposed the industrial nations’ position on emissions cuts. They represented Africa, small island states, least developed countries and South America’s Bolivarian Alliance, which constituted the majority of the parties to the conference.

The UN’s research shows Africa and small island nations are the ones being hit hard by natural disasters caused by rising temperatures. Leaders of the industrial worldacknowledge that millions of people in poor countries are suffering the most from the impacts of climate change, yet they remain reluctant to take drastic measures on emissions.

CLIMATE DEBATE: Environmentalists stage a protest outside the main venue of the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, on December 9,2009

Like many other leaders from the developing world, Brazilian President Lula raised his concerns about the vulnerability of Africa and small islands to the impacts of climate change and urged rich nations to finance mitigation and adaptation efforts in poor countries.

“It’s necessary to keep commitments on emissions cuts and financing,” he told the leaders of industrial countries and reminded them of their obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, which makes a clear distinction between the developed and developing nations and sets different tasks for both to address climate change.

Since the industrial countries are responsible for about 80 percent of atmospheric pollution, under the Kyoto Protocol, the first commitment period of which will expire in 2012, they are obliged to take greater responsibility than those nations that are not fully industrialized.

Negotiators held that most countries in Africa and small island nations are least responsible for atmospheric pollution, and are therefore justified in demanding enhanced commitments from rich nations on emissions reduction.

For their part, the industrial nations have indicated their willingness to set up a $100-billion-a-year fund for developing countries.The developing nations have welcomed the proposal but, at the same time, made it clear they would not compromise on the question of emissions cuts.

The developing countries want the rich countries to cut emissions by 25 percent by 2020. Currently, no industrial nation seems willing to accept this demand. Instead, the developed countries are calling for major developing economies, such as China and India, to curb their own, no matter whether they have adequate resources or not.

Without naming China and India, the industrial nations emphasized that developing countries must reveal their records on emissions cuts to the international community. “For certain countries, transparency is off the table, which is unacceptable,” said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the summit.

But emerging economic powers have flatly rejected this demand, arguing they are not equally liable for growing levels of carbon emissions. India said it wants to protect its future economic growth, and declared it would commit only to slowing the growth of its carbon emissions. India also said it would not accept a legally binding target.

Despite having limited resources, however, both China and Brazil have pledged financial support for poor countries in the fight against global warming.

Although millions of people in Brazil remain poor, “we will give money to help other countries,” President Lula told world leaders in reference to international efforts to set up a fund for Africa and other countries that are becoming increasingly vulnerable to the impending threat of global warming.

The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change says that Africa will warm around 1.5 times the global average temperature increase. Therefore, average warming of 2 degrees Celsius globally could entail warming of around 3 degrees in Africa,which, says South Africa’s Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, is to “condemn Africa to incineration.”

“Africa is paying with the misery and death of its people for the wealth and wellbeing that was created in the developed countries through carbon-intensive development,” said Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who spoke at the summit on behalf of the African bloc. “That is fundamentally unjust.”

In reflecting on the summit outcome,Michael Dorsey, professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College in the United States, concluded that in the two weeks in Copenhagen and nearly two decades, the developing countries braved not only “backsliding,” but also “noncommitments, and sycophantic posturing of the industrialized world as wealthy nations have sought to gut both the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol.”

In his view, during the Copenhagen talks, small island states and African nations were able to get nothing but one thing:“They held the very high moral and ethical ground.” ■

(Reporting from Copenhagen, Denmark)