CCN @ COP15

The climate talks are over now. The 119 world leaders are packing their bags and headed to their respective countries and many of them will tell their constituents that much progress was made.

Unfortunately, very little progress was made relative to how high the expectations were for this conference. It was supposed to be the end of 12 years of negotiations since we signed the last major global agreement on climate change in 1997 (the Kyoto Protocol).

Possible Outcomes

Here is a quick review of the possible outcomes from these past two weeks of negotiations:

1) A new commitment phase for Kyoto + a new deal that included language from Kyoto AND had the US signed on and it all went into effect immediately.

2) Throwing out Kyoto (which would remove the punishments that developed countries would have for not reducing their emissions during the first commitment period) and only signing a new commitment.

3) Realizing that they aren’t ready to sign anything. Then they could figure out which parts they can agree on and that will be an outline for the year moving forward. Then they will set a timeline and a process for how to complete the treaty within the next year. By that time, a senate bill will have been passed and they can make a LEGALLY binding deal.

4) Signing a greenwashed accord that doesn’t really have any impact and is only politically binding, but it makes it look like they did something meaningful.

5) Everything falls apart and nothing is signed at all.

No one really expected #1. We thought #2 had a slim chance. What we were really pushing for was #3 because it would eventually result in something meaningful. What we got was something between #4 & #5 because not even all of the countries could sign on to the greenwashing because they knew it was meaningless.

There’s still a chance we can get something like #3 (a plan for a legally binding deal next year) but it’s unclear at the moment where we stand because things were so crazy. No one here can even fully analyze what just happened or where it leaves us. This was certainly supposed to be the climax, but we’ll see if they can keep the momentum going until next year.

Where we are at now

The result from the negotiations (as I understand it) was a document created by the developed countries that lists the efforts to reduce carbon pollution that they would have done even if there were no negotiations. Many countries entirely rejected it since it was produced outside of the normal UN negotiating process and it didn’t really have anything meaningful in it. Since not all of the countries could agree to the document, it didn’t become part of the official agreement at the end of the negotiations. The chair of the talks said that the most they could do was “take note of it”. As far as I know, no other meaningful document came out of the talks.

The mood here in Copenhagen is a mix of disappointment, confusion and hope for the future. All of the people I talk to are torn between feeling absolutely furious that no leadership was present at COP15 and feeling like we must focus on what we can do to improve the situation as we move forward.

Moving Forward

There was a great debrief with all the US youth yesterday where we formed a plan for the next 12 months on how we can get the US senate to pass a climate bill so the US has a better bargaining chip on the table next year at COP16. We made plans about how to be a more cohesive group with a strong strategy instead of being very reactionary to what happened on a particular day. We broke into working groups and discussed what the next steps necessary to make this all happen.

Copenhagen was supposed to be the climax of years of negotiating and it turned out to be mostly a flop. Personally, I think it will be hard to keep that momentum going into COP16 in Mexico which didn’t have high expectations like COP15.

In the weeks to come everyone will have a chance to digest what happened (and didn’t happen) here in Copenhagen. This is where the expectations for COP16 will be set. The least that our leaders can do is build pressure for COP16 so that it has high expectations and has a chance of producing a legally binding deal.

President Obama also needs to hold a lot of bilateral meetings with some of the power players (like China and India) so that everyone is on the same page and ready to produce an agreement before we get to Mexico City (for COP16) next year.

2050

It is our job to make to sure that all of these necessary elements are ready in time. Time is certainly our biggest threat right now. Scientists say that we must start drastically reducing our emissions within the next five years and we must reduce them by 80-90% by the year 2050 if we want to avoid catastrophic climate change. Nature doesn’t negotiate, so we have to make sure our elected officials find the political will to start taking serious action within that time frame. If they choose not to act, they are bargaining away our futures, not their own. How old will our negotiators and politicians be in 2050?