Bad news from Copenhagen: No deal yet

COPENHAGEN — The hour of truth loomed on Thursday at the UN climate talks where countries had to draw a line under procedural squabbles to nail down a deal ahead of one of the largest gatherings of world leaders in history.

With just hours to go before some 120 leaders are called to seal an accord to roll back a terrifying rise in Earth’s temperature, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was receiving “bad news” from the Danish capital.

“At the moment, the negotiations do not look promising but I of course hope that the presence of more than 100 heads of state and government can give the necessary impetus to the event,” Merkel said in Berlin.

$22 billion in pledges

Wealthy nations pledged some $22 billion late Wednesday to help bankroll the war on global warming, with Japan leading the way by promising to stump up a whopping $19.5 billion to developing nations on climate change if a comprehensive deal is reached at Copenhagen.

But the announcements could not mask the huge differences still dividing rich nations and the developing world over how to shoulder the burden.

Some of the bitterest exchanges at the 12-day conference have been between the United States and China, the world’s two biggest polluters.

Snail’s pace

“It’s proceeding at a snail’s pace right now,” Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said after talking into the small hours with Ethiopian counterpart Meles Zenawi on funds to help developing nations.

“But the nature of these negotiations is that they either run into a brick wall or you get a breakthrough toward the end,” Rudd added.

A deeply gloomy senior delegate said: “It won’t be feasible to get a complete agreement unless it’s just one page. We need several more months.”

US condemned

US President Barack Obama was not due to arrive until the climax on Friday but his top diplomat, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was working the conference hall on Thursday in a bid to prevent an embarrassing failure.

The United States was widely condemned for foot-dragging on climate change under President George W. Bush, and Obama is hoping that his presence will be evidence of a transformation of policy.

The Obama administration has already said it will table an offer in Copenhagen to curb emissions in the world’s largest economy by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020—well below pledges by Europe and Japan.

Economic giants

Emerging economic giants such as China and India say they are willing to promise voluntary measures to slow their forecast surges in emissions.

But the two countries are reluctant to be subject to tight international scrutiny and insistent that developed nations should take the lead in committing to substantial reduction targets.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in Copenhagen on Wednesday, saying he wanted “to show that the Chinese government and people attach great importance to the climate change issue by attending this summit.”

Not at expense of poor nations

India’s Premier Manmohan Singh said he could not accept a global warming treaty that would stall its drive to lift millions out of poverty.

“Climate change cannot be addressed by perpetuating the poverty of the developing countries,” he said as he flew out of India.

Singh is bearing an offer to reduce India’s carbon intensity by 20 to 25 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels.

“We are willing to do more provided there are credible arrangements to provide both additional financial support as well as technological transfers from developed to developing countries,” he added.

India and China have been at the forefront of criticism of the negotiations process which has been chaired by the summit host Denmark, saying it has lacked transparency while other smaller nations have complained of being sidelined.

Cost of failure

Scientists say the cost of failure on limiting the rise in temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) will be catastrophic with hundreds of millions of people already facing worsening drought, flood, storms and rising seas.

On the eve of Obama’s arrival, the G-77 group of developing nations blamed the United States and other developed nations for the deadlock in the negotiations, accusing them of trying to “kill the Kyoto Protocol.”

Ratified in 1994 without US concurrence, the Kyoto Protocol set legally binding targets for drastic carbon cuts from the 1990 levels to combat global warming.

Climate negotiator Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, said the G-77 was up in arms on Wednesday after the West pushed for the replacement of the Kyoto Protocol with a new one here.

Climate justice

Anticipating that a deal setting binding targets to cut carbon emissions would not be forged, Sen. Loren Legarda reminded the United States and the rest of developed nations that developing nations were not begging for money in their proposal for a climate adaptation fund.

“We are asking for climate justice,” said Legarda, speaking before the assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union on the sidelines of COP15 (Conference of Parties).

Legarda, a UN ambassador for climate change and disaster reduction, called on Obama to “walk his talk and to correct the misdeeds of past administrations in the US, and to take up the cudgels for the developed world to help vulnerable developing nations.” Despite the grim scenario, all is not lost, she said.

“Assuming that no deal is inked in Copenhagen, parliamentarians have a great role to play in the climate scenario by enacting their own legislation in their respective countries and allocating the budget for the strict implementation of environmental laws,” said Legarda.

Bottom-up approach

In an interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Corpuz said developing nations wanted to stick with the Kyoto Protocol since it contained all the legally binding targets.

“(Developed countries) are trying to put a lot of obstacles to achieving the goals. Number 1, they like to kill the Kyoto Protocol. They want to come up with a Copenhagen Protocol. If you kill (the protocol) you don’t have any legally binding agreement anymore,” she said.

Corpuz also said the United States wanted a “bottom-up approach,” which is to reduce emissions domestically before agreeing to an international accord.

Revolt of the poor

“The G-77 is so mad, so we really fought for it earlier (Wednesday afternoon),” Corpuz said, pointing out that Connie Hedegaard, Danish minister for climate and energy, suddenly quit the COP15 presidency at the height of the tumultuous session.

She was quickly replaced by Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen.

“When Connie resigned, the new president came in, bringing a new (negotiation) text. So the G-77 revolted,” Corpuz said, recalling that negotiators for poor countries stood up one-by-one denouncing the (developed) countries’ ploy.

She said the G-77 could not accept that text. When the new COP15 leadership said it only wanted to “facilitate the slow process … the G-77 said, ‘No, you should respect the process we have for the past two years.”’

So the G-77 demanded that Rasmussen report out formally in session the results of the negotiations, which started on Tuesday and ended up early morning the following day, as the basis of further talks, she said.

“We are not going to accept a text from out of the blue,” Corpuz said, quoting the stance of G-77 countries, of which the Philippines is a member.

Two working groups

Corpuz said a climate deal was still possible if the rich countries would adopt the long-term cooperative action (LCA), one of the two working groups formed here to expedite talks.

The other one is the working group on the Kyoto Protocol.

The Kyoto Protocol negotiations centers on numbers—mainly the global emission targets.

The LCA is an offshoot of the Bali Action Plan, an agreement inked in 2007 putting emphasis on the need for adaptation and disaster-risk reduction.

Corpuz, who is negotiating for the LCA, lamented that the Kyoto Protocol working group had not progressed.

The LCA contains a proposed deal to protect tropical forests.

The United States and five other countries pledged to spend $3.5 billion over the next three years to slow forest destruction.

The burning or cutting of trees to clear land for plantations or cattle ranches is blamed for about 20 percent of global emissions. That’s as much carbon dioxide as all the world’s cars, trucks, trains, planes and ships combined. –Reports from Agence France-Presse, Associated Press and Michael Lim Ubac