Obama, Gordon, Harper give ‘accord’ happy spin, call it ‘unprecedented, comprehensive’

COPENHAGEN: US President Barack Obama on Friday (Saturday morning, Manila time) announced a climate deal with other major world leaders calling it “unprecedented” and “meaningful” but admitted it was still not enough to beat global warming.

“Today we have made a meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough here in Copenhagen,” Obama told reporters.

“For the first time in history, all major economies have come together to accept their responsibility to take action to confront the threat of climate change.”

Obama said the agreement had been reached during exhaustive meetings involving about two-dozen presidents and prime ministers gathered in Copenhagen.

More than four hours after the scheduled close of the summit and an exhaustive round of diplomacy between the world’s most powerful leaders, Obama said an agreement had been reached but acknowledged it was limited and would not be legally binding.

The pact includes an agreement to put off until next month a decision on targets for reducing carbon emissions by 2020, a European diplomat said.

And unlike earlier drafts, the new accord did not specify any year for emissions to peak. A US source said the agreement had a commitment from wealthy and key developing nations to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius.

The United States will contribute $3.6 billion in climate funds for poorer nations in the 2010 to 2012 period.

Japan would contribute $11 billion over the three-year period and the European Union (EU) $10.6 billion.

The deal was hammered out in talks between Obama and the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa as well as key European countries, diplomats said.

A binding deal will be “very hard” and take time, Obama told reporters, adding that progress in Copenhagen climate summit was “not enough.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy had earlier said the talks were making progress after he met Obama with EU leaders including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The draft text said countries would provide “national communications” on how they were tackling global warming, through “international consultations and analysis under clearly defined guidelines.”

China had bristled at anything called “verification” of its plan to cut the intensity of its carbon emissions, seeing it as an infringement of sovereignty and saying that rich nations bore primary responsibility for global warming.

Disagreements between the United States and China had been at the core of the divisions holding up a deal.

But even if Washington and Beijing have now come to an understanding, the deal will still have to get the approval of the 194 UN members in attendance in Copenhagen. (Editor’s note: The plenary session did not approve the deal approved by the core states involved in the Obama brokered “accord.”  The 193 members just voted to “take note of the agreement.  This was because majority of the nations in attendance felt their needs were not being attended to.)

There was no immediate word on Russia’s stance. President Dmitry Medevedev was one of the first to leave Copenhagen, having voiced frustration at the negotiation process overseen by the Danish government.

The emergence of a deal came at the end of a day in which several drafts agreements were knocked back, with leaders themselves taking over the task of redrafting the exact wording of three pages of text.

Different versions of the document showed the leaders particularly split over whether to fix a firm date for finalizing a legally binding treaty in 2010, and a commitment to slashing global carbon emissions in half by 2050.

Scientists say failure to curb the rise in Earth’s temperature will lead to worsening drought, floods, storms and rising sea levels.

Obama, whose presence was intended to provide the momentum to propel the deal over the finishing line, had earlier pleaded for unity while acknowledging any agreement would be less than perfect.

The haggling capped two years of deadlock over crafting a new UN treaty from 2013 that would reduce global warming from mortal threat to manageable peril.

The commitment to limit the rise in Earth’s temperature to no more than 2.0 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) falls way short of the demands of threatened island nations who, with their very existence threatened by rising seas, have called for a cap of 1.5 degrees Celcius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).

“Whatever the outcome, it looks bad for us,” said a member of the Maldives delegation, an archipelago, which fears being swallowed up by the Indian Ocean in a matter of decades.

The US president said before leaving Copenhagen that what had been billed as one the most important summits since World War II would be the starting gun for a much stronger effort to combat global warming.

“Going forward we are going to have to build on the momentum we have achieved here in Copenhagen. We have come a long way but we have much further to go.”

President Sarkozy said the deal was the only one that could be reached after the summit had revealed deep rifts.

“The agreement is not perfect but it’s the best one possible,” Sarkozy told reporters, adding that another global-warming summit would be hosted by Germany in mid-2010.

Summit a success: PM Gordon Brown

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the Copenhagen summit was a “first step” toward securing a legally binding treaty, which he urged countries to agree to quickly.

Brown said the UN climate summit had been a “success” because it had brought countries together in a way that had not been achieved before.

“There is progress but it’s a first step,” Brown told Britain’s Sky News television from the summit venue in the Danish capital.

“It’s always difficult, it’s always hard to take that first step. Having taken that first step, I hope we can move quickly to the next step, which is to get a legally binding treaty.

“It’s a successful step because we’ve brought people together in a way that hasn’t happened before—but we must move quickly to the next step.”

The draft agreement on climate change reached in Copenhagen is “comprehensive and realistic,” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a statement.

Now, he added, “all countries must commit to taking concrete action to address climate change as part of a new treaty—actions which are measurable, verifiable and reportable.”

“Canada is prepared to contribute our fair share of financial support, particularly to the poorest and most vulnerable nations,” Harper said, adding that Canada was ready to follow in the United States’ footsteps in reducing its C02 footprint.

Harper’s statement came just hours after green groups named Canada as “Fossil of the Year” for setting out one of the worst CO2 emissions targets in the industrialized world, in a strategy many believe was meant to sabotage the climate summit. –Stephen Collinson AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE