-Â Danish minster, Connie Hedegaard, resigns as COP President - as expected - to make way for Danish PM Lars Lokke Rasmussen to take over the High-level Segment which will conclude the COP.
- LCA closing plenary opened at 4:48 am this morning and went on through 7am. ‘Core COP decisions' and conclusions on adaptation, mitigation, financial resources, technology and capacity building released by LCA Chair.
- Day mired in lack of clarity over formal process - which text will go through for HLS discussion? The AWG-LCA and AWG-KP texts or another one ‘parachuted in' from the Danish Presidency? Brazil, China, India and G77 complain about lack of transparency in process of preparing draft text. China said wouldn't accept ‘text from the sky'.
- Ethiopian President, Zenawi Meles, uses HLS speech to introduce specific new proposals for innovative financing. Calls for 40 % of adaptation funds to be earmarked for Africa starting with fast-track financing of $10 billion by 2012 and $100 billion by 2020 from variety of public/ private means. Proposal criticized by some for breaking ranks with Africa Group position, and welcomed by others for seeking to bridge Annex 1 and G77 divide.
- Protests at the Bella Centre by NGOs with sit-ins and expulsions as entry for observers' such as NGOs restricted due to security. UNFCCC arranges alternative venue. Activists storm Plenary chamber during HLS segment chanting ‘climate justice' and anti-capitalists slogans.
Key issues of the day
The High-level Segment of the COP began today, with the Danish Prime Minister, Rasmussen, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, COP President, Connie Hedegaard, UNFCCC Executive Secretary, Yvo de Boer, Noble Prize winner, Waangari Mathai, Prince Charles and other dignitaries calling for an ambitious and successful outcome.
President Tilman Thomas of Grenada, who spoke on behalf of AOSIS, said it was “not often that leaders of the world concentrate their diplomatic assets onto one issue" to provide a “collective solution to this common challenge." “Today," he said “is one of those unique moments."
Negotiators and ministers had been hard at work on LCA discussions, which went on into the early hours of the 16th. The LCA Chair released draft conclusions on action on adaptation, technology transfer, capacity building, provision of financial resources and on some aspects of mitigation. While the atmosphere inside the Bella Centre was marked by distrust and a near collapse of negotiations on Tuesday evening, the burning of the midnight oil does indicate a desire to succeed.
In a major show of solidarity, top ministers of the BASIC group (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) said they would reduce emissions by 2.1 gigatons by 2020, but do so voluntarily. This they said, while insisting on developed country action according to the Kyoto Protocol.
Ethiopia launches daring proposal
At the HLS session, President Zenawi Meles, speaking on behalf of the Africa group, made a concrete proposal reminiscent of his recent Joint Appeal with President Sarkozy of France yesterday, for fast-track and long-term finance. He also called for global temperature rise not to exceed 2 degrees - a position consistent with the EU's position but at odds with the official Africa Group position which calls for warming not to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius and funding of up to 400 billion by 2020. (A global average of 2 degrees C would, according to the IPCC, translate into 3 - 3.5 degrees for continental Africa.)  Meles said he recognized “Africa will be disappointed" by aspects of his proposal, but said that he had scaled back the level of funding asked in return for reliable long-term financing for Africa and a seat at the table. Otherwise, he said, “we will lose more - because our best days are in the future." And because Africa had “so much more to lose" he felt it needed to “show flexibility and compromise."Â
He cautioned, however, "Flexibility should not be confused with desperation" and must ensure that “all of us - Africa included - are happy" with the outcome and would strive for a fair and just deal. “Otherwise there will be no agreement for anybody," adding sternly that this was not an “idle threat." President Meles asked for his proposal to be considered in whatever text the CoP presidency considered it fit. A proposal that was accepted by the CoP President.
Europe challenges US and China
The plenary speech delivered by Sweden's Prime Minister, Andreas Calgren, speaking on behalf of the European Union, sharpened the political atmosphere with a direct challenge to the two big elephants in the room, China and the USA. Starting his speech with a reference to the first UN conference on environment in 1972 in Stockholm, the Swedish premier noted how Indira Gandhi has attended the conference and made her now famous comment “poverty is the worst form of pollution". He re-emphasized the EU's commitment to the Kyoto Protocol and to ‘seal the deal here in Copenhagen',and to the EU's resolve to keep global warming to ‘well below 2 °C', and reduce emissions by up to 95% compared to 1990 levels by 2050.
Noting that the EU of 27 member states was only responsible for 10% of global emissions and could not by itself solve global warming. He turned made some extremely pointed remarks directly to the USAÂ and China on their responsibility as the world's two largest emitters - winning huge and sustained applause:
“Here I turn to the United States and China. Together you are responsible for half of the global greenhouse gas emissions. You have different responsibilities and capabilities. From the United States we expect, as from all developed counties, a legally binding economy-wide commitment to reduce emissions. From China we expect binding actions. Your ability to reduce emissions will be absolutely crucial. It is promising that you have come forward with your contributions in an international context. However, the world needs more and we are confident that you have the ability to deliver more. Let us be honest with each other: Together your ambitions to limit emissions will make or break the world's efforts to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. Therefore I turn to you, as a friend and a committed partner, and I say: United States and China: unleash your full potential and thereby the world's efforts - make it possible for the world to stay below 2 degrees!"
Prime Minister Calgren's words aroused huge and sustained applause and the chair commented that they had raised the tone of proceedings. The Chair reminded delegates that it was an EU / G77 proposal -the Green paper submitted in Bali in 1995 that led to the Kyoto protocol. He hoped that the EU/ G77 would be able to lead the way here too.
Small Nations to the Fore
Today was the day of small nations taking centre stage with brave and innovative plans for addressing the climate crisis. From the Pacific, the President of Samoa spoke and said “we will be the biggest losers if no substantive deal is delivered" and that Samoa supported a legally binding instrument to reflect science under the two AWG tracks with a proper compliance regime to ensure action.
From our own neighbourhood in South Asia, Nepal emphasized that it was ready to play its part and even set an aspirational carbon neutral target for the country. Another Himalayan neighbour, the government of Bhutan, had recently announced it would remain “carbon-negative". Thanks to the active preservation of the forest cover of the small Himalayan country - which cover 72% of the country's surface - Bhutan is one of the few, if not the only country in the world, to absorb more carbon than it emits and thus functions as a net ‘sink' for greenhouse gases.
Arguably the most challenging speech from the small nations, came from President Nasheed of the Maldives. In his address to the Plenary, he called on both developed and developing countries to show leadership in moving on from entrenched positions in order to avoid the collapse of the negotiations. He noted, “Kyoto divided the world …It divided us between rich and poor, developed and developing. Annex 1 and non-Annex 1. Our task now is to unite the world behind the shared vision of low-carbon growth."
Nasheed emphasized that industrialized countries needed to raise their level of ambition at the talks and commit to “collective reductions of 40% by 2020, and 95% by 2050." Stating that small island states and vulnerable developing countries needed it to to survive, he restated the position of AOSIS and the LDCs - more than 100 of the UN's member states - global temperature rise must be limited to 1.5 degrees C and atmospheric CO2 to 350ppm.
Challenging developing countries, he said they must play their part. “The rich world may have caused the climate crisis, by filling our atmosphere with pollution," he said. “But two wrongs don't make a right."
Targeting China, he called on the country to show more willingness to compromise at the talks. “I am sure that if China shows leadership, others will follow," he said. He therefore urged China and other big developing country emitters “to come forward with quantifiable and internationally verifiable actions to reduce their emissions 30% below business as usual by 2020."
The position of the Maldives, and almost 100 other nations within the G77/China grouping, is at variance with the position of the Government of India which resists the notion of a global peaking year for emissions and a limit of global temperature to 2 degrees C by mid-century, and objects to any binding cuts for India although it has come up with a target to reduce the carbon intensity of India's GDP growth by 2020.
Focus on the GOI
The GoI is hunkered down in ministerial consultations it seems and the negotiations and Plenary interventions were handled by chief negotiator, Vijai Sharma, from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). Unusually for an intergovernmental process, there appears to be no senior official from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) evident on India's pared down delegation. In possibly a first for the ministry, this crucial inter-governmental process is now very much being driven by the MoEF which in past years has been the junior partner to MEA on such issues.
Minister Jairam Ramesh has been keeping a low profile - no further press conferences or interventions - but told the media today that the Kyoto Protocol is in “intensive care if not dead" since many developed countries were “vehemently opposing" the KP. However, he also said that the BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China), also among the top emitters of greenhouse gases, are united and are “coordinating our positions almost on an hourly basis".
This was very much in evidence at the CMP discussion where Brazil, China and India kept following each other in turn - aided by Sudan speaking for the G77/China - to note their objections to the process. Their objections centred on the lack of clarity over which text would form the basis of negotiations by Heads of State. Was it to be the two texts that negotiators had worked on for the past two years under the Bali Action Plan - the AWG-LCA and AWG-KP - or was it to be another text ‘parachuted in from the sky' by the Presidency.
India's Vijai Sharma was adamant on this point. He noted that India sought a party- driven outcome, not a top-down one to the conference. He said that the LCA and KP texts under the Bali Action Plans were the only ones “that can guide us". He emphasised “The issue is about our text - how to protect our text."
In this long exchange, the only country to demur was the Maldives. President Nasheed made his views clear that the Copenhagen could not “afford to be bogged down in the process, negotiators have been working for many months, but need to move forward." He openly disagreed with the points made by Brazil, China and India and re-emphasised “ In my mind we need to move forward. Whatever texts come out will be in front of Heads of State… We want process to move forward and fruitful process." He proposed that the Chair proceed with the process the Chair intended.
The Danish Presidency, was unable to provide a clear answer to the questions pressed by BASIC/ G77 question and Premier Rasmussen left questions hanging with his response that the chairs of the AWG-KP and AWG-LCA would be reporting back in Plenary later that morning. He rejected notions, however, that there was a ‘Danish text' in hiding as evidently suspected by the line of questioning from BASIC and G77.
There was visible dissatisfaction within the Indian delegation, with what many saw as the continuing lack of clarity over the process, and the crucial question over what text would imminently be discussed by Heads of State.
In all the public posturing, however, the reality that many parties - including the Danish Presidency - have been working on separate texts for weeks now went unremarked upon - somewhat disingenously. It is known that the Danes have been consulting on at least one, if not many, texts as part of the Presidency's efforts to identify areas of potential congruence for an eventual political agreement.
India herself - as the Minister has openly stated many times - has worked closely with China on a BASIC text which was shared with G77 just last week in an effort to harmonise texts. It is clear that everyone is hedging their bets and that public statements made in Plenary negotiations must still be taken with pinches of salt.
The FAB deal that is awaited - a Fair, Ambitious, Deal - will now be thrashed out in private discussions not between negotiators but between political leaders. A process that could finally bring clarity to the process, but also brings with it some dangers. Tomorrow will reveal whether enough progress was made in midnight meetings for clarity on a text to emerge by Thursday 17th December.
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