Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after 'Danish text' leak

Developing countries react furiously to leaked draft agreement that would hand more power to rich nations, sideline the UN's negotiating role and abandon the Kyoto protocol

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• John Vidal in Copenhagen
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 December 2009 14.09 GMT
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A Haitian delegation rests before the second-day session begins in Copenhagen. Photograph: Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images

The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN's role in all future climate changenegotiations.

The document is also being interpreted by developing countries as setting unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.

The so-called Danish text, a secret draft agreement worked on by a group of individuals known as "the circle of commitment" – but understood to include the UK, US and Denmark – has only been shown to a handful of countries since it was finalised this week.

The agreement, leaked to the Guardian, is a departure from the Kyoto protocol's principle that rich nations, which have emitted the bulk of the CO2, should take on firm and binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, while poorer nations were not compelled to act. The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank; would abandon the Kyoto protocol – the only legally binding treaty that the world has on emissions reductions; and would make any money to help poor countries adapt to climate change dependent on them taking a range of actions.

The document was described last night by one senior diplomat as "a very dangerous document for developing countries. It is a fundamental reworking of the UN balance of obligations. It is to be superimposed without discussion on the talks".

A confidential analysis of the text by developing countries also seen by the Guardian shows deep unease over details of the text. In particular, it is understood to:

• Force developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement;

• Divide poor countries further by creating a new category of developing countries called "the most vulnerable";

• Weaken the UN's role in handling climate finance;

• Not allow poor countries to emit more than 1.44 tonnes of carbon per person by 2050, while allowing rich countries to emit 2.67 tonnes.

Developing countries that have seen the text are understood to be furious that it is being promoted by rich countries without their knowledge and without discussion in the negotiations.

"It is being done in secret. Clearly the intention is to get [Barack] Obama and the leaders of other rich countries to muscle it through when they arrive next week. It effectively is the end of the UN process," said one diplomat, who asked to remain nameless.

Antonio Hill, climate policy adviser for Oxfam International, said: "This is only a draft but it highlights the risk that when the big countries come together, the small ones get hurting. On every count the emission cuts need to be scaled up. It allows too many loopholes and does not suggest anything like the 40% cuts that science is saying is needed."

Hill continued: "It proposes a green fund to be run by a board but the big risk is that it will run by the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility [a partnership of 10 agencies including the World Bank and the UN Environment Programme] and not the UN. That would be a step backwards, and it tries to put constraints on developing countries when none were negotiated in earlier UN climate talks."

The text was intended by Denmark and rich countries to be a working framework, which would be adapted by countries over the next week. It is particularly inflammatory because it sidelines the UN negotiating process and suggests that rich countries are desperate for world leaders to have a text to work from when they arrive next week.

Few numbers or figures are included in the text because these would be filled in later by world leaders. However, it seeks to hold temperature rises to 2C and mentions the sum of $10bn a year to help poor countries adapt to climate change from 2012-15.

Footnote: This article was amended on 9th December 2009. The photograph caption was changed to state that the delegate was resting before the start of the second day talks.

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Copenhagen diary: The importance of brackets

Day eight: As the week of high-level talks begin, there is progress over brackets, and a Danish protester hopes for a little localised climate change

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• Suzanne Goldenberg, John Vidal and Jonathan Watts
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 14 December 2009 09.45 GMT
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Su Wei, head of China's climate change department. Photograph: David Longstreath/AP

The shape of brackets to come

As week two of the UN climate change talks in Copenhagen gets under way, and the political temperature rises, cynics may claim negotiators have failed to make sufficient progress.

Insiders respond with a one-word rebuttal: "brackets."

Sprinkled throughout the draft texts, the brackets contain different proposals for dates, emissions and sums of money.

Essentially, they are niggle marks. But the good news is that their size, and the frequency with which they appear, has been reduced.

More importantly, they have changed shape since the earliest days of discussions. "We are now using square brackets, which signify something solid, instead of squiggly brackets, which were far less substantial," one insider explained.

That's all right then. The world may be going to pot, but at least we have some chunky punctuation marks to signify our divisions.

Iron man

China's leading climate negotiator, Su Wei, has built up a following among the country's nationalist young netizens, who admire his terse and tetchy rebukes to journalists and the tough way he stands up to rich nations.

But the iron man may have lost a few of his harder core fans at the weekend when he adopted a distinctly softer tone, lauded the progress of the talks and even cracked a few jokes.

"I am trying to be humorous and nice to improve the ambience in this press room," he told stunned reporters.

More surprisingly still, he said the huge public protest might be considered "constructive as it shows the interest of the general public in climate change".

Just as the audience started to ponder how this approval of demonstrations might apply in Beijing, Su reverted to the party line, adding: "But you can also say they disrupt the negotiations and the freedom of other people."

TB upside down

Tony Blair appeared very moved by a slideshow of photographs showing the malign deforestation of Borneo by the palm oil industry.

There was good reason to feel horrified by the powerful images of orang-utan being killed, burned or orphaned by the clearance of trees. Perhaps, too, Blair felt respect for the dedication of the photographer, Matthias Klum and his wife, who spend months at a time living on canopy level platforms or dangling perilously from the branches of enormous trees.

But the pictures also appear to have stirred up a more personal memory of political extinction. As Blair joked after the slideshow finished: "I have never hung upside down with my wife, but it often felt like that in office."

Bitter winds

If there is one man in Copenhagen who has a good excuse to welcome global warming, it is Jorgen Manniche.

The 69-year-old has spent most of the last decade in a peace protest outside the Danish parliament despite wind, rain and temperatures that plunge below -15C.

Stirred to action by the war in Iraq, he has now broadened his focus to include the security threat posed by climate change, and his displays include images of Copenhagen's Little Mermaid and New York's Statue of Liberty about to be engulfed by a tsunami.

But, as bitter winds cut across the central square, he admits to a selfish wish for a personal change of climate.

"This is a tough life for me, especially in heavy rain or snow. A little more warmth would be nice," he said. "But I only wish for local warming. I know that in the world, people are dying from heat."

Underground science

It's got so feverish here that some of the world's top number crunchers have resorted to lobbying journalists on the Danish tube. MIT graduateshave devised a computer model to graphically show exactly how the different offers of global emissions cuts would affect rising world temperatures. With proposals as they stand today, we would end up 3.8C (6.8F) by 2100. Buiness as usual takes us to 4.8C and the three proposals by the Africans, least developed countries and small island states would take us under 2C, the level considered "safe" to avoid dangerous climate change.

Lobbyists

Over to the lobby group's centre. Analysis of the business delegate lists by Corporate Europe Observatory shows that the biggest group by far, with almost 500 in their team, is the emissions traders Ieta. Then comes the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, followed by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) which includes our old friends Monsanto, Exxon and Co (incidentally, activists this morning blocked the entrance of LCC in London). Meanwhile, Bellona, the huge Norwegian group which is 30% funded by the oil industry, has brought 371 people.

Just like Las Vegas… sort of

Everybody knew that the start of week two — when the high level delegations fly in — would be big. But just how big? Too big even for the Bella, the cavernous 122,000 square metre conference centre in Copenhagen where the climate change negotiations are taking place. As one wag remarked: "It is just like the United Nations."

Those arriving before dark had a relatively easy time negotiating the lines from the metro, through the security checkpoint, and into the centre. But by 9am, it was taking 40 minutes to get into the building, from descent into the crush at the metro station to the bright yellow bins of the metal detectors. By 10am or so, guards were blocking off entry for 10 or 15 minutes at a time, stretching the wait to 90 minutes. By 11am, the metro station itself was being shut down for a stretch. Staff at the centre are expecting the crush to build even further as the weeks goes on.

Inside, it's the environmental equivalent of a Las Vegas casino — though sadly without the flashing lights — huge and harshly lit halls with hundreds of people milling about looking for somewhere better to be, or else hunched over their screens.

Redd faces

Remember how Obama made glowing reference to the publicly funded Norway-Brazil Redd forestry initiative in his Oslo Nobel prize acceptance speech last week? Forestry campaigners are now scratching their heads because it seems that the US delegation is now arguing the diametric opposite in the negotiations.

One world leader = 20 activists

Because of the arrival of the world leaders and super-twitchy security (over 1,000 arrests in week one and far more expected this week) the NGOs are having their numbers rationed in the Bella centre. As from tomorrow the larger ones only bring around half or two thirds of their accredited people. This will inevitably cause pain and accusations that civial society is being muzzled. Our back of the envelope calculations suggest this works out as one world leader needing as much as space as 20 activists.

Japan wins fossil award

Japan has kept its head down in these talks but it has won a Fossil of the Day award — an NGO booby prize for the country performing worst in the talks - for strongly opposing a second commitment period for Kyoto. Meanwhile Papua New Guinea received the second place award for openly opposing the small island states' proposal for two legally-binding agreements.

Blame Denmark, not China, for Copenhagen failure

The decision to override the multilateral process and hold a secret meeting of select nations ruined any chance of success

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• • Martin Khor
  • guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 December 2009 12.11 GMT
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It's been several days since the chaotic end to the Copenhagen climate conference but the aftershocks from its failure are still reverberating. AsJohn Prescott points out in his letter to the Guardian, the pointing of fingers in the blame game does not help the regaining of trust needed for the positive resumption of talks early next year and to complete them by December 2010, the new deadline agreed to in Copenhagen.

First, the misinformation put out in the past few days has to be corrected. The UK climate secretary, Ed Miliband, backed by individuals such asMark Lynas (both writing in the Guardian) have turned on China as the villain that "hijacked" the conference. The main "evidence" they gave was that China vetoed an "agreement" on a 50% reduction in global emissions by 2050 and an 80% reduction by developed countries, in thesmall meeting of 26 leaders on Copenhagen's final day.

There was indeed a "hijack" in Copenhagen, but it was not by China. The hijack was organised by the host government, Denmark, whose prime minister convened a meeting of 26 leaders in the last two days of the conference, in an attempt to override the painstaking negotiations taking place among 193 countries throughout the two weeks and in fact in the past two to four years.

That exclusive meeting was not mandated by the UN climate convention. Indeed, the developing countries had warned the Danish prime minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, not to come up with his own "Danish text" to be negotiated by a small group that he himself would select, as this would violate the multilateral treaty-based process, and would replace the documents carefully negotiated by all countries with one unilaterally issued by the host country.

Despite this, the Danish government produced just such a document, and it convened exactly the kind of exclusive group that would undermine the UN climate convention's multilateral and democratic process. Under that process, the 193 countries had been collectively working on coming to a conclusion on the many aspects of the climate deal.

Weeks before, it had become clear that Copenhagen could not adopt a full agreement because many basic differences remained. Copenhagen should have been designed as a stepping stone to a future successful outcome accepted by all. Unfortunately, the host country Denmark selected a small number of the 110 top leaders who came, to meet in secret, without the mandate or even knowledge of the convention's membership.

The selected leaders were given a draft Danish document that mainly represented the developed countries' positions, thereby marginalising the developing countries' views tabled at the two-year negotiations.

Meanwhile, most of the thousands of delegates were working for two weeks on producing two reports representing the latest state of play, indicating areas of agreement and those where final decisions still had to be taken.

These reports were finally adopted by the conference. They should have been announced as the real outcome of Copenhagen, together with a decision to resume and complete work next year. It would not have been a resounding success, but it would have been an honest ending that would not have been termed a failure.

Instead, the Copenhagen accord was criticised by the final plenary of members and not adopted. The unwise attempt by the Danish presidency to impose a non-legitimate meeting to override the legitimate multilateral process was the reason why Copenhagen will be considered a disaster.

The accord itself is weak mainly because it does not contain any commitments by the developed countries to cut their emissions in the medium term. Perhaps the reason for this most glaring omission is that the national pledges so far announced amount to only a 11-19% overall reduction by the developed countries by 2020 (compared to 1990), a far cry from the over 40% target demanded by the developing countries and recent science.

To deflect from this great failure on their part, the developed countries tried to inject long-term emission-reduction goals of 50% for the world and 80% for themselves, by 2050 compared to 1990. When this failed to get through the 26-country meeting, some countries, especially the UK, began to blame China for the failure of Copenhagen.

In fact, these targets, especially taken together, have been highly contentious during the two years of discussions, and for good reasons. They would result in a highly inequitable outcome where developed countries get off from their responsibilities and push the burden of adjustment onto the developing countries.

Together, they imply that developing countries would have to cut their emissions overall by about 20% in absolute terms and at least 60% in per capita terms. By 2050, developed countries with high per capita emissions – such as the US – would be allowed to have two to five times higher per capita emission levels than developing countries. The latter would have to severely curb not only their emissions but also their economic growth, especially since there is, up to now, no credible plans let alone commitments for financial and technology transfers to help them shift to a low-emissions development path.

The developed countries have already completed their industrialisation on the basis of cheap carbon-based energy and can afford to take on an 80% goal for 2050, especially since they now have the technological and organisational capacity and infrastructure. For a minimally equitable deal, they should commit to cuts of at least 200-400%, or move into negative emission territory, with net re-absorption of greenhouse gases, to enable developing countries the atmospheric space to develop.

The acceptance of the two targets would also have locked in a most unfair sharing of the remaining global carbon budget as it would have allowed the developed countries to get off free from their historical responsibility and their carbon debt. They would have been allocated the rights to a large amount of "carbon space", historically and in the future, without being given the obligation and responsibility to undertake adequate emission cuts nor to make adequate financial and technology transfers to developing countries.

Fortunately these targets are absent from the accord. The imperative for the negotiations next year is to agree on what science says is necessary for the world to do (in terms of limits to temperature rise or in global emissions cut) but also on what is a just and equitable formula for sharing the costs and burdens of adjustment, and to decide on both simultaneously. By asking for agreement on only a global goal and a very low commitment figure for their own obligatory cut, the developed countries were attempting to fix a global carbon budget distribution that enables them to get away with the hijacking of atmospheric space, a resource worth many trillions of dollars.

Learning from Copenhagen's mistakes, the countries should return to the multilateral track and resume negotiations in the climate convention's two working groups as early as possible.

They can start with the two reports passed at Copenhagen as reference points. There should not be more attempts to hijack this multilateral process, which represents our best hope to achieve final results.

The bottom-up democratic process is slower but also steadier, compared to the top-down attempt to impose a solution by a few powers that will always lack legitimacy in decision-making and success or sustainability in implementation.

Asia marks the fifth anniversary of tsunami that killed almost 250,000

Thousands gather to remember the victims of the 2004 tsunami

Helen Carter and agencies

guardian.co.uk, Saturday 26 December 2009 15.43 GMT

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Dilip Semeviratna places a candle on the grave of his father, who died in the 2004 tsunami, in Paraliya, 56 miles south of Colombo. Photograph: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Reuters

Countries across the Indian Ocean are today solemnly marking the fifth anniversary of the tsunami that killed almost 250,000 people.

In Indonesia's Aceh province, where more than 166,000 died, thousands held prayers in public mosques and private homes. On Thai beaches, Buddhist monks in saffron robes chanted prayers as mourners held pictures of loved ones lost on Boxing Day five years ago.

Hundreds of tourists returned to Phuket to mark one of the worst natural disasters of modern times.

A moment of silence was observed on Patong Beach in Phuket to mark the moment the tsunami struck.

German survivor Ruschitschka Adolf, 73, and his wife Katherina waded into the turquoise sea to lay white roses as a tribute to the dead.

"We [still] come and stay here because we are alive," Adolf told Reuters news agency.

Other ceremonies were expected in the 14 countries hit by the massive wave. In Indonesia's Aceh province, the worst area, thousands of people gathered at mosques and beside the mass graves of victims.

"None of my family members survived in the tsunami," Siti Aminah, 72, said at a burial site near Banda Aceh, Aceh's capital. "My children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters, they have all gone and left me alone here."

A gathering of monks in Ban Nam Khem, a small fishing village onThailand's Andaman Sea coast that lost nearly half its 5,000 people, was one of hundreds of similar, solemn events across Asia. "All souls from all nationalities, wherever you are now, please receive the prayers the monks are saying for you," Kularb Pliamyai, who lost 10 family members in Ban Nam Khem, said.

Massive reconstruction aid in Banda Aceh has helped build a new city on top of the ruins, and many survivors are only now putting memories of the waves behind them.

Some locals, such as Taufik Rahmat, said they had moved on, helped by having new homes following one of the largest foreign fundraising exercises ever. But pockets of people in his village remain homeless.

"Not all elements have been fulfilled, I think about 80% to 90% of people still don't have proper housing," Rahmat said.

Scores of small hotels and resorts are up for sale in Thailand's Phang Nga province north of Phuket whose forested coastline includes Ban Nam Khem and the serene 19-km (12-mile) Khao Lak beach, two of Thailand's worst-hit areas. After Indonesia, Sri Lanka was the country hardest hit by the tsunami.

Many thousands died there, and half a million were displaced. Sri Lanka observed two minutes of silence to mark the deaths of 34,400 people, with traffic coming to a standstill and state-run television and radio stations halting their regular programmes at 9.25am.

Australian Senate defeats carbon trading bill

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• Defeat of carbon trading bill delivers blow to government that had hoped to set an example at international climate change talks in Copenhagen
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• Toni O'Loughlin in Sydney
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 2 December 2009 09.35 GMT
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An Australian newspaper poster reporting the split in the Liberal party over climate change legislation. Photograph: William West/AFP/Getty Images

Australia has dumped its plan to cut the nation's carbon emissions for the second time this year after climate sceptics seized control of the conservative opposition.

Link to this audio

The Senate, where the government of the prime minister, Kevin Rudd, does not hold a majority, rejected 41-33 his administration's proposal for Australia to become one of the first countries to install a so-called cap-and-trade system to slash the amount of heat-trapping pollution that industries pump into the air.

It follows a tumultuous week in Australian politics, which saw the ousting of Malcolm Turnbull as opposition leader, after he had pledged to support the government's plans for the trading scheme.

The defeat further undermines Australia's already ailing credibility at the upcoming UN climate change talks in Copenhagen.

But parliamentarians from the Australian Greens party welcomed the demise of the Labor government's carbon emissions trading scheme, calling it "a dirty deal, an exercise in double think, and a deceit on the Australian people".

Australian Greens senator, Bob Brown, said the debate in Australia had been hijacked by big polluters, particularly in the coal industry. "Climate change minister, Penny Wong, has made a point of seeing all the coal lobbyists. They're very formidable in the impact they have on policy in Australia," Brown said.

If an international agreement is reached in Copenhagen, the scheme of the prime inister, Kevin Rudd, would have cut carbon emissions from 5% up to 25% by 2020, depending on whether there is a global deal in Copenhagen. The scheme, which would have paid big polluting industries $AUS30bn in compensation, did not require a reduction in domestic emissions to meet its targeted cuts, because Australia could have met the target by purchasing permits to pollute from overseas.

"If Rudd's scheme was adopted worldwide, we would be very unlikely to limit the rise in global temperatures to 2C," Andrew Macintosh, associate director of the Australian National University's centre for climate law and policy, said. Still, the deputy prime minister, Julia Gillard, said the government would give the opposition, the Liberal-National coalition, "another chance" to act in "the national interest" by reintroducing the legislation when parliament resumes in February. "We all know the Liberal party is deeply divided on this question," Gillard said.

On Monday, after a week of angry exchanges the coalition dumped its leader, Malcolm Turnbull, who had brokered an agreement with Labor to support the emissions trading scheme.

His replacement, Tony Abbott, has previously described climate change as "crap" but this week claimed that he held a more "considered view". He wants the coalition to consider the introduction of nuclear power to cut Australia's emissions.

Political commentators are speculating the Rudd could call an early election to further divide the opposition which rejects the carbon trading scheme as a "massive tax" on Australians.