Obama brokers a climate deal, doesn't satisfy all
COPENHAGEN, Denmark
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a leading proponent of strong
action to confront global warming, gave the Copenhagen Accord
grudging acceptance but said she had "mixed feelings" about the
outcome and called it only a first step.
Obama's day of frenetic diplomacy produced a three-page document
promising $30 billion in emergency aid in the next three years and
a goal of channeling $100 billion a year by 2020 to developing
countries with no guarantees.
The five-nation agreement includes a method for verifying
reductions of heat-trapping gases -- a key demand by Washington,
because China has resisted international efforts to monitor its
actions.
The agreement, which also includes India, South Africa and
Brazil, requires industrial countries to list their individual
targets and developing countries to list the actions they will take
to cut global warming pollution by specific amounts. Obama called
that an "unprecedented breakthrough."
"We have come a long way, but we have much further to go," he
said.
If the countries had waited to reach a full, binding agreement,
"then we wouldn't make any progress," Obama said. In that case,
he said, "there might be such frustration and cynicism that rather
than taking one step forward, we ended up taking two steps back."
He suggested the agreement would be adopted by the larger summit
in its closing hours. The conference continued into the early hours
of Saturday with delegates preparing for a final plenary session.
The emerging outcome was a disappointment to those who had
anticipated the Copenhagen Accord would be turned into a legally
binding treaty. Instead, it envisions another year of negotiations
and leaves myriad details yet to be decided.
Merkel said "the path toward a new agreement is still a very
long one."
But British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the agreement had
almost universal support. "Let's remember, a year ago nobody
thought this sort of agreement was possible," he said.
Lumumba Di-Aping, the Sudanese ambassador who chairs the bloc of
developing countries, called it "extremely flawed."
"A gross violation has been committed today against the poor,
against the tradition of transparency and participation of equal
footing for all parties of the convention and against common
sense," he said, complaining that Obama negotiated the pact in
one-on-one meetings and a forum of 25 nations.
The document said carbon emissions should be reduced enough to
keep the increase in average temperature below 2 degrees Celsius
(3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), which is stronger than in any previous
declaration accepted by the rich countries.
However, environmental groups called it a meaningless
aspiration.
"The deal is a triumph of spin over substance. It recognizes
the need to keep warming below 2 degrees but does not commit to do
so. It kicks back the big decisions on emissions cuts and fudges
the issue of climate cash," said Jeremy Hobbs, executive director
of Oxfam International, an organization that works with developing
countries.
He said the agreement "barely papers over the huge differences
between countries which have plagued these talks for two years."
Obama spent the final scheduled day of the climate talks
huddling with world leaders, including Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao,
in a bid to salvage an accord amid deep divisions between rich and
poor nations.
The president said there was a "fundamental deadlock in
perspectives" between big, industrially developed countries like
the United States and poorer, though sometimes large, developing
nations. Still he said this week's efforts "will help us begin to
meet our responsibilities to leave our children and grandchildren a
cleaner planet."
The deal as described by Obama reflects some progress helping
poor nations cope with climate change and getting China to disclose
its actions to address the warming problem.
He said the world will have to take more aggressive steps to
combat global warming. The first step, he said, is to build trust
between developed and developing countries.
"It's not what we expected," Brazilian Ambassador Sergio
Barbosa Serra said. "It may still be a way of salvaging something
and paving the way for another a meeting or series of meetings next
year."
Obama had planned to spend only about nine hours in Copenhagen
as the summit wrapped up. But, as an agreement appeared within
reach, he extended his stay by more than six hours to attend a
series of meetings aimed at brokering a deal.
New Zealand's climate change ambassador Adrian Macey called it
"a modest deal."
"I see Kyoto as a first step," Macey said. "This another
first step, a global first step."
More than anything, Macey found the U.N. process on climate
change "appalling."
John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, decried that
"there are no targets for carbon cuts and no agreement on a
legally binding treaty."
The two-week, 193-nation conference has been plagued by growing
distrust between rich and poor nations. Each side blamed the other
for failing to take ambitious actions to tackle climate change. At
one point, African delegates staged a partial boycott of the talks.
Many delegates had been looking to China and the U.S. -- the
world's two largest carbon polluters -- to deepen their pledges to
cut their emissions. But that was not to be.
"We are ready to get this done today, but there has to be
movement on all sides to recognize that it is better for us to act
rather than talk," Obama had said in an address to the conference,
insisting on a transparent way to monitor each nation's pledges to
cut emissions.
As negotiations evolved, new drafts of the document emerged with
key clauses being inserted, deleted and reintroduced with new
wording.
In a diatribe against the U.S., Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez
criticized the conference as undemocratic.
"There is a document that has been moving around, all sorts of
documents that have been moving around, there is a real lack of
transparency here," he said earlier Friday. "We reject any
document that Obama will slip under the door."
Obama and Wen met twice -- once privately and once with other
world leaders present -- in hopes of sweeping aside some of the
disputes that have barred a final deal. Officials said the two
leaders took a step forward in their talk and directed negotiators
to keep working, but the degree of progress was not immediately
clear.
Later Friday, Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham
Clinton held talks with European leaders, including Merkel, Brown
and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Reporters asked how
negotiations were going as Obama walked into the meeting. "Always
hopeful," he replied.
Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren, negotiating on
behalf of the 27-nation European Union, blamed the impasse on the
Chinese for "blocking again and again," and on the U.S. for
coming too late with an improved offer, a long-range climate aid
program announced Thursday by Clinton.
"President Obama was not very proactive. He didn't offer
anything more," said delegate Thomas Negints, from Papua New
Guinea. He said his country had hoped for "more on emissions, put
more money on the table, take the lead."