The preparatory Climate Change meeting in Bonn has closed showing small progress. It should be clear by now that UNFCCC will never lead to a “grand accord”.

The best way possible is to build upon the Copenhagen Accord: targets and actions already filed represent 86% of total global carbon emissions. The sum total is still not enough. But it is far more than the Kyoto Protocol will ever be able to deliver. The task, now, should be to operationalise the Accord, design a mechanism to review the portfolio of national actions every two years, put REDD and the fast-track finance in place, and start working towards the long-term fund.

Many observers say that the major outcome from the Bonn preparatory talks was the climate of mutual engagement and trust that marked the meeting in spite of the rifts that remained. Yvo de Boer said that “countries started talking to each other rather than at each other”.

But the most significant political signal of the meeting was the veto imposed by Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and a few other oil-producing countries to the request by small island states for an update on the latest scientific evidence for global warming. The request was based on the fact that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is not due to complete its fifth assessment until 2014 and doubts have been cast on some elements of its fourth assessment, published in 2007. It seems only sensible that  an update of all solid peer-reviewed scientific work should be consolidated under the IPCC umbrella to guide the climate negotiations. (See Mood thaws on climate change).

As Christiana Figueres has said a global, binding, meaningful agreement will probably never be possible within the confines of the UNFCCC. The only viable outcome would be an ongoing, always provisional, agreement to be revised and improved over the years ahead. The best we can hope is always a compromise that “would not meet all needs of everyone but at least meet the basic needs of everyone.”

A new look at the Copenhagen Accord would show that, in spite of all the frustration it brought against the backdrop of inflated expectations, it is the best outcome we’ve ever had from any global climate negotiation since the Rio ’92 meeting. To enforce the targets and actions all major carbon emitters have filed, and the commitments the Accord contains would be a much more concrete and definitive step, than keep investing on the unending phrase by phrase negotiation that would hardly lead to anything better than the Accord we already have.

After a fast-track approval of the climate change bill, its enabling legislation is deadlocked at the Civil Household. The bill was rushed through Congress for president Lula to arrive in Copenhagen with the law already signed. But without the enabling legislation it is useless, and emission reduction targets cannot be enforced.

The Civil Household filters and process all government proposals before they are taken to the President. While Chief of Civil Household, Presidential candidate Dilma Roussef commanded all aspects of government policy but foreign affairs with a very strong hand and an outstretched arm. She has never been very enthusiastic about climate change policies.

Sources who have been involved in the decision-making process told me that conflict among government representatives responding to different sectoral interests have become almost intractable. A majority among them resists mandating any carbon curbing action other than reducing deforestation. There is strong resistance to any emission reduction targeting for the industrial, energy, and transportation sectors.

There are several sources of veto to sectoral actions on climate change. The officials in charge of climate policy at the Ministry of Science and Technology are against any carbon reduction policy other than curbing deforestation. They claim Brazil already has a low carbon economy. Scientists who work at the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), under the Ministry of Science and Technology umbrella, strongly disagree. They are among the most active advocates for fast and encompassing climate change regulation. The Development, Transportation, Energy, and Agriculture ministries also oppose adopting targeted sectoral actions. To them any delay on regulation would be welcome, especially in the pre-electoral and campaign seasons. It is obvious to anyone with a minimum knowledge of the Brazilian economy that it belongs to the high carbon family. It will move faster towards higher levels of carbon intensity, if nothing is done.

Since Dilma Roussef’s times the Civil Household has resisted climate change-oriented policies. The two first Environment ministers, Marina Silva and Carlos Minc, have always had to fight for their policies, often clashing with other ministers, and frequently failing to get them approved by the President.

In one of the fiercest confrontations around policies for the Amazon region, Marina Silva, now an opposition presidential bidder, has resigned. She was replaced by Carlos Minc who, through confrontation and concession, was able to get Lula’s approval to the policy now filed under the Copenhagen Accord.  Minc left the Ministry to run for the state of Rio de Janeiro’s House of Representatives.

The incumbent minister, Izabella Teixeira, does not have the leadership nor the experience required to break this deadlock. The present Chief of Civil Household also lacks expertise and leadership. Without President Lula’s direct intervention it is unlikely regulation would be adopted anytime before this year’s elections.

This places Brazil far behind its two major partners in the BASIC group, China and India. After the BASIC and President Obama brokered the Copenhagen Accord, both China and India have been very active in adopting new policies that would enable them to meet the targets they’ve registered on the Accord’s Annex.

Sergio Abranches

The Copenhagen Accord has become the most representative global climate political agreement since the Framework Convention on Climate Change, that entered into force on 21, March, 1994. It now has the formal adhesion of more than 100 countries, including all large carbon emitters of the world, except Russia, amounting to more than 80% of global GHG emissions. But it has no legal force. It depends entirely on the signatories’ willingness to hold to their promised emissions reductions.

The convention is, as its name says, a legal framework, not an operational treaty. The legal operational instrument is the Kyoto Protocol, signed on December, 11, 1997, but coming into force only on 16, February, 2005. The U.S. has never ratified it. The large emerging economies, China, India, and Brazil, have no obligations under the protocol. Only “Annex I Countries” have binding emissions reduction targets. Targets for the period of 2008-2012 were set too low: ~ 5% of 1990 global emissions. Although legally binding, the Protocol has no mechanism of enforcement. The legal consequence of Annex I countries’ noncompliance is unclear.

The Kyoto Protocol has broad support among environmentalists and G77 governments because it is legally binding. Legally binding, it is. Politically representative, it is not. Its targets are too small to make a difference, and there has been no agreement so far on its second commitment period.

The Copenhagen Accord is operational, although not legally binding. Its targets represent around 20% of 1990 global emissions to 2020. They are at least five percentage points below what would be necessary to barely meet the 2^oC limit. The U.S. pledge is far too low, representing a reduction of no more than 5% of its 1990 emissions to 2020.

The history of the major BASIC countries’ (China, India, and Brazil) formal support to the Accord is yet to be told. They’ve initially registered their voluntary targets, without formally and explicitly supporting the accord. The first Brazilian letter, confirming the country’s mitigation actions, was rather ambiguous about the country’s association to the Accord. Afterwards the government has sent a second letter stating its formal support more clearly. It took more time for India and China to follow suit. This delay has to do with Post-Copenhagen political discussions about the Copenhagen Accord between the BASIC countries and their unsupportive G77 partners. At the end of the day, the fact that the BASIC countries were among the Accord’s major brokers has prevailed.

India’s Environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, explained to the Parliament that the decision to officially support the Accord was taken “after careful consideration”. Reuters reports that he told MPs that: “we believe that our decision (…) reflects the role India played in giving shape to the Copenhagen Accord.”

The U.S. sees the Copenhagen Accord as the only way towards a future full climate treaty. Todd Stern, chief U.S. climate envoy has said on several occasions that his country will not ratify the Kyoto Protocol. He also said the Obama Administration would like the Copenhagen Accord to guide talks on a new treaty. The United States has urged further formalization of the Accord at the next major U.N. climate meeting in Cancún, Mexico, Reuters reports.

G77 countries, including the BASIC, consider the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol as a sine qua non to any further deals.

Climate diplomacy has, now, two ways to go. One would be to work towards a new Protocol to substitute Kyoto, having the Copenhagen Accord as a starting point. To achieve that, the G77 would have to be persuaded to abandon the Kyoto Protocol. The other way would be to adopt the “two-track” solution. This track requires the agreement on  a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol, and the legal formalization of the Copenhagen Accord in Cancun, at COP16 or, more likely, at COP17, in South Africa, in 2011.

There is no serious regress on climate change politics. What we see is just a reiteration of the stop-and-go that characterizes complex decision-making settings. The climate change decision-making environment is almost as complex as the climate system itself. It conforms to what I’ve called the Asimov Paradox. In brief: with so many stakeholders, veto players and decision-makers involved, there are two ways to reach a sound and sufficient global deal. Either it gets a really massive amount of support and commitment, or building meaningful consensus will take a very long span of time. So, we’ve got to keep struggling to get enough support to trigger the needed political change. We don’t have time to spare. Meanwhile we should invest on other battlefronts of the climate change challenge, while we continue aiming at achieving a global climate change policy. We must achieve an effective curb on carbon emissions sooner than later, through local initiatives before we get to a binding global accord.

There is a well financed and well orchestrated political campaign by climate deniers and fossil lobbies to discredit the IPCC and climate science. The IPCC has made some important mistakes that must be adequately addressed. It is, perhaps, time for a formal “peer review” of IPCC’s present format and procedures. It surely needs change. If IPCC could move to a new stage of its institutional life, generating more transparent, error-free scientific assessments at shorter intervals and with less political interference, that could very much help the search for a global climate change policy framework. Finally, it also has a leadership problem. A new chair could bring fresh ideas; perhaps more scientific authority; and work to better balance science and politics. The present IPCC chair won’t likely recover from the loss of confidence and legitimacy.

Is the social movement too quiet? I guess not. All major NGO’s are busy evaluating what happened last year, and designing their new short and long-term strategies. They’ve probably had their best results ever in 2009 on mobilization, visibility, and influence. Yet COP15 was probably, also, their major frustration ever. They surely have some strategic review and redesign of their own to do. They’ll need a new agenda for action. But they should do it as fast and possible, to overcome frustration, and start seriously confronting the deniers’s campaign against climate change science, policy and politics.

We are not really loosing ground, but the outcome of the Copenhagen Summit has had a depressing effect on environmentalists, concerned analysts, scientists and most government negotiators. The realization that the expectations for a fully legal, ambitious, and working deal have not been met by the world’s most powerful leaders in Copenhagen has damaged somewhat climate politics. Is has also given deniers’s the motivation and the opportunity to launch their public opinion and political offensive, particularly in the UK and the US.  But let’s look to the brighter sides.

All major countries are implementing their own climate change agenda. In the US, the EPA, at the federal level, the states, and cities are working towards better and tougher regulation of carbon emissions. The energy law is not president Obama’s top priority yet. Nor is it the top priority of US society. So, it will probably go the hard and long way to be eventually approved, rather than enter into a fast track voting process. Local initiative has not loose momentum, nor has the Federal Government been paralyzed. China is leading global investment in green energy and pollution control, for its own sake. The Chinese government has been issuing new carbon regulations at an increasing pace. India is also starting to pursue low carbon targets of its own. No major emitter has abandoned the pledges made at Copenhagen. In other words: political commitment to action on climate change is holding and there are signs of further improvement. Legally binding policies have been enacted by the rulers of all major global emitters, and several other countries.

A greater threat to short-term climate progress comes from the fact that the world is facing a new shockwave of the financial crisis. European economies were hit before they could fully recover from the original one. The crisis in Europe is not confined to Greece. Spain and Portugal are also in trouble. It is a complex, and deep financial and fiscal disarray that has strong explosive power. Major EU and the US economies are still too weak to resist a contagion effect, if the present crisis goes out of control and spreads throughout the global financial market.

This means that unless the economic downturn and its collateral damage are not fully overcome, climate change will hardly become a significant global priority this year. Not a likely prospect. Climate change will remain on the political agenda of all major economies as a serious 21^st century challenge, but comprehensive action may be further delayed.

So, the gloomier view on climate change politics results from a short-term vision mostly, but not entirely, based on appearances. We are not moving backwards, but we are stalling again. Today the conditions for a fully legal treaty are slim, if not adversary. Countries are still tackling far more pressing short-term problems

This scenario of renewed economic turmoil and delayed concern for climate change requires some strategic thinking. It would be very important to prevent COP16 from becoming another major frustration. The future of global climate change politics depends on getting the best results possible, at Cancún, under the prevailing circumstances. There are several risks to manage for the world to succeed at COP16.

There are two opposite risks to avoid, looking first at expectations. The first one would be an inflation of expectations about a legal agreement like the one we’ve had about COP15. It seems very unlikely now, but should be prevented by all means beforehand. The other one would be a self-defeating radical deflation of all expectations. A risk we are already facing today. The third risk concerns agenda setting. Depending on how the economic scenario develops, especially during the first half of 2010, it would be very risky to set very ambitious goals for COP16. A set of realistic goals would help to prevent another frustration. If the scenario doesn’t improve considerably, the goal of a climate treaty should be explicitly postponed, before the beginning of COP16.

It would be better instead to work towards bringing the original “spirit” of the Copenhagen Accord into the framework of UNFCCC’s working documents, in both the Climate Convention (AWGLCA) and the Kyoto Protocol (AWGKP) tracks. To reconcile the original aims of the Copenhagen political accord and the UNFCCC legal process is doable, but will require long and hard negotiations. It would not be feasible to form the necessary consensus to effectively close a fully legal agreement this year. The goal should be to align the political and the legal tracks as much as possible. Having a treaty drafted, approved and signed does seem, at the moment, to be out of the reach of COP16. Another important goal would be to deepen major countries’s commitment to the political accord.

Strengthening the Copenhagen Accord could be an appropriate issue for the agenda of G20 and Major Economies Forum (MEF) meetings. Clearly, the first issue on their agenda will be, again, the economy. Leaders of this major league of countries cannot, however, disregard climate change and pending questions about the Copenhagen Accord. Climate change will very likely be on their agenda. The best way to deal with the Accord is to take it seriously. The Copenhagen Accord can yet gain greater political density. Targets can be improved or reviewed, within the next three or five years. Commitments could be clarified, helping to bridge the gap between the political and the legal tracks in the future. The BASIC countries’ association to the Accord is still lukewarm, and China has only declared to be “supportive”. US support could also be made more assertive.

Progress on the preparation for a legally binding agreement, and strengthening of the political accord, could be a realistic and relevant agenda for 2010 and COP16.

While the U.S. and the European Union embraced the Copenhagen Accord with no reserves, the BASIC countries said the Accord is not legal. The only legal instrument they accept is the Kyoto Protocol. Does it really matter if they adhere and record their quantitative voluntary actions? Is this an important divide between developed and emerging powers?

I feel increasingly inclined to answer no to both questions.

Let’s be practical. The Kyoto Protocol is legal, but its targets were set so low that they became utterly ineffective. The U.S. didn’t ratify the Protocol. The BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) are “non-Annex I” parties, meaning they have no binding obligations.

As a result, the Protocol has a very partial coverage of total GHG emissions. Being legally binding made almost no difference to the trajectory of emissions or to the behavior of the Parties to the Protocol. To the BASIC countries, the legal character of the Kyoto Protocol serves only to make it sure they have no legal obligations, because they do not belong to the Annex I. The U.S. will never ratify it. There has been little progress in the negotiations regarding its Phase 2. The Post 2012 Kyoto Protocol will not have China, Brazil and India among Annex I countries, and without the U.S. as well, it will remain a poor instrument to tackle the global climate change threat.

Now, let’s look at the Copenhagen Accord. With the adhesion of the U.S., the European Union, Canada, Australia, China, India, Brazil, and South Africa it covers most of the global GHG emissions. Add Japan and Russia, and it reaches the level of emissions that, if appropriately regulated, can do the job of preventing a climactic cataclysm. This select group of countries represent most of global political, economic, and scientific power as well.

The Accord is not legal indeed. It is political. With all these countries saying they’re politically committed to its terms, and publicly recording their voluntary actions to reduce emissions, it, nevertheless, gets substance and relevance. All of them are recording quantitative goals. To call them binding targets or voluntary actions seems so far a matter of lesser importance. Just look at what happened to Kyoto’s binding targets. To me it is more important that, for the first time, the U.S., China, Brazil, and India are making political commitments for emissions reductions. And they come with a number attached.

These targets still fall short of responding to scientific requirements. But the Accord also provides for performance reviews to conform actions to the requirement of maintaing global warming near 2^oC. This is already more than the Kyoto Protocol has accomplished. It has also resolved some decade long deadlocks on finance and technology transfer.

What the Copenhagen Accord lacks, the Kyoto Protocol also doesn’t have: a working enforcement mechanism. We are far from having an adequate framework for global climate governance. And we will have to eventually arrive at one.

The Copenhagen Accord can move forward along two different tracks. The first one, would be to enter the diplomatic track of the Climate Convention. Its terms and targets/actions would have to be transcribed into an official document tabled by the Working Group on the Climate Convention (AWG-LCA) to be unanimously approved by the plenary of 192 countries, hopefully during COP16, in Cancun, Mexico.

The alternative route would be to keep going on its own. The countries that have adhered to the Accord would continue to negotiate an appropriate and acceptable legal statute. Negotiations should also address the governance regime that would make this statute enforceable and policy-relevant.

The first road seems to be the harder one. The history of the Climate Convention has showed how difficult it is to reach consensus within such a large and heterogeneous group of countries.

The Copenhagen Accord has gained some new substance with the adhesion of the “carbon powers” of the world. A smaller group of countries, even if a polarized one, is more likely to reach a meaningful agreement than a large group of more than 100 nations with disparate interests.

The convention plenary is so divided that it is even hard to form polarized coalitions within it. What we’ve seen in Copenhagen was the fractionalization of previous clusters of countries, as the likelihood of an agreement increased. That’s how the G77 and China broke down, the BASIC, the AOSIS, and the African block replacing it. These three blocks have proved to be far more politically productive than the G77.

That the Accord is still alive, in spite of the frustrations it has raised at the dismal closing of COP15, seems a good omen. A global climate change deal is still possible.

Sergio Abranches

It is an extensive and complex law with many stakeholders. During the legislative process a few amendments have improved it to some extent. One of them, for instance, has included the emissions reduction targets as a “voluntary contribution” from Brazil to the global fight against climate change.  There were also a few important setbacks, however. President Lula has vetoed three articles. One on constitutional grounds, the other two conceding to pressure from his Minister of Energy.

Lula vetoed the provision that the country should gradually abandon fossil fuels. As there was no time frame, nor any description of actions that should be taken to that end, it amounted to no more than a future policy indication. But the Minister feared that by maintaining it, an enabling decree could make provisions that would do harm to the fossil energy industry. He only accepted that priority should be given to renewable energy sources.

The Minister of Energy has also persuaded President Lula to veto article 10, that restricted government incentives to small hydropower plants, wind, solar, biomass and other alternative sources. He argued that it would impede incentives to large hydropower plants.

The veto damaged the economics of the new law, by removing the structure of incentives to promote non-fossil energy.

There is some room, however, for improvement and correction through carefully drafting the enabling decree. The law can only be enacted after this enabling legislation is published. It can de done through a series of presidential decrees. Presidential decrees are not reviewed by Congress and can be enforced immediately.

The battle around the enabling decree is about to begin. An official source has told me today that they will not try to write all enabling rules at once. They’ll selectively pick the issues and areas they deem to be the most important and try to set the rules to allow their prompt enforcement. Some issues are almost certain to be in this first batch, because they are instrumental to the implementation of the emissions reduction targets that will be offered as the Brazilian contribution to the Copenhagen Accord.

This strategy of partial enablement aims at reducing the scope of conflict of interest and infighting to prevent a decision-making paralysis.

Another source told me they’ll also work on other parts of the enabling legislation with a longer-term perspective, leaving the groundwork done for the next Administration, to take office on January 1^st ,2011.

People at the Environment and Science and Technology ministries want to expedite the approval of the enabling decree, because ministers and higher officials who will run for elective office on October elections will have to leave the government within the next two months. They want the same people who negotiated the Law of Climate Change to lead the deal on the enabling legislation. It is very likely that Lula will replace his political ministers by technical and managerial people who lack the political savvy to tackle the complex and contentious issues the decree will have to address.

A source told me the ideal timing would be to have the enabling legislation approved by right after Carnival.

Sergio Abranches

And failure it was. A clear failure of collective leadership. In spite of individual efforts, the most powerful and influential incumbent world leaders failed to reached a common understanding of their domestic and planetary responsibilities. They left, as we say in Brazil, à française, without a word to close the meeting and the deal. Presidents Obama and Sarkozy talked to their countries’ media in their hotels before leaving to the airport. They said almost the same thing: the better deal possible was done, and it was a meaningful one. But it was not.

Technically they’ve left the result of their talks in a political void. As a political outcome negotiated above and beyond UN rules, the only way to actualize it would have been to hold a press conference, explain the accord and make it public. To leave the final terms to be negotiated within the UN track was both a violence to established rules, and a major political mistake.

A mistake that led the majority to cry failure. Within the formal gridlocked tracks of the Climate Convention it would have the same fate as prior efforts have had: watering down to the point of becoming meaningless.

The plenary has done the only sensible thing to do about it: to take note and adjourn. It could not veto it: delegates did not have the authority to formally undo or reject what represented an accord by their chiefs of state and governments. They could not vote it either, because, from the standpoint of UN rules, the Copenhagen Accord was a “non-paper”. A document that did not go through the formal channels of the Climate Convention. It was not tabled by any of the Working Groups Chairs for discussion and deliberation. When the Chair of COP15, prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, tried to table it somewhat irregularly at the end of the day, literally, he faced strong open and veiled opposition.

Then, the professionals came to the rescue. The plenary could not deliberate about such a “non-paper”. Delegates could not use the rules either to support or to reject their leaders doings. They could only take note of the Copenhagen Accord, with its meaningful parts, the appendices with the countries’ commitments of emissions cuts, as blank tables. This draft belonged to the politicians that started to negotiate its terms and abandoned it before it was completed. They can now complete it, fill in the blank tables, and adhere to it.

If they do it, and the tables show a meaningful effort on the part of the world’s bigger emitters, even if they fall short of the scientific requirements, than it becomes a meaningful deal. And only then, it could provide a guideline to a legal accord to be drafted and adopted by the Climate Convention, in Mexico City.

If there is progress, the promise of a midyear summit in Bonn, could even become an extra session of COP15, to vote a second Protocol that would either replace or complement the Kyoto Protocol. Today, it seems unlikely that there will be progress enough for a legally binding agreement in June or July. Let’s hope an agreement becomes possible until COP16.

Copenhagen has not ended only with this half blank “non-paper”. There was meaningful progress, not enough, not enduring if nothing else is done, not to meet the expectations, or the dimension of COP15. Yet there was visible and tangible progress.

This meeting was unprecedented in almost everything. It was the largest gathering of global civil society ever in the history of the Conference of the Parties. It was the largest and widest media coverage ever of a COP. It briefly hosted the larger number of heads of state and governments for an environmental summit ever, since Rio ’92.

COP15 began on a very different political note. It was clear that diplomacy and formal UN procedures had been taken by politicization. The first day was marked by the leakage of the so-called “Danish document”. On the second day, Tuvalu provoked a political maelstrom that would never dissolve. It was only fair that Tuvalu should start the movement that led the final plenary session to reject the attempt by COP15 president to table the Copenhagen Accord.

A delegate from the IPCC told me during the moments of perplexity and dismay, after the leaders left Bella Center without addressing COP15, that “it was no longer about science, but about politics”. COP15 was never about the science, it was always about the politics of climate change.

From the point of view of the science of climate change, Copenhagen was a major failure. From the perspective of the politics of climate change, there was important progress.

First, for the first time since the climate talks have been gridlocked, I’d say since COP4 in Buenos Aires, the governments of the world largest emitters have committed to mitigation actions. Their targets may not be in line with the science of climate change, but they’ve crossed the crucial political line separating denial from commitment.

Second, the Copenhagen Accord, if honored by the leaders that have negotiated it, if the countries fill in the tables with their quantified national actions, can serve as an instruction to delegates to draft a formal proposal for a legal document to be adopted by the Conference of the Parties. This document could then be adopted by the plenary of the next COP.

Third, there were minimal, yet meaningful, advances on the positions of the two major emitters: the US and China. Brazil and India have also changed their attitudes and assumed commitments they have also consistently denied before.

Fourth, the target of 2^oC has been accepted and institutionalized as a global mitigation goal.

Fifth, the finance deadlock has been solved. If the blanks on the Copenhagen Accord are filled by the first quarter of 2010, the fast-track US$ 30 billion for 2010-2012 will be available. If an agreement is formally reached in Mexico City or before, a long-term fund will be created, and by 2020 there will be a significant sum of at least US$ 100 billion a year to finance mitigation and adaptation actions by developing countries.

Sixth, there was progress on technology transfer, another point of stalemate.

Seventh, there was progress on monitoring, or rules on measurable, reportable and verifiable actions. An issue that almost led to a political incident between US and China. The two countries negotiated the issue, with the intermediation of Brazil and India. Barack Obama and Wen Jiabao talked during a meeting of the BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India and China) at Bella Center. President Lula intermediated the talks. India prime-minister, Manmohan Singh, proposed an WTC like solution for reporting and verification, that was acceptable by both parties.

Eight, the practical disruption of G77, and the new roles assumed by the “African” group of countries, the AOSIS (small island states) and the BASIC countries allowed a new geopolitics of climate change to fully emerge. These new groupings are more coherent and their interests are clearer. This new division largely prevents emerging powers to manipulate small country’s veto powers on their favor.

Ninth, it has become clear, as president Sarkozy has stated, that the UN process is on the verge of exhaustion. The climate change issue is bigger than the institutional arrangements under which it has been negotiated. A new system for climate change governance is needed. However, a new institutional setting, particularly a new climate change multilateral organization cannot be created before we have a new legal agreement that encompasses all major nations of the world. It seems likely that this new framework for the global governance of climate change is finding its place in the global agenda.

These contradictory results; the extraordinary display of vigor by global civil society in Copenhagen and around the world; coverage by about 3500 accredited journalists and many thousands of citizen journalists; the unprecedented presence of more than 100 chiefs of state and governments and their dismal achievement; real progress towards solving the complex net of issues and interests gridlocking a global climate change deal, all are ingredients of a historic event. Two weeks not to forget.

Sergio Abranches

President Obama came to the Plenary of COP15, to do a very basic, yet very difficult political operation: say yes to something his country has been saying no for more than a decade. That is progress enough.

However, he can only approve an accord that falls short of what is needed to meet the US “global responsibilities”, and is not near enough to “act boldly, and decisively, in the face of this common threat.”

The problem with Obama’s speech is that its two crucial paragraphs do not match the objectives he sets forth in the opening paragraphs. Obama’s speech adds up to two crucial paragraphs:

Second, we must have a mechanism to review whether we are keeping our commitments, and to exchange this information in a transparent manner. These measures need not be intrusive, or infringe upon sovereignty. They must, however, ensure that an accord is credible, and that we are living up to our obligations. For without such accountability, any agreement would be empty words on a page.

Third, we must have financing that helps developing countries adapt, particularly the least-developed and most vulnerable to climate change. America will be a part of fast-start funding that will ramp up to $10 billion in 2012. And, yesterday, Secretary Clinton made it clear that we will engage in a global effort to mobilize $100 billion in financing by 2020, if – and only if – it is part of the broader accord that I have just described.

And they don’t match the challenges and objectives with which he opens his statement:

We come together here in Copenhagen because climate change poses a grave and growing danger to our people. You would not be here unless you – like me – were convinced that this danger is real.

So the question before us is no longer the nature of the challenge – the question is our capacity to meet it. For while the reality of climate change is not in doubt, our ability to take collective action hangs in the balance.

I believe that we can act boldly, and decisively, in the face of this common threat. And that is why I have come here today.

Moreover, on Obama’s first condition, or proposal for a deal, the closing sentence:

I’m confident that America will fulfill the commitments that we have made: cutting our emissions in the range of 17 percent by 2020, and by more than 80 percent by 2050 in line with final legislation.

does not match the opening ones:

First, all major economies must put forward decisive national actions that will reduce their emissions, and begin to turn the corner on climate change. I’m pleased that many of us have already done so…

Global levels of emission by 2020 and 2050 still undefined.

If the blanks are filled, together it all adds up to the possible agreement, or the imperfect agreement, as Obama has named it.

In pursuit of the ultimate objective of the Convention as stated in its Article 2,

Recalling the provisions of the Convention,

Being guided by Article 3 of the Convention,

Affirming our firm resolve to adopt one or more legal instruments under the Convention pursuant to decisions taken at COP13 and this decision as soon as possible and no later than COP16/CMP6.

Have agreed on this Copenhagen [X] which is operational immediately

1. The Parties underline that climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time. The Parties emphasise their strong political will to combat climate change in accordance with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. Recognizing the scientific view that the increase in global temperature ought not to exceed 2 degrees and on the basis of equity and in the context of sustainable development, the Parties commit to a vigorous response through immediate and enhanced national action on mitigation based on strengthened international cooperation.

Ambitious action to mitigate climate change is needed with developed countries taking the lead. The Parties recognize the critical impact of climate change on countries particularly vulnerable to its adverse effects and stress the need to establish a comprehensive adaptation
programme including international support.

2. Deep cuts in global emissions are required. The Parties should cooperate in achieving the peaking of global and national emissions as soon as possible, recognizing that the time frame for peaking will be longer in developing country Parties and bearing in mind that social and economic development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding priorities of developing country Parties and that low-emission development is indispensible to sustainable development.

3. Adaptation to the adverse effects of climate change is a challenge faced by all Parties, and enhanced action and international cooperation on adaptation is urgently required to enable and support the implementation of adaptation actions aimed at reducing vulnerability and building resilience in developing country Parties, especially in those that are particularly vulnerable, especially least developed countries, small island developing States and countries in Africa affected by drought, desertification and floods.

The Parties agree that developed country Parties shall provide adequate, predictable and sustainable financial resources, technology and capacity-building to support the implementation of adaptation action in developing country Parties. The Parties further endorse -/CP.15 on adaptation.

4. Annex I Parties to the Convention commit to implement, individually or jointly, the quantified economy-wide emission targets for 2020 as listed yielding in aggregate reductions of greenhouse gas emissions of X per cent in 2020 compared to 1990 and Y per cent in 2020 compared to 2005 ensuring that accounting of such targets and finance is rigorous, robust and transparent.

5. Non-Annex I Parties to the Convention resolve to implement mitigation actions, based on their specific national circumstances and in the context of sustainable development. Mitigation actions taken and envisaged by Non-Annex I Parties shall be reflected through their national communications in accordance with Article 12.1 (b) of the Convention.

The frequency of submissions of the national communications of Non-Annex I Parties shall be every two years. Mitigation actions taken by Non-Annex I Parties will be subject to their domestic auditing, supervision and assessment, the result of which will be reported through their national communications.

Clarification may, upon request, be provided by the Party concerned at its discretion to respond to any question regarding information contained in the national communications.

Nationally appropriate mitigation actions supported and enabled by countries in terms of technology, financing and capacity building, will be registered in a registry, including both action taken and relevant technology, financing and capacity building support.

These supported nationally appropriate mitigation actions shall be subject to international measurement, reporting and verification in accordance with guidelines elaborated by the COP. The Parties take note of the information on enhanced mitigation action actions by Non-Annex I Parties as listed.

6. Developing countries Parties should, in accordance with the provisions contained in decision /CP.15, contribute to mitigation actions in the forest sector by undertaking the following activities:
reducing emissions from deforestation, reducing emissions from forest degradation, conservation of forest carbon stocks, sustainable management of forest, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.

7. The Parties decide to pursue various approaches, including opportunities to use markets, to enhance the cost-effectiveness of, and to promote, mitigation actions, in accordance with decision -/CP.15.

8. Scaled up, new and additional, predictable and adequate funding shall be provided to developing country Parties, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Convention, to enable and support enhanced action on mitigation, including REDD-plus, adaptation, technology development and transfer and capacity-building, for enhanced implementation of the Convention. Parties take note of the individual pledges by developed country

Parties to provide new and additional resources amounting to 30 billion dollars for the period
2010-2012 as listed and with funding for adaptation prioritized for the most vulnerable developing countries, such as the least developed countries, small island developing states and countries in Africa affected by drought, desertification and floods.

In the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation, the Parties support a goal of mobilizing jointly 100 billion dollars a year by 2020 to address the climate change needs of developing countries. This funding will come from a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources of finance.

9. A High Level Panel will be established under the guidance of and accountable to the Conference of then Parties to assess the contribution of the potential sources of revenue, including alternative sources of finance, towards meeting this goal.

10. The Parties decide that the Copenhagen Climate Fund shall be established as an operating entity of the financial mechanism of the Convention to support projects, programmes, policies and other activities in developing countries related to mitigation including REDD-plus, adaptation, capacity-building, technology development and transfer as set forth in decision -/CP.15.

11. In order to enhance action on development and transfer of technology the Parties decide to establish a Technology Mechanism as set forth in decision -/CP.15 to accelerate technology development and transfer in support of action on adaptation and mitigation that will be guided by a country-driven approach and be based on national circumstances and priorities.

12. The Parties call for a review of this decision and its implementation in 2016 including in light of the Conventions ultimate objective.

13. Capturing the progress achieved in the work by the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action and Ad Hoc Working Group on the Kyoto Protocol under the Convention the Parties by continuing negotiations pursuant to decisions taken at COP13 and this decision, with a view to adopting one or more legal instruments under the Convention as soon as possible and no later than COP16.

Deciding to extend the mandate of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long Term Cooperative Action under the Convention and continue the work of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under Kyoto Protocol to negotiate one or more legal instruments under the Convention.

Sergio Abranches

Gordon Brown said in his speech that “the task of politics is to overcome obstacles even when people say they are too formidable.” He made every move possible to make his words true. The next hours will tell whether he will succeed. He told at the COP15 plenary early this morning that his talks yesterday convinced him that

while the challenges we face are difficult and testing, there is no insuperable barrier of finance, no inevitable deficit of political will, no insurmountable wall of division that need prevent us from rising to the needed common purpose and reaching agreement now.

The leaders he and his colleagues from France and Germany have mobilized will meet at the Bella Center, on an open ended informal plenary, to discuss the details of a deal on climate change.

President Barack Obama has clearly underestimated the scale and pace of the political endeavor that brought several key world leaders to Copenhagen. He missed the critical moments of political negotiation that made the summit possible. He did not mobilize the world political leadership, neither did he lead the climate change talks.

He sent his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to remove US vetoes and set his conditions to help an understanding. Not really enough. He will arrive after the fact, at the closing moments. His absence was felt in the most difficult hours, when failure was a possibility greater than success. Now success seems more likely than failure.

Presidents Lula and Sarkozy met before the dinner, to announce the decision of the heads of state to hold an open ended summit and to negotiate a Copenhagen Agreement.

There still are risks. Failure continues to be a real possibility. However, an agreement with elements to persuade global public opinion that the Copenhagen Summit succeeded has become a more likely outcome over the last few hours.