But countries did move beyond position in significant ways.
China agreed to international listing and review of pledge. US
agreed to $100 billion annual funding and short term finance,
plus personal commitment by Obama to minus 17%. Agreement was
far from easy - people sweated blood to get it!
__________________
Daniel Bodansky
Associate Dean for Faculty Development
Woodruff Professor of International Law
School of Law
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602
Tel: 706-542-7052
On Dec 21, 2009, at 10:32 AM, Heike Schroeder
<[email protected]> wrote:
>Hi All,
>Thought I'd put my 2 cents in as well...
>On Wil's 1st point: I agree that anything but a political
framework was off the table well before 43,000 registered COP15
attendees (and some 100,000 protesters) gathered in Copenhagen.
But given that 120 or so heads of state were coming to town
(including Obama himself) gave people like Ivo de Boer hope to
publicly state (as he did at Forest Day) that heads of state
don't come for failure. It nurtured a sense of optimism among
attendees that Obama, Wen (the Chinese premier) and also EU reps
would not come empty-handed but move beyond their positions in
at least some way, either by more concrete pledging of finance
or stronger unilateral targets. None of this happened, except
the 2 degrees inclusion in the final version of the Accord. To
me, this is where the disappointment lies.
>Best, Heike
>
>--
>Dr. Heike Schroeder
>Tyndall Senior Research Fellow
>Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
>James Martin 21st Century School Research Fellow
>Environmental Change Institute
>University of Oxford
>South Parks Road
>Oxford OX1 3QY
>
>Tel: 01865 275894
>Fax: 01865 275850
>________________________________________
>From: [email protected] [owner-gep-
[email protected]] On Behalf Of Daniel Bodansky
[[email protected]]>Sent: Monday, December 21, 2009 5:19 AM
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: Fwd: Re: Copenhagen result
>
>Hi all,
>
>I sent the message below last night from an email account not
registered with GEPED, so it bounced. It doesn't take
account of the subsequent discussion from others. For
those who are interested, I've been blogging about the
Copenhagen meeting on the international law blog,
opiniojuris.org. I plan to post some preliminary thoughts
on the Copenhagen Accord on Monday.
>
>Dan
>
>Earlier email message:
>
>Hi Radoslav, Wil and Mat,
>
>Just wanted to chime in with a few points:
>
>First, just a clarifications regarding Radoslav's email:
>
>-- Although the Copenhagen Accord wasn't adopted as a COP
decision, it was agreed by 20+ countries. Saudi Arabia
didn't oppose the Accord, only its adoption as a COP
decision. (Sudan was also among the countries that agreed
to the Accord, although don't count on it to associate itself
with the Accord formally.) The Accord was reportedly
endorsed by all of the regional groups, and in the COP plenary
the spokepeople for both AOSIS and the African group supported
its adoption as a COP decision.
>
>-- Second, the US did support a mandate for the AWG-LCA to
negotiate a legally-binding agreement for adoption in Mexico
City (along with the EU, AOSIS and others). The proposal
was killed by China and India.
>
>-- Third, the position articulated by South Africa about
adoption of a KP second commitment period amendment reflects the
view of the G-77 generally.
>
>With respect to Wil's comments, and Matt's responses:
>
>1. I agree with Wil on this point. Pretty much
everybody had given up on a legal agreement in Copenhagen by the
end of the Barcelona meeting in November, and many had seen the
writing on the wall much earlier. I have to strongly
disagree with Mat's view that the Copenhagen Accord was
easy. Given the total opposition by China (and to a lesser
degree India) to any form of listing of their intensity target
or any form of international review, getting agreement on the
Copenhagen Accord was a huge stretch -- so if one regards the
Accord as a pretty modest outcome, just imagine what getting a
legal agreement will be like!!
>
>2. Generally agree with Wil on this too, although I agree
with Mat that the legal nature of the KP has been significant.
>
>3. Nothing to add here.
>
>4. The Copenhagen Accord may well be the high water
mark for climate agreements anytime soon, so let's hope it
proves to be significant!!
>
>Finally a few additional comments:
>
>-- The Copenhagen meeting proves the utter dysfunctionality of
the UNFCCC process. The final night, a handful of
essentially rogue states, led by Sudan, blocked a COP decision
adopting a political agreement by the Heads of State/Government
of all of the major world powers.
>
>-- The Copenhagen meeting also revealed the complete breakdown
of the G-77 as a negotiating group. In the closing
plenary, some developing countries openly criticized their G-77
"brethren" (read China) for preventing inclusion of more
ambitious emission reduction numbers in the Copenhagen Accord.
>
>Best Dan
>
