MAN OF ACTION:

India, China triumph: No legally binding deal for now (AP 19 December 2009)

[I]t falls far short of committing any nation to emissions reductions beyond a general acknowledgment that the effort should contain global temperatures along the lines agreed to by the leading economic nations in July.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the talks were extremely difficult and: ``I must also say that I view the outcome with mixed feelings.''

A European Union news conference to announce the EU reaction was postponed and an official said an overall agreement involving those nations not included in the deal that Obama announced was still being negotiated.

Obama suggested that the five-nation agreement would be adopted by the larger summit in its closing hours.

``I am leaving before the final vote,'' he said. ``We feel confident we are moving in the direction of a final accord.''

Low targets, goals dropped: Copenhagen ends in failure: Deal thrashed out at talks condemned as climate change scepticism in action (John Vidal, Allegra Stratton and Suzanne Goldenberg, guardian.co.uk)

[I]t disappointed African and other vulnerable countries who had been holding out for far deeper emission cuts to hold the global temperature rise to 1.5C this century. As widely expected, all references to 1.5C in previous drafts were removed at the last minute, but more surprisingly, the earlier 2050 goal of reducing global CO2 emissions by 80% was also dropped.

The agreement also set up a forestry deal which is hoped would significantly reduce deforestation in return for cash. It lacked the kind of independent verification of emission reductions by developing countries that the US and others demanded. [...]

Lumumba Di-Aping, chief negotiator for the G77 group of 130 developing countries, was scathing: "This deal will definitely result in massive devastation in Africa and small island states. It has the lowest level of ambition you can imagine. It's nothing short of climate change scepticism in action.

"It locks countries into a cycle of poverty for ever. Obama has eliminated any difference between him and Bush."

The grim meaning of 'meaningful' (The Guardian, Saturday 19 December 2009)

Like businessmen who insist a deal is legit, politicians protesting they have done something "meaningful" arouse suspicions that the opposite is in fact true. And "meaningful" was about the best word the spin doctors could muster in respect of the agreement of sorts that was brokered in Copenhagen late last night.

The climate change summit had three big tickets on its agenda: emissions, financial assistance and the process going ahead. And on each of these counts the accord – which was effectively hammered out not by the whole conference, but rather by the US, India, China and South Africa – fell woefully short.

Obama's Copenhagen Deal: How it came about—and why it may not be a real deal. (David Corn and Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones)

Then again, there may not have been a final deal. Late on Friday night, President Barack Obama announced that an agreement had been reached, establishing a minimalist accord that would not set a firm schedule with hard-and-fast targets for reducing emissions. But after Obama held a press conference to declare semi-victory—"this is going to be a first step"—and jetted back to Washington, European officials said nothing was in the bag. And Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, the Sudanese chairman of the G77 bloc of least developed nations, claimed there was no deal. "What has happened today confirms what we have been suspicious of that a deal will be imposed by United States, with the help of the Danish government, on all nations of the world," he said.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 18, 2009 10:08 PM