COP15 – background
From 7-18 December 2009, governments from 192 countries met in Copenhagen, Denmark for the 15th session of the Conference of The Parties (COP15). They tried to thrash out a sweeping agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol (expiring in 2012) amid growing signals from scientists that global warming is occurring more quickly than expected. After two weeks of talks, world leaders delivered an agreement that left Europeans disappointed as it failed to legally commit any greenhouse gas emission reductions.
EPHA attending Copenhagen Negotiations in a joint HEAL/HCWH delegation
EPHA was invited to take part in a joint Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) and Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) delegation to the COP15. The joint delegation brought the united voice of the health community to urge global leaders to avert a global health crisis now by abating climate change. Disappointingly, attendance in the conference itself was made impossible due to logistical difficulties at the conference. The UN severely restricted access: from 15,000 observers down to 300 in the final days of the conference.
Nonetheless, part of the HEAL/HCWH delegation managed to get through and delivered the message. To read more on the delegation’s activities go here, and to see the HEAL/HCWH Post-Negotiation Position Statement go here.
The EU before-COP15 preparations
The EP sent its delegation to the COP15 – a delegation guided by the EU Strategy for the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change Climate Change and intended to bring an “ambitious voice” and to “show leadership”. The strategy called for:
– an ambitious and legally binding international agreement, in line with the latest developments in science and consistent with the 2ºC objective;
– collective reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in developed countries at the high end of the 25-40 % range for 2020 compared to 1990 levels;
– the recognition of the “common but differentiated responsibility principle” between industrialized and developing countries;
– the effective protection of forests and action against deforestation;
– the responsibility of developed countries to provide sufficient, sustainable and predictable financial and technical support to developing ones; and,
– notably, the EP recognised the need to consider public health, as well as the co-benefits of emission reductions to global health.
The Copenhagen Accord
After two weeks of talks and a final 24-hour negotiating “marathon” at the very highest level, countries agreed to adopt a final text on tackling climate change. The accord is based on a proposal tabled by a US-led group of five nations, including China, India, Brazil and South Africa. In contrast to the usual well-balanced negotiations, the group produced a “take-it-or-leave-it” text. The agreement did not take into consideration the differences in political will for a new global treaty on climate change to replace the Kyoto protocol after 2012.
The Copenhagen Accord is a non-binding declaration without clear
commitments, and it lacks an ambitious roadmap for reducing emissions to protect the climate and people’s health. The text states that deep cuts in global emissions “will be required” and that countries will take action to maintain the global temperature increase below 2°C.
In financial terms, the sum of $30bn is to be provided from 2010 to 2012. However, many international organisations (i.e. Oxfam) stated that $50bn a year is needed to adapt and mitigate. This money is to be new, additional, and to be provided by industrialised countries. This figure is similar to what had been promised by the EU and the US earlier in the negotiations. The money is to “come from a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources of finance.” Where and when the money is really to be put on the table is still unclear. There is no clear statement that climate finance will be raised separately and additionally to rich countries’ existing aid commitments of 0.7 per cent of national income. Without that, funds risk being raised by diverting future spending away from essential services in poor countries such as taking money to build flood defences out of budgets to build schools and hospitals.
What’s next?
Countries have until the end of January to list emission reduction pledges and other actions in an annex to the Accord. Having not seen more ambitious commitments from other countries, the EU is unlikely to raise its commitment to cut carbon emissions by 30% from the current 20%, as originally promised.
Yvo de Boer, the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said that on 20 January, days away from the 31 January deadline, fewer than 20 countries out of 192 had submitted their targets for emissions reductions or mitigations. Mr. de Boer later announced the deadline was lifted, stating that the date is “flexible.”
Developing countries and small island states, most vulnerable to climate change, experienced a huge blow. They pushed for a global temperature increase to be limited to 1.5C, which they believed to be crucial for their survival. Poor people in developing countries have contributed least to greenhouse gas emissions yet they are suffering the most. The effects of climate change are already being seen now. However, if global temperatures rise more than 2C, the climate impact on water resources, food production, sea levels, and ecosystems is predicted to be even more catastrophic. Two billion people will be affected by water shortages and most of Southern Africa will have to cope with year-round droughts. Global agriculture will be undermined and hunger and malnutrition could kill up to three million people every year. It also means that additional hundreds of millions of people will be exposed to malaria.
Developing countries are the first to experience the consequences. However, industralised countries also face tremendous problems even if it is not as obvious. Europe’s most marginalised people experience the hidden impacts of climate change now: poor quality of water, food, and air fuel poverty, new emerging diseases, and less resilience to extreme weather conditions.
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