Copenhagen

Over the next few weeks, leading nations will be deciding the fate of the Copenhagen Accord, the three-page climate change agreement recognized at last month’s international summit but never adopted.

If they embrace it, they’ll also be embracing a process that sidestepped one the highest procedural hurdles of the UN system, unanimous consent.

It’s been weeks since the Copenhagen climate talks ended, and the blame game hasn’t dulled but become more shrill. In all the finger pointing, one thing that has been lacking is consideration that achievement of a binding legal deal on climate change may be better served under the skies of a gritty, dynamic urban center in an emerging market country than a pristine old world capital.

In Mexico City, where the Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC meets again in late November with hopes of this time reaching a legally binding climate accord, developed countries will not so easily be able to ignore the pressure climate change will place on a majority of the world’s population — a population that is more cramped for space and has less wealth per capita than the people of major cities in developed countries around the world.

After two weeks observing the climate negotiations in Copenhagen, I’ve taken my time reacting to the outcome. There has been a great deal to digest. But as the dust begins to settle, it’s clear Copenhagen has spawned two principal conversations around the world.

The first is a postmortem on what happened, or didn’t happen, at COP15, the long-anticipated United Nations 15th Conference of the Parties.

The second conversation is asking, “What now?”

The Kyoto Protocol, the world's only legal agreement to fight global warming, survived Copenhagen but its future remains very much in doubt.

The treaty, which binds 37 nations to emissions cuts, is still "an active agreement," but it appears "to be on life support," Erich Pica, executive director of Friends of the Earth USA, told SolveClimate.

The Dec. 7-18 Copenhagen talks failed to resolve the rich-poor impasse over the 1997 protocol.

Instead, the world agreed to "continue its work" on Kyoto until the next climate conference in Mexico in December 2010 — leaving open the possibility of downgrading or replacing it less than a year from now.

The climate accord announcement is legitimately catching some heat for being too little, too late. The enormity of the crisis cries out for strong binding pollution reduction targets by all countries and massive infusions of public and private capital to catalyze a fast-track transition to a low-carbon economy.

But expecting we’d get all this at COP15 was never realistic. That’s why leading U.S. businesses such as Nike, PG&E and North Face are encouraged by these first positive steps from Copenhagen.

Reporting from Copenhagen

A new global warming pact, heralded by U.S. President Barack Obama as "an important milestone" and considered a done deal late Friday night, unraveled in the wee hours of Saturday morning, even though the world's biggest carbon polluters supported it.

The U.S. president had landed in snow-covered Copenhagen around 9 a.m. Friday, joining the tail end of critical two-week climate talks to help break a deadlock and broker a deal.

Reporting from Copenhagen

U.S. President Barack Obama called on the world today to adopt a three-part framework of mitigation, transparency and financing to unclog global climate change talks in Copenhagen. He warned in the summit's final hours that "our ability to take collective action is in doubt and hangs in the balance."

The plan offers "a clear formula — one that embraces the principle of common but differentiated responses and respective capabilities," Obama said, referring to a UN principle that developing nations frequently point to in calling for greater emissions cuts and concessions from developed nations.

"It adds up to a significant accord — one that takes us farther than we have ever gone before as an international community," Obama said. He called it America's "bottom line."

"We can embrace this accord, take a substantial step forward, and continue to refine it and build upon its foundation ... or we can again choose delay," he said.

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Reporting from Copenhagen

The small island nations and members of the Africa Group said today that they would not agree to an outcome in Copenhagen that fails to limit the average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters have long said they will not budge an inch closer than a limit of 2 degrees Celsius. The carbon cuts they've put on the table so far wouldn't get them close to even that goal.

One of Denmark's leading businessmen and philanthropists, speaking privately at a reception here earlier this week, voiced a sentiment about the hacked e-mail controversy shared widely among attendees from around the world at this global climate conference.

"How can a few e-mails — which were stolen after all — have such an influence upon what Americans believe about global warming? The science is so consistent and deep. It is astonishing this is possible in the richest nation in the world."

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Reporting from Copenhagen

The world's leaders can still forge a global warming pact in Copenhagen but only if major progress is made over the next day, UN climate chief Yvo de Boer said this evening at the UN climate change negotiations.

With two days remaining in the international conference, talks remain deadlocked on all major issues.

"The next 24 hours will be absolutely critical," de Boer said. He said the conference must deliver agreements on "adaptation, mitigation, finance, technology and forests."

De Boer's comments came as climate talks officially moved into the high-level segment. Many of the 115 heads of government joining the conference for its finale will begin arriving at Copenhagen's Bella Center on Thursday, adding security concerns on top of the pressure of cranking out the framework for one of the most complex treaties ever negotiated.