The UN secretary general Mr. Ban Ki-moon did not hide his frustration at the opening session of UN Climate Change Summit in New York on 22 September, when he said, “The world’s glaciers are now melting faster than human progress to protect them – or us. I hope world leaders will leave this S ummit ready to give their negotiating teams the green light and specific guidance needed to accelerate progress on the road to Copenhagen. The clock is ticking. I hope they will publicly commit to sealing a deal in Copenhagen”.

Nearly 100 world leaders attended the Summit whose mission was to achieve political will and strengthen momentum for a fair, effective, and ambitious climate deal in Copenhagen where representatives from 193 Parties to the Climate Convention will gather in December to negotiate a Climate Agreement for the post-2012 period. Negotiators for the Copenhagen summit are trying to agree on a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol to limit carbon emissions.

The Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who will be the official host of the Copenhagen meeting, expressed happiness over the ‘deadlock’ being broken. In a further sign of confidence, he said that he was now inclined to invite heads of state and governments to the talks.

China and the US each account for about 20 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas pollution from coal, natural gas and oil. The European Union is responsible for 14 percent followed by Russia and India with 5 percent each.

Obama’s Speech

US President Mr. Barack Obama, who addressed the conference, acknowledged that the US had been slow to act. Nevertheless, he promised a ‘new era’ of promoting clean energy and less carbon pollution. But Obama stopped short of making any promise on pushing through legislation before Copenhagen though he reached out to the developing countries by saying the US and other industrialised states had failed for too long to acknowledge their responsibility. “It is true that for too many years, mankind has been slow to respond to or even recognise the magnitude of the climate threat. It is true of my own country as well. We recognise that,” he said. “But this is a new day.” Obama also demonstrated that he was committed to green the US economy and announced a project to track greenhouse gas emissions. The president promised further small-bore action at the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh where he said America would propose phasing out subsidies for fossil fuels.

Japan on its part, reaffirmed an ambitious target for cutting emissions and offered cash to developing nations to adopt new green technology and for small-island and low-lying states, to escape the ravages of climate change. The new Japanese Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, pledged to reduce emissions by 25 percent by 2020 compared to the 1990 level, calling it the Hatoyama Initiative. French President Nicolas Sarkozy called on leaders to meet again in mid-November ahead of the crucial Copenhagen Conference.

China

China said it would curb pollution by 2020 – but it did not say by how much. On climate finance China is pushing for the developed world to spend 1 percent of GDP. The US state department climate change envoy, Todd Stern, called that sum untethered to reality.

China’s president, Hu Jintao said in his speech that “climate change would be an essential factor in our economic planning. We should make our endeavour on climate change a win-win for both developed and developing countries”. He added that China would cut carbon emissions by a notable margin, which he did not specify. Hu also said China would step up use of renewable energy to 15 percent by 2020, and increase its forests.

India

At a Round Table discussion following the opening ceremony, India’s External Affairs Minister Mr. S.M. Krishna put forth India’s position on the climate change negotiations stating that, “Climate negotiations should be focusing on the developed countries from where the problem has emanated and who are reluctant even to meet their commitments on emission reduction, let alone provide technological and financial support to developing countries on the vast scale that is required. Instead, the onus for action is sought to be shifted to developing countries, which have contributed little to the accumulation of greenhouse gasses and face the huge burden of adaptation.”

Krishna further said that protectionist trade and border tax response measures, which basically seek to protect their competitiveness, are being talked about in developed countries under the garb of climate change. In terms of financial resources for developing countries, even in the minimalist amounts that are forthcoming are trying to be made outside the purview of UNFCCC and squarely in the control of developed countries. “There is a tide of change in world economic relations. Climate negotiations should not seek to stem this tide,” he said.

Pachauri’s address

Rajendra K. Pachauri, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), who presented the Scientific Basis for Action, said he was speaking for the world’s scientific community, which in November 2007 completed the Panel’s fourth Assessment Report –a collective effort of nearly 4,000 of the world’s best specialists working for more than five years. The uniqueness of that mammoth exercise was that all Governments of the world approved the report and had full ownership of it contents.

Reading out some of the salient features of the report, he said that in the absence of mitigation policies, climate change would lead to the possible disappearance of sea ice by the latter part of the twenty-first century; increased frequency of hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation; an increase in tropical cyclone intensity; decreases in water resources in many semi-arid areas; the possible elimination of the Greenland ice sheet and a resulting rise in sea levels; and increased risk of extinction for 20 to 30 percent of the species assessed, so far.

In Africa, by 2020 between 75 million and 250 million people were estimated to be exposed to water stress due to climate change and in some countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture will be reduced by up to 50 percent, he said. The impacts of climate change would be dispro-portionately severe in some of the poorest regions and communities in the world.

Pachauri further said that mitigation of emissions was essential and the IPCC had assessed its costs as modest. To limit average temperature increases at 2.0 and 2.4 degrees Celsius, the cost of mitigation by 2030 would not exceed 3 percent of the global gross domestic product. In other words, the so-called prosperity expected in 2030 would be postponed by just a few months, he said.

Beneficial Mitigation

Mitigation carried many co-benefits, such as lower levels of air pollution and associated health benefits, higher energy security, greater employment and stable agriculture production, ensuring greater food security. It was heartening that the G8 leaders had recognized the broad scientific view of limiting increase in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius. But the panel clearly stated that if the temperature increase was to be limited to 2.0 to 2.4 degrees Celsius, global emissions must peak no later than 2015, only six years from now. And, the 2 degree ceiling, too, would lead to sea-level rise of .4 to 1.4 metres.

That increase, added to the effect of melting snow and ice across the globe, could submerge several small island States and Bangladesh, he said. “If the people gathered today at the United Nations did not act in time, everyone would become leaders and citizens of failed States, because we would be failing in our sacred duty to protect this planet. Science leaves us with no choice for inaction now,” he said.

UN View

Later, commenting on the outcome, the UN Secretary General said, “While the summit is not the guarantee that we will get the global agreement, we are certainly one step closer to that global goal today”. He praised world leaders for their desire to tackle climate change and said, “Climate change is a defining challenge of our time. Today’s summit signals a determination of world leaders to address this challenge and reach a substantive deal in Copenhagen.”

Obviously, UN officials had hopes about taller commitments from the big industrialised states, such as Japan and China and prodding other countries to take the plunge so that they are not seen as spoilers of a potential deal at Copenhagen. The UN was keen to keep heads of state and government involved because of the complexity of negotiations. The offers from China and Japan, and recent shifts in position, have changed the entire dynamics of negotiations. The industrialised world and developing world now appeared to share a common cause on climate change with lesser impulse towards recrimination and blame game.