WHEN a meeting is billed as determining the future of humanity, few will be surprised if it fails to live up to expectations. And so it is proving with next month鈥檚 climate change conference in Copenhagen: the Danish government has announced that time has run out on the possibility of delegates securing a watertight successor to the 1997 Kyoto protocol (see 鈥淐limate deal delayed 鈥� again鈥�).
In truth, the downgrading of Copenhagen has been on the cards for months. The most it can now achieve is a political declaration that will lay the foundations for a concrete agreement to be formalised next year in Mexico City or in Bonn, Germany.
Though that delay may not spell certain catastrophe, every month鈥檚 delay makes the task ahead more daunting. There are several immovable deadlines looming. The first is 1 January 2013, the day the Kyoto protocol expires. From then on, the world will have no binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions: all existing deals for carbon trading will be void, and all incentives to cut carbon emissions extinguished.
Advertisement
That date is just three years away. Even a legal protocol signed by governments next year may not be ratified in time by the requisite number of states. The Kyoto protocol, let鈥檚 remember, took seven years to enter into legal force.
The UK鈥檚 Met Office has calculated that even if emissions of greenhouse gases stop rising in 2016, and immediately start to fall by 4 per cent a year, there is only a 50:50 chance that the world will warm by 2 掳C or less, and so be spared 鈥渄angerous鈥� climate change. If the peak is delayed till 2020, then an annual 5 per cent fall would be required. Right now it is far from certain that either outcome will emerge from the current negotiations.
Last week, international technology consultant Capgemini reported that, even in the relatively green-minded European Union, only 8 per cent of the electricity-generating capacity now under construction will use renewable energy sources. Already, carbon traders are winding down activities to await the new, post-Kyoto rules. Political declarations will mean little to them without the small print.
That said, a delayed deal will be better than a bad deal. If the US administration needs time to bring Congress on side, that may be time well spent 鈥� not least because it may unlock Chinese goodwill. But even if the legal niceties have to wait, Copenhagen is still a make-or-break meeting. The political deal that will be reached there must go beyond the vague promises made by ministers two years ago in Bali. As Lars L酶kke Rasmussen, Denmark鈥檚 prime minister, said last weekend: 鈥淲e need the commitments. We need the figures. We need the action.鈥�
鈥淓ven if the legal niceties have to wait a year, Copenhagen is still a make-or-break meeting鈥�