EU pessimistic about Copenhagen climate change deal

LEIGH PHILLIPS

06.11.2009 @ 09:28 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Europe has given up hope that a binding global treaty on climate change can be achieved at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December.

On Thursday (5 November), EU leaders and officials bluntly briefed reporters in Barcelona at the last series of international talks ahead of the summit that such a deal will not be achieved for as much as another year.

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All that now is likely is a "politically binding" agreement, a significant ratcheting down of ambition,

In the late afternoon in the Catalan town, Artur Runge-Metzger, the EU's chief climate negotiator walked into the press centre and told journalists they had run out of time.

"It is a Catch-22 situation. People are waiting for each other so it is difficult to blame anyone. [But] the US position is significant. Clearly the US has been slowing things down," the UK's Guardian quotes Mr Artur Runge-Metzger as saying.

He said that a binding legal document was no longer likely and that the best that could be hoped for was a framework agreement that could then be the basis for moving forward.

Simultaneously, the Swedish presidency and the UK made similar announcements, although with varying predictions of a schedule for when a treaty is likely to be reached.

The commission said that a binding accord could still be reached within three to six months, while the Swedes said that it could take up to another year.

In Britain, the country's climate change secretary, Ed Miliband told the House of Commons: "The UN negotiations are moving too slowly and not going well," and placed the blame on the lack of trust between developing countries and the industrialised north.

But it is understood that the real defeat happened not in Barcelona, but in Washington mid-week.

At the EU-US summit the American capital, President Barack Obama told his European counterparts that a binding agreement was not going to happen in Copenhagen.

US climate legislation is slowing winding its way through Congress and will not be ready in time for the summit.

In recent days, European, UN and other international leaders have been adjusting their language about the likelihood of a deal in December, but this is the first official acknowledgement that a legally binding treaty is not going to happen.

Responding to the announcement by the EU, Antonio Hill, climate advisor for development NGO Oxfam International said: "We have been here before. Two years ago, rich nations promised to deliver a legally binding climate deal in Copenhagen. Now rich countries have admitted to back peddling in order to accommodate the US."

"The world's poorest countries who are already struggling to survive in a changing climate, need action, not more hollow promises. The EU says it can agree emission reduction targets in Copenhagen. These must be locked into a legally binding agreement – a second phase of the Kyoto protocol - with Canada, Australia and Japan.

"If the US can up the ante then all well and good. But at a minimum poor countries need a guarantee of action on at least some of the key elements of the Copenhagen agreement."

Developing nations were dismissive of ambitions for only a "political" deal at the summit. "Politically binding agreements are worth very little," said Lumumba Di-Aping, who represents the G77 group of developing countries.