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28th Mar 2024

Denmark seeks global climate deal in 2009

  • "We all know that it will be extremely difficult" (Photo: Jakob Dall)

EU member state Denmark is striving to get a political agreement on a new global climate deal to replace the current Kyoto Protocol on cutting greenhouse gas emissions when the Nordic country hosts the UN climate summit in December 2009. But it will be anything but easy, the Danish environment minister tells EUobserver.

"The ambition is that we will reach a deal [at the 2009 summit], but we all know that it will be extremely difficult and that everything has to fit into a notch to succeed," Connie Hedegaard said, adding that Denmark is already working hard to reach an agreement.

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She explained that ensuring a political agreement by the latest in 2009 would give time for the technicalities to be sorted out, for ratification to take place the following year, and for a new emissions scheme to enter force in 2012 – when the current Kyoto climate deal runs out.

The EU together with another 142 countries have vowed to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 8 percent below 1990 levels by 2012 and the EU in March pledged to cut emissions by 20 percent on their own by 2020, and by 30 percent if a post-Kyoto international agreement can be reached.

The key to success

The key to success is the US, explained Ms Hedegaard. If the world's biggest CO2 emitter comes on board, then there will be a better chance that fast-growing economies and emitters like Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa will join the club as well.

Although the fight against global warming in the US is going too slowly for her liking, Ms Hedegaard points out that there have been signs of change of late.

"I was in the US recently and many of the NGOs that have followed the climate change debate there for years say that they have never seen anything like the way the climate change debate has rapidly developed," she said.

"If you compare the discussion [in the US] with what it was just a year ago you'll see how things have moved incredibly," the minister added.

Ms Hedegaard also sees it as very good news that the US at the recent G8 summit in Heiligendamm in Germany said that climate negotiations should ultimately take place in the UN.

She noted that Europe is receiving a lot of interest from both Asia and the Americas on the fact that cutting greenhouse gas emission does not necessarily interfere with economic growth.

"It is possible to have economic growth without using more energy," she stressed, explaining that Denmark has had 70 percent economic growth in the last 30 years without using more energy.

"They want to hear about our specific solutions and I think this is where we can already start working [towards a new climate deal] by sharing our best practices."

"The European case is a good example," she said, explaining that there are many different and regional ways of fighting global warming, particularly the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS), which was recently hailed as a success by environmental economists from both sides of the Atlantic.

Copenhagen Climate Council

Ms Hedegaard is receiving help from a new Copenhagen Climate Council - a global initiative founded by leaders from business, science and civil society - that is working for a successful UN climate summit in 2009.

"We need our politicians to be imaginative, we need them to construct an incredible treaty in Copenhagen," said Virgin airlines founder Richard Branson - one of the members of the new council. "The world cannot afford to see Copenhagen fail," he added, when it was launched in Copenhagen on 30 May.

Ms Hedegaard sees it as a good development that several countries have already announced their future commitment to fight climate change.

Last month, Brazil and South Africa said they are positive towards a post-Kyoto agreement while Canada and Japan at the G8 summit joined an EU pledge, although non-binding, to at least halve carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.

Russia and the US did not sign up to this pledge but as a compromise they agreed to cut their emissions substantially and "as part of a United Nations process."

"Things are moving, but it is also very clear from what the [G8] declaration does not mention, that there is still a long way to go," she explained, pointing out that the world's eight most industrialised countries could not even agree to mention a 50 percent reduction of CO2 emissions by 2050.

But the G8 countries - Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and the US - did agree to launch negotiations on climate change under the United Nations umbrella starting in December 2007 to be wrapped up by 2009.

"That is a very useful message for Denmark and for the world in relation to the further process" of a global climate deal by 2009, Ms Hedegaard said. "It is important for the entire international political legitimacy to show the world population that the leaders are able to deal with such an enormous and difficult task," she stressed.

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