Copenhagen: half-baked and unclear
December 19th 2009

“Copenhagen was on the brink of failure because of poor leadership and an unconvincing level of ambition”, says Kim Carstensen, head of WWF’s global climate initiative.

“Well meant but half-hearted pledges are simply not sufficient to address a crisis that calls for completely new ways of collaboration across rich and poor countries.”

By our reckoning, the conference met none of the 10 objectives needed to keep global warming below the widely agreed 2°C high-risk level, although there was movement in some areas.

Politicians around the world seemed to be in agreement – in theory at least – that we must stay below the 2°C threshold. But in practice what leaders have put on the table adds up to 3° of warming or more, according to our estimates – and backed up by leaked figures from the UN climate secretariat during the conference.

If the gap between rhetoric and reality are not closed, this deal could cost millions of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.

What happens post-Copenhagen?

Attention will now shift to follow-up negotiations which need to fill in a lot of the details in the often vague Copenhagen Accord draft, which is a long way from becoming a legally binding framework for decisive climate action.

“We needed a treaty now, but at best we will be working on one in half a year’s time,” says Carstensen.

“What we have after two years of negotiation is a half-baked text of unclear substance.

The lack of clarity is illustrated by a call for a global peak in emissions “as soon as possible”, in contrast to the 2007 IPCC call for emissions to peak in 2017.

On a more positive note, we will now see a host of new initiatives by countries, cities, companies and communities that are starting to build low-carbon economies from the ground up.

“We are disappointed with the Copenhagen outcome, but the story continues,” Carstensen sums up.

“Civil society was excluded from the final negotiations to an extraordinary degree. But we can assure the world that WWF and other elements of civil society will continue engaging in every step of further negotiations.”