Climate talks thrown off course by leak

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The inevitable leaked document landed on the second day of the Copenhagen climate-change summit. The document itself, written by the Danish government, hardly a key player in the greater carbon-reduction story, was informal, almost two weeks old and billed as a consulting paper for a select few countries.

In other words, it wasn't meant to be taken seriously, at least according to the Danish and United Nations officials who played it down. Denmark said it was merely one of many "working" papers making the rounds.

But it is being taken extremely seriously by some poor countries and environmental groups. For them, the document highlights the critical divide between rich and poor countries at Copenhagen, one that could widen to the point that it turns the summit into a train wreck.

Dated Nov. 27, the 13-page document is an early version of a draft agreement that the 192 countries at the summit will be asked to sign on Dec. 18, when 70 or more heads of state and government, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama, arrive in Copenhagen to endorse a new global climate-change plan. Called "Adoption of the Copenhagen Agreement Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change," it provides the first glimpse of some of the elements that will form the basis of a new global climate-change agreement.

Kim Carstensen, head of the WWF climate-change group and a member of Denmark's negotiating team at the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, Copenhagen's grandfather, was quick to spot the leaked document's essential flaw: The Kyoto Protocol, beloved by the developing world, is mentioned only in passing, suggesting it's headed for a premature burial.

Kyoto is the binding carbon-reduction treaty that came into force in 1995 and is due to expire in 2012 unless it is extended. (Canada ratified it, but the United States did not.) It requires 55 industrialized countries to reduce their emissions by 5.2 per cent from 1990 levels by 2012.

Developing countries want Kyoto to be enforced and extended, and that is a possible outcome of the Copenhagen talks. They support Kyoto because it is the only binding agreement that requires wealthy countries to reduce their emissions while putting little onus on developing countries to do the same. Poor countries consider Kyoto a moral treaty, because it recognizes that they were relatively minor contributors to rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Kyoto also provides them with technological and financial assistance.

"This document says you can just ditch [Kyoto]" Mr. Carstensen said. "How will this inspire countries not to ditch the next agreement?"

Some developing countries said the draft agreement, if adopted, will put them at a disadvantage, because it seems to burden them with more of the carbon-reduction effort than they had expected. The Danish draft calls for global emissions to peak in 2020, but notes that "developed countries collectively have peaked." This implies that developing countries will have no choice but to keep their emissions low, impairing industrial growth, so that the 2020 target can be met.

Canadian Environment Minister Jim Prentice said the draft document "highlights the divergence in terms of issues and the perspectives between the developing world on one hand and the developed economies on the other. This is the essence of what is going on in Copenhagen."

Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, the Sudanese diplomat who heads the Group of 77 developing countries, lashed out Tuesday at Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, saying the document shows he is not a neutral host. "Your Prime Minister has chosen to protect the rich countries," he told the Danish press. "You have to listen to all the countries - that is what democracy is all about."

China won't like the Danish document because it calls for international verification of greenhouse-gas emissions. That is a potentially unacceptable breach of sovereignty for China and many other countries.

But China was in a bad mood for another reason Tuesday. It broke its diplomatic cool and took aim at the United States and other developed countries for proposing unambitious emissions-reduction targets. Senior Chinese negotiator Su Wei said the American goal is "not notable" and that the European Union's target is "not enough."

To be sure, there was something for everyone to hate in the leaked document. Some delegates were upset that it puts a precise figure only on the 2050 emissions-reduction target (50 per cent) over 1990 levels; the 2020 figure is to come. The document makes only vague statements about carbon markets and does not set a date to transform Copenhagen's expected political agreement into a legally binding document, though plans are being made to do so at a follow-up summit in Mexico City in about a year. There's an even bigger issue. The document does not say the Copenhagen agreement may be compromised if some rich countries adopt relatively low emissions-reduction targets while others go in the opposite direction. The United States, for instance, is proposing to reduce emissions by only 17 per cent below 2005 levels. Canada's proposal is similar. Most other industrialized countries are offering bigger cuts. If the United States and Canada go low, what incentive do the other rich countries have to go high?

The climate-change summit is set to wind up on Dec. 18. The developing world already feels it's getting ripped off. It's going to be a long 10 days.