Day 1: What’s the end-game going to be?

Monday, December 7th, 2009 | uncategorized

7 Dec 2009
Leonie Joubert is a science writer, reporting for Independent Newspapers from Copenhagen on the United Nations climate negotiations taking place in Copenhagen from 7 to 18 December. This is her blog-on-the-side.

“What do you expect to come out of Copenhagen?” the German TV reporter said, stabbing his mike at the guy behind me in the queue.

It was way too early for the blinding light of the camera, let alone a question like that. (Actually, it was 7:30am already, but with the mist still rolling about us in the Scandinavian winter, and sunrise still a good hour or so away, it felt too early to be out of bed, let alone faced with a question like that.)

But the truth is, that’s what everyone’s asking: what’s going to come out of Copenhagen?
For the past two years, signatories of the Kyoto Protocol have been trying to thrash out the skeleton of something that, in an ideal world, will be signed into a legally binding and enforceable agreement here in Copenhagen. The kind of agreement that will stabilise greenhouse gas emissions at a level that will avoid “dangerous” climate change – namely, keeping things below 2°C (although some think that’s already too high for our wellbeing).

The main issues: putting a ceiling on emissions from rich countries; getting emerging economies to agree to slow their growth; getting rich countries to agree to give money and technology to developing countries so that a) they can adapt to a less predictable climate and b) they can still grow their economies but that they do so in a clean, low-carbon way.

But with only ten days left to finalise the legal nuts and bolts of such an international law, many climate watchers are worried that negotiators will run out of time, and settle for a weaker political agreement in the end. A political agreement looks good to the voters back home, particularly when their politicians have pledged to tackle the climate crisis. But a political agreement is also easy to renege on…

So it’s way too early to start asking questions like “what do you expect to come out of Copenhagen” – but it’s the one question everyone’s pondering on. Who knows? Let’s hope by 18 December we’ll have a better idea.

But while I cogitate on this, it’s close to 5pm and time to pack up and head on back to my digs on Ravnsborggade, København. The sun will be well gone, and since most of us have been holed up in the Bella Convention Centre all day, where these negotiations are happening, we won’t have seen any sunlight today. In fact, for the next fortnight we probably won’t see much sunlight at all. I think I’m turning translucent.

Scorched

Rational Writing by Leonie Joubert