The God Species_ How the Planet Can Survive the Age of Humans - Mark Lynas [125]
The room was small, suffocatingly hot and very overcrowded. Presidents and prime ministers sat jammed shoulder-to-shoulder around tables arranged in a square, each with a small microphone. I stood wedged among other officials in the second row. Directly in front was President Nasheed, while to his right sat Felipe Calderón of Mexico, Jacob Zuma of South Africa, Gordon Brown, then U.K. prime minister, and President Barack Obama. The Danish prime minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, was chairing, while the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, sat to his right. Even with all these high-powered decision-makers in the room, things were not going well. The Danish prime minister Rasmussen looked hassled. He kept mopping his brow and much of the time seemed lost for words.
I remember noting early on how the Chinese representative was not, as might be expected at such a high-level meeting, China’s premier Wen Jiabao. Indeed, it later took me hours to definitively identify him as Yu Qingtai, Special Representative on Climate Change Negotiations at China’s Foreign Affairs ministry.1 Mr Yu was clearly a seasoned negotiator. He had perfected the art of subtle obstinacy, raising his hand each time he wanted to make an objection with an air of aggrieved but dutiful regret. And well he might, for the job of China’s representative at this late-hour heads of state meeting in Copenhagen was very simple. He had to say no.
At issue was a draft “Copenhagen Accord,” produced by the Danish prime minister in his capacity as chair. Even though time was running out, Rasmussen was still trying to please everyone, believing always that with enough gentle encouragement the different parties could eventually be brought to agree. The Danes’ draft Accord was a long way from meeting the climate change planetary boundary, but following a fortnight of rancorous and increasingly bitter negotiations I felt it was probably the best we were going to get. The worst outcome of all would have been a total collapse in the multilateral climate change process, spelling doom for the UN Climate Change Convention and the ultimate failure of 15 years of international effort. In the ensuing mess, carbon markets would collapse and the big planned investments in low-carbon energy would drain away. Some kind of compromise would have to be reached.
The draft text, which was written in the usual barely comprehensible legalese of international treaties, suggested that global emissions should peak in 2020 or thereabouts. By mid-century CO2 emissions would be cut by half, and industrialized countries—the so-called Annex 1 nations of the original 1992 UN Climate Convention—would shoulder 80 percent of that burden. Developing countries, in recognition of their smaller contribution to the atmosphere’s increasingly weighty greenhouse gas blanket, would not be asked to take on specific cuts but could volunteer their own “nationally appropriate mitigation actions” if they wanted to. It seemed like a reasonable compromise under the circumstances. Rasmussen looked hopefully around the room for support.
Everyone seemed satisfied. Had we succeeded? Then there was a discreet cough. “My country cannot accept these numbers,” said Yu Qingtai, holding up his hand. The date—any date—for global peaking of emissions would put too much responsibility on developing countries to curb their growth, he insisted. Rich countries had caused the climate change problem, and they must solve it without harming the legitimate development prospects of the poor. To get Chinese agreement, the 2020 year was excised and replaced by woolly language stating that emissions must peak “as soon as possible.” The Copenhagen Accord had been fatally weakened. But there was more to come. The discussion moved on to the mid-century 80 percent