Enewsletter

The fair, ambitious and legally binding agreement to tackle climate change, which was scheduled to be finalized at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen last December, did not materialize. Instead, there is the Copenhagen Accord.

The Copenhagen Accord:

• does not contain targets to help tackle climate change;
• does not contain an agreement on a long-term global mitigation target of 50% by 2050 to avoid dangerous climate change;
• does not contain an agreement that global emissions should peak by 2015-2020.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, both targets are necessary to achieve stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations at 450ppm, and to avoid global temperature rises of more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels, which would result in dangerous and irreversible effects on nature, people and the economy.

As the BirdLife partner in Canada, we supported the BirdLife Partnership's 5 "asks" for Copenhagen. Here's how the Copenhagen Accord shapes up against them:

1. Cut global emissions by the amount needed to limit global average temperature rises to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

Signatories to the Copenhagen Accord agree that deep cuts in global emissions are required according to science, and as documented by the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, with a view to reducing global emissions so as to hold the increase in global temperature below 2°C. The Accord sets a timetable for countries to submit details of their emissions reductions commitments and actions by 31 January 2010.

But there was no agreement on a long-term global mitigation target to avoid dangerous climate change. There was also no agreement that global emissions should peak by 2015-2020, and nothing is legally binding.

2. Recognize the vital importance of safeguarding biodiversity, ecosystems and the essential services they provide in climate change mitigation, in particular, reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD).

The Copenhagen Accord recognizes the crucial role of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, and the need to enhance removals of greenhouse gas emissions by forests. It agrees on the need to provide positive incentives to such actions through the immediate establishment of a mechanism, including REDD-plus, to enable the mobilisation of financial resources from developed countries.

Urgent further work is needed in 2010 to fully develop and operationalize a REDD regime.

3. Recognize the vital importance of safeguarding biodiversity, ecosystems and the essential services they provide in climate change adaptation.

Signatories to the Copenhagen Accord recognize the critical impacts of climate change on countries particularly vulnerable to its adverse effects, and stress the need to establish a comprehensive adaptation programme including international support.

However this needs to move forward and be built upon urgently within the final agreement. It lacks substance and falls far short of what is needed to safeguard the countries, people and ecosystems most at risk from climate change impacts.

Support for recognition of the role of ecosystems received support, and BirdLife will work to ensure that this is included in the final agreement.

4. Provide funding for developing countries to reduce emissions from deforestation, enable adaptation to climate change, and support low-carbon development.

The Copenhagen Accord states that the collective commitment by developed countries is to provide new and additional resources, including forestry and investments through international institutions, approaching $30 billion (USD) for the period 2010-2012, with balanced allocation between adaptation and mitigation.

Funding for adaptation will be prioritized for the most vulnerable developing countries, such as the least developed countries, small island developing states, and Africa.

In the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation, developed countries commit to a goal of mobilizing jointly $100 billion (USD) a year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries.

This goes some way to address financial asks but falls short of our asks of acceptable, adequate, new, predictable and equitable funding for developing countries.

5. Ensure that when developed countries account for their land-use sectors they account fully for carbon emissions to, and removals from, the atmosphere.

Nothing on new rules is included in the Copenhagen Accord. The text worked on during the course of the two weeks of negotiations in Copenhagen should be the basis for ongoing negotiations in 2010. This issue remains as key as ever. If developed countries are allowed to continue to hide their emissions from their land use accounting, this will seriously undermine any legally binding emission reduction targets that they set.

World leaders are next scheduled to meet on climate change in Mexico from November 29 - December 10, 2010.