Copenhagen blame game sparked by failure to properly explain Danish Text

COP-15 was not so much a "failure" as a postponement.

We can still get beyond the Copenhagen deadlock, as we have all now agreed the "two degree" upper limit on global temperature rise. But first we have to get past the return to the politics of picking numbers out of a hat and the blame-game that has dominated the Copenhagen post-mortems.

These post-mortems have been very noisy and Ed Miliband was strident in [wrongly] blaming China for the failure. Not that "blaming" per se really helps anyway. If there is blame it was (yet again) for generating a debate at cross-purposes and Miliband should share some of it. This is not to accuse him of being less than whole-hearted in his efforts - he obviously really was - but he was opaque and half-hearted in his understanding of what he was really trying to do. Maybe blame his advisers.

The lack of clarity that dogged the talks emerged as early day two when the "leaked Danish draft proposal" appeared. Although it didn't specify by name that the principle it was presenting was for the global "Contraction and Convergence " (C&C) of greenhouse gas [ghg] emissions, the figures it advanced obviously were: - to avoid an overall temperature rise of more than two degrees, global GHG emissions must contract by 50 per cent by 2050 within which time-frame the share from developed countries must contract by 80 per cent. These targets are an example of C&C and would effectively result in equal per capita emissions globally by 2050.

Though Ed Miliband has now claimed that he knew nothing about this draft proposal, these numbers are in fact precisely the global/UK emissions control figures in the UK Climate Act from a Department of which he is the Minister, so his claim of "ignorance" is baffling.

Lord Adair Turner the Chairman of the Government's Climate Change Committee [CCC] had confirmed in evidence to Parliament in February last year that the Climate Act was C&C, as "convergence to equal per capita emissions entitlements globally was the only proposition that was doable and fair".

With a calculating model to do the work, C&C was first formally proposed to the UNFCCC at COP-2 in 1996 by the Global Commons Institute. The C&C model will calculate any rate of global emissions contraction deemed necessary to meet the goal set by the UNFCCC for safe and stable concentrations of GHG in the atmosphere and any rate of convergence to equal per capita emissions entitlements within any rate of contraction, to satisfy the UNFCCC equity rationale.

The results of this framework-based approach make a market for emissions-trading possible where the key points are [a] it is an inclusive integral approach rooted in the science of "safe and stable" concentrations and [b] it has a shared equity rationale within that global "contraction" limit where the faster the international convergence on the global per capita average, the more the valuable and tradable entitlements are pre-distributed to " under-consuming" Developing Countries [and vice-versa]. The key negotiating point is obviously the rate of convergence, as this addresses the issue of " historic responsibilities".

In a nutshell, whatever the agreed rate of convergence, we are all - rich and poor - dealing with same emissions contraction event where the 100 per cent of emissions entitlements is not more or less than that available under the contraction rate required to achieve the objective of the UNFCCC. The executive of this stated publicly in 2004 that contraction and convergence is inevitably required to achieve the Convention's objective.

When Miliband’s Climate Act became law the UK House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee started an enquiry into "Targets in the UK Act: - Where did they come from - Were the models, on which they were based, valid?" The answer was they came from C&C as advocated from 2000 by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution [RCEP]. The Report was published today and concluded the "approach to setting emission reduction targets based on equalising per capita emissions globally is sensible and equitable".

Moreover, though questions about the validity of the climate models being used were debated all year by the CCC, DECC, the Hadley Centre, GCI and others, already in March 2009 Adair Turner had agreed the key insight into the handling of C&C in the international negotiations. He agreed that if for reasons of climate-urgency the rate of international contraction had to be accelerated, then for reasons of international equity the rate of convergence would need to be accelerated relative to that.

GCI's constant advice to Government was this: when you introduce C&C at COP 15 in December, as you will inevitably have to do, [a] openly propose the principle and the reasoning behind it [b] perhaps provide examples of different rates of C&C to show its negotiability [c] if you must, prefer the specific example of C&C rates you want but [d] above all stress that you invite examples of other rates of C&C from other countries particularly China, India and Africa, so we all get via the same principle to a discussion that's on the same page. It is not rocket science.

Come the hour did they do this? No. The opaquely un-named group of governments behind the Danish Text laid down "the draft treaty" with an unexplained prescription of the rates of C&C globally and created an acute anti-reaction from the G-77 and China within the negotiations. They argued that the proposal meant the "lion's share of what's left goes to developed countries " and that "it is still per capita 2:1 in favour of developed countries by 2050 ", re-igniting the usual blame and fury all over again.

Let's fast forward to the COP-15 end-game. The Chinese told the developed countries this prescription was unacceptable even to the extent that the developed countries couldn't have their targets either. Though Angela Merkel was reported to be outraged about this, the reason for the Chinese stance was obvious: effectively capping developing countries to just the balance of what was left after a rate of convergence to per capita equality by 2050 inside this global emissions cut of 50 per cent by 2050, the Chinese (perhaps mischievously) spoke for all who saw this as Developed Countries seizing the lion's share of what was left through the slow rate of convergence.

Instead of suggesting faster convergence, which they could have done, they didn't, but Miliband didn't either and he came home and started publicly blaming the Chinese for the failure and all hell broke.

The whole affair was made even more plaintive with the comments from the Maldives that fighting about equal rights to do the wrong thing doesn't help. They are threatened with inundation and unequal rights to do wrong doesn't prevent that either.

Arguing accelerated rates of Contraction and Convergence would help, but the rates of Contraction and Convergence is a meta-argument that we must all now resolve as a whole if the Maldives are to remain visible let-alone audible.

In 2004 the UNFCCC Executive itself recognised that "C&C is inevitably required to achieve the objective of the Convention." So now, instead of allowing covert and ad hoc alliances of member nations to ambush negotiations, perhaps the UN should recognise formal groups with shared interests that can reach positions for negotiation at the higher level. Indeed, if the UK and the European Union itself want to remain relevant to resolving this now fully global quarrel, this needs to happen. We are now in fact nearer to a deal, and there remains one rational choice to get it: return and propose the C&C principle openly, formally, globally with countries grouping in "regions" as they choose [e.g. EU] to a total of perhaps 6 to 10, with an invitation to all sides to put forward their preferred rates of C&C from where we all can then negotiate to consensus – rationally.

It will be a compromise but regional fights will remain in the regions and away from the UN, and from this C&C deal can follow the global framework-based carbon-market that can help resolve many of the remaining differences helping to finance survival and development in a low-carbon future.

Aubrey Meyer is founder of the Global Commons Institute (GCI) and the developer of the Contraction and Convergence model

Terry O'Connell is director of corporate relations at GCI