Editor’s Note:
The largest assembly of world leaders in United Nations history, 119, arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark to tackle the challenge of global warming at the 15th Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP15) this week. The convention wrapped up this morning with the parties “taking note” of the Copenhagen Accord and the lingering question of how many countries will sign on. The COP15 faced a breakdown until the accord, an eleventh hour non-binding agreement, was reached among the US, China, India, Brazil and South Africa. U.S. President Barack Obama praised the Accord, “For the first time in history, all major economies have come together to accept their responsibility to take action to confront the threat of climate change.” The Accord calls for a mitigation target to limit warming to not more than two degrees Celsius, which Obama noted was nonbinding but a first step.
The lack of a non-binding agreement was not the only important story to come out of Copenhagen. Oil producing countries had been expected to press their concerns that limitations on fossil fuels would cause them economic damage, but the failure to forge a stronger agreement appears to have muted those voices. Today Patrick Ryan provided perspective on those concerns in a posting on the SUSRIS Blog — a new venue which you should check out if you have not yet looked over the offerings of articles, videos and other resources available there.
Copenhagen and Oil
What a difference a week can make in Copenhagen. On December 11th, Spencer Swartz writing in the Wall Street Journal (”Oil Producers Worry About Carbon Deal“) checked the pulse of countries like Saudi Arabia as the world prepared to sit down in the interests of global climate health and hammer out restrictions that would dent fossil fuel demand.
“With some of the world’s fastest-growing oil consumers under pressure to cut carbon emissions, big petroleum-producing states are beginning to fret over a long-term drop in crude-oil revenue. For years, oil-producing states have worried about rich nations such as the U.S. cutting back on energy consumption through conservation or turning to nonoil alternatives such as ethanol and other biofuels. But Saudi Arabia and other big Gulf states now fear that emerging markets like China — the biggest driver behind the growth in world oil consumption — may also cut crude demand .. Those fears and the potential impact on future government revenue could erode Gulf Arab states’ support for any deal in Copenhagen, Gulf officials said.”
There were a number of markers laid out in advance of the conference. Remember “Climate-gate” — the revelation of emails at a British university that fueled climate change skeptics. The head of Saudi Arabia’s Copenhagen delegation seized on the emails as the Kingdom prepped for the conference. The Australian’s “Saudis rain on summit’s parade” summed up the brouhaha:
“Saudi Arabia has long been reluctant to agree to any action to reduce carbon emissions and has only recently gone along with the 192 other governments attending the Copenhagen talks in accepting scientific evidence of man-made climate change. But its chief Copenhagen negotiator, Mohammad al-Sabban, suggested in an interview with the BBC yesterday that there was now no longer any point in seeking an agreement to reduce emissions. ‘It appears from the details .. that there is no relationship whatsoever between human activities and climate change,’ he said. ‘Climate is changing .. but for natural and not human-induced reasons. So whatever the international community does to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will have no effect on the climate’s natural variability.’ His government might be prepared to take ‘no cost’ measures to control emissions but more drastic and painful action would be out of the question until there was ‘new evidence’ about what was causing climate change, he said.”
You may have missed the report in October that Saudi Arabia was pressing for “special financial assistance” if a new climate pact calls for substantial reductions in the use of fossil fuels. Sabban, quoted in an AP report (archived on SUSRIS.org) said OPEC’s calculations showed Saudi Arabia would lose $19 billion a year starting in 2012 under a new climate pact.
Earlier this month SUSRIS asked Daniel Yergin (Pulitzer Prize winning author of “The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power”) at the Arab Global Forum in Washington about the concept of compensating oil producers who might be impacted by emission restrictions adopted at Copenhagen. Yergin said, “The notion of transferring resources to oil exporting countries, were there to be a global climate change regime, not high on the agenda there. On the other hand they ought to put it on the agenda.”
COP 15 (15th United Nations Climate Change Conference) ended, however, with pledges but no solid commitments for limitations on greenhouse gas emissions. What was achieved? Here’s the BBC’s take on it:
“The Accord, reached between the US, China, India, Brazil and South Africa, contains no reference to a legally binding agreement, as some developing countries and climate activists wanted. Neither is there a deadline for transforming it into a binding deal, though UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said it needed to be turned into a legally binding treaty next year. The accord was merely “recognised” by the 193 nations at the Copenhagen summit, rather than approved, which would have required unanimous support. It is not clear whether it is a formal UN deal.”
The result of a binding agreement left Swartz to ponder “What Ever Happened to OPEC’s Roar?” in his WSJ blog yesterday: “The world’s biggest oil producers in OPEC turned out to be among the quietest of the several hundreds of groups attending Copenhagen. What happened to public demands for many billions of dollars in financial compensation from consumer nations for using less oil down the road, a possibility prior to the conference? Not a whimper here.”
Saudi delegate Sabban was “pushed into the shade” and was virtually silent, according to Swartz. He suggested that failure at Copenhagen to reach a “bold pact” may have “made it a lot easier for OPEC officials to stay mum and even to apparently muzzle some who’d been the loudest prior to the conference.”
The Copenhagen Accord will be reviewed by 2015, after the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment of the global climate. Plans for post-Copenhagen 2009 reviews led Swartz to ominously warn that “OPEC will face the music at some point of a new, comprehensive and legally binding pact for capping carbon-emissions.”
