Road to Copenhagen is through China and US

Article from Sunday Times Of Malta.

The international mood regarding the Copenhagen Climate Summit has swung over the months from one of high expectations to one of growing pessimism and now to a new-found sense of cautious optimism. Whatever the final outcome of the summit might be, the road to Copenhagen will be one that goes through China, the US and, to a certain degree, India too.

The litmus test will be whether the global community will really start paving the way for the move towards a truly low-carbon economy. A move which according to leading scientist and IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) chair Rajendra Pachauri is one where the Western lifestyle will have to be accepted as unsustainable.

He warned sternly that radical changes and regulation are needed if global disaster is to be avoided.

This in no way implies the move to a centralised or a command economy but rather towards what he claims we urgently require - a new value system of 'sustainable consumption'. Something which many will find hard to adapt to after so many years of being force-fed with statistics on how many cars, electrical appliances, gizmos and devices we all happen to own.

I am convinced that even if Copenhagen works out, some detailed negotiations would still have to be carried out at a later stage. But if such a summit reaches a meaningful political agreement the road will have still been paved by providing momentum to the whole set of negotiations to follow.

The net beneficiaries in Pachauri's own words will be the younger generation, because, successful negotiations or not, results will not be felt overnight.

The value shift that was needed would take a generation to take hold. And the section of society that will make it happen is essentially that of young people. A stream of society that will be, and in my opinion is already far more sensitive than adults as to what needs to follow in the years to come.

Commonwealth summits are often dismissed as jamborees but the latest one managed to give a lead to the world on climate change, as it not only brought together a third of the world population's leaders but also many Commonwealth member countries that are island states are under threat from rising sea levels.

At the end of the day what will make or break Copenhagen is not only the pledges of the major polluters which are - because of their size and economic and industrial activity - the US, China and India, but also whether these pledges will really translate into reality. It will also depend on whether the industrialised states - including the EU - will put their money where their mouths are when it comes to the crucial issue: funding assistance for the poorer countries.

The fact that confidential papers recently revealed that Europeans want such assistance to come from an existing cash pot brings to the fore an issue I had asked the Prime Minister about in Parliament - as to whether such assistance will come on top of existing development aid or not.

Any deal struck in Copenhagen and beyond will have to be a finance deal too, since no developing country will sign up to an agreement that does not give them any extra money.

Without ambitious targets there is no point holding Copenhagen's summit, but we need to be reassured that the targets set primarily by the US, China, the EU and other emerging economies like India will be achievable. In the UN climate process, targets are conventionally given in comparison with 1990 levels of emissions. But on that basis, the likely US figure amounts to a cut of just a few per cent, particularly since emissions have risen by about 15 per cent since 1990.

It is extremely welcome news that China is now putting specific figures on reductions of carbon intensity by 2020, particularly since due to its high economic growth rate the country's emissions will otherwise continue to rise rapidly for at least a decade.

The coming weeks will show whether all the commitments will provide a meaningful deviation away from 'business as usual' as well as whether the carbon market will grow meaningfully by holding the promise of cost efficient emission cuts without the need for taxpayer funding.

As things stand we seem to be one step closer to a successful outcome in Copenhagen. Let us hope that global support will materialise not only in terms of financial resources but also by way of technology transfer through a series of new greener measures.

To really move towards combating climate change we first need a change in the political climate on emissions. That should indeed help make 'the most important international gathering since World War II' really worth it indeed.

Please visit the article archive for a list of available articles.