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Nations Work Together Despite Slow Progress on Copenhagen Accord

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Major economies partner on advances critical to climate-change mitigation

Despite lingering questions over which nations ultimately will support the Copenhagen Accord, more than a dozen developed and developing countries are already working together to advance technology critical to mitigating the worst effects of climate change.

The accord, developed by leaders of 25 major greenhouse-gas-emitting nations in December 2009, seeks to limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius through deep but unspecified cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by developed countries and by setting global and national emissions peaks “as soon as possible,” with a longer deadline for developing countries.

January 31, 2010, was to be the first deadline after the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen for industrialized countries to list specific emission targets to begin in 2020 and for developing countries to list their voluntary efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions. It was also the deadline for 193 countries that are parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to sign on to support the accord.

Instead, at a January 20 briefing, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer said the deadline was flexible. According to reports, only a handful of nations so far have indicated their support. The UNFCCC secretariat will issue a report after January 31 on the status of support for the accord.

“We’re now in a cooling-off period that gives useful time and needed time for countries to resume their discussions with each other,” de Boer said. “If countries follow Copenhagen’s outcomes calmly, with their eyes firmly fixed on the advantage of collective action, they have every chance of completing the job.”

The next official meeting of UNFCCC parties is a two-week negotiating session May 31 to June 11 in Bonn, Germany, in advance of the next climate change negotiating conference November 29 to December 10 in Mexico City.

In the meantime, some of the same countries debating support for the Copenhagen Accord are already working together as members of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF), launched by President Obama in March 2009.

ACTION PLANS

As the Copenhagen meeting was taking place on December 14, 2009, representatives of the MEF countries launched plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from about 80 percent of the global energy-related industrial processes responsible for emissions.

Forum members include industrialized economies such as Australia, Canada, the United States and the European Union; the BASIC countries ― an acronym for the grouping of Brazil, South Africa, India and China; and others.

“Over the last year the Major Economies Forum has put forward 10 different technology action plans, detailed plans in a range of areas,” Gary Guzy, deputy director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in a January 21 briefing. “These are designed to provide collaboration on how to achieve a fundamental economic transformation.”

Each plan contains a wealth of detail for national leaders to consider, including the technology’s mitigation potential, barriers and strategies to overcome them, and a menu of potential government actions. (Read the executive summary [PDF, 1MB].)

The buildings sector plan, for example, calls for expanding international collaboration on minimum energy-performance standards for appliances. The smart grids plan suggests establishing a platform to enable cross-country and cross-regional development and coordination of smart grid technology standards. And the wind energy and solar energy plans call for ambitious renewable targets and reliable support policies to send the market clear investment signals.

NEXT STEP

Independent of ongoing negotiations following Copenhagen, international collaborations to develop cleaner technology remain a critical part of keeping global average temperature rise at 2 degrees Celsius or below.

“The next step really is what countries do at home,” Jonathan Pershing, the U.S. State Department’s deputy special envoy for climate change, said in a January 13 briefing. “It is impossible to imagine we can succeed on this deal at the particular point in time without domestic action. And that means for us and for others. That means legislatively and through regulations in countries around the world, including the United States.”

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