Crunch Time for Climate Talks

As this goes to Press, the United Nations is hosting the final and crucial round of talks in Barcelona.

The negotiations are crucial as this is the last chance to hammer out a draft agreement before the all important climate summit in Copenhagen next month.  Little time is left before world leaders and climate experts meet in the Danish capital to approve a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol on global carbon emissions and to freeze the climate change, if not totally reverse it. In other words, there’s little time left to unleash really meaningful and effective steps to save 
the planet. Alarmingly though, serious differences on the role and responsibilities of rich, industrialised nations and to the extent they should be helping the poor, developing countries such as Bangladesh and the Maldives still persist. 

The United States, until recently the world’s biggest contributor of green house gases (now it’s China) responsible for global meltdown, could play a decisive role in clinching the climate deal — or derailing it. 

Under President Barack Obama, the US has changed its climate policy considerably.  It does not pretend any more that human actions or carbon emissions by the industrialised northern hemisphere have nothing to do with the
climate change. But the US still has a long way to go to meet its responsibilities as the industrial superpower and largest contributor of carbon emissions. As Dr Rajendra K Pachauri of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change argues in these pages today, the US stand could make or break the deal in Copenhagen next month. However, the US may not be in a position to pledge anything at all, with domestic legislation yet to pass through the Senate. While the US agrees rich nations should join the climate change efforts by curtailing carbon emissions, it does not want to commit itself to a 
particular number. Also, it wants similar restrictions imposed on emerging economies like India and China.  On the other hand, India, the big economic story after China, does not want to be dictated by big powers on carbon cuts. Meanwhile poor nations like Bangladesh and the Maldives that face a clear, existential threat with rising sea-levels wait and watch with bated breath, hoping for a global miracle to save them.  

Given such ostensibly unbridgeable differences, UN officials are right to conclude that there’s little chance of agreeing on all elements of a legally binding climate treaty before the December summit.   This is why they are hoping for broader consensus.  Which is perhaps the only available alternative under the circumstances.  However, the same approach can’t be applied to the actual negotiations in Copenhagen.  We cannot afford to fail in Copenhagen. As Dr Pachauri argues, we are fast running out of time to save the planet.  The cost of collective failure in December could mean collective doom.