By Joydeep Gupta, IANS,
Copenhagen: After failing to come up with any treaty to fight global warming or any significant improvement in the existing treaties, the Copenhagen climate summit was finding it difficult on its final day to even come up with an accord that would show the willingness of world leaders on the issue.
At least four drafts of the accord had been made and discarded Friday, as heads of state and government had to delay their flights home.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had actually reached the airport for his flight home when he received a request from his Danish counterpart Lars Lokke Rasmussen to return to the conference and help reach consensus, Indian officials said.
The latest draft that leaked out of the room where heads of state and their environment ministers were discussing the accord said the world leaders would commit to keep global temperature rise within two degrees Celsius, and would jointly cut their emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) – that are warming the earth – by at least 80 percent by 2050.
But it was still unsure on the crucial issue of the extent to which rich countries would cut their GHG emissions by 2020. It read that these countries would commit to reductions that would lead to “aggregate reductions of greenhouse gas emissions of X percent in 2020 compared to 1990 and Y percent in 2020 compared to 2005.”
The draft, a copy of which is with IANS, reiterated previous calls for rich nations to commit $10 billion a year from 2010 to 2012 to help poor countries cope with climate change effects and $100 billion a year by 2020.
While it committed industrialised countries to cutting their GHG emissions further without specifying a number, the draft said emerging economies like India and China would mitigate their emissions, and this would be subject to “domestic measurement, reporting and verification”.
This issue of verification, whether it would be domestic and international, has been a huge bone of contention at this summit. On Friday morning, there was reportedly a heated argument over this between US President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
Obama had sought international verification, which was promptly opposed by Wen, Manmohan Singh and leaders of other emerging economies. This reportedly led to heated words, but an American delegate said later: “The two have made up and are now working together”.
The latest draft says any treaty to fight climate change would be reviewed in 2016 and at that time would “consider strengthening the long-term goal to limit the increase in global average temperature to 1.5 degrees”, a major concession to small island states, who have been demanding this.