The Climate Change Lawyers Network sent a total of 5 members to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15 and CMP5, officially) that took place in Copenhagen, Denmark from December 7-18. These CCLN representatives worked with the organization Islands First to provide legal and research services to Pacific Small Island Developing States (known as the PSIDS.) For the CCLN lawyers and the PSIDS delegates (along with their allies in the Alliance of Small Island States – AOSIS) the conference was a memorable experience, despite the final outcome falling short of their expectations and desires.
While climate change is characterized as an energy and economic issue for many rich countries, or one of food security and drought for poorer ones, for the PSIDS the issue comes down to a single word: survival. With no where else to go, rising sea levels will literally mean the disappearance of these countries and the necessary relocation of their inhabitants. It is with the backdrop of this stark reality that the PSIDS and AOSIS took center stage in Copenhagen to raise the voices of the most vulnerable and set the bar for what constitutes an acceptable response of the international community.
Despite the many setbacks in the negotiations leading up to Copenhagen and coordinated efforts to lower expectations for the conference’s outcomes, the first week of the Conference was somewhat successful from the PSIDS’ perspective. First, the Africa Group joined the AOSIS call for limiting warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrialized levels. This target, along with the James Hansen-supported and NGO-popularized goal of stabilizing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere at 350 parts per million, are what the most vulnerable countries see as giving them the best hope of surviving the oncoming climate changes this century. With the additional support of a number of Central and South American countries also announced at Copenhagen, the AOSIS climate change target garnered the support of more than half of the UN member countries for the first time in history.
The support for the islands was also seen early on in the negotiations when many developing countries supported Tuvalu’s efforts to amend the Kyoto Protocol to reflect their climate change target, an effort strongly opposed by China, OPEC and most developed countries. This led to a stalemate in the negotiations, but also a “Ray of the Day” award for Tuvalu and a recognition of their leadership by the Climate Action Network and it’s NGO allies. CCLN members working with Islands First assisted with this NGO-outreach and helped raise popular support for the island’s positions outside of the formal negotiations.
On December 11th, the mid-point of the negotiations, AOSIS released what could have been the Copenhagen game-changer: a proposal to extend the Kyoto Protocol and create a separate Copenhagen Protocol that would lead the world to climate stabilization. The proposal called for a peaking of global emissions by 2015 and a reduction of developed countries’ emissions by 45 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. This was radically tougher language than other draft texts circulating around Copenhagen, most notably from Denmark and the BASIC bloc (Brazil, South Africa, China and India). In a hastily arranged press conference arranged in part by Islands First following the release of the AOSIS proposal, climate activist Bill McKibben of 350.org hailed it as “the first truly rational attempt to grapple with what the science of climate change tells us.”
Yet despite the support of many environmental organizations and previous alliances with other least developed countries, AOSIS was unable to maintain its coalition of climate victims during the ministerial meetings in the second week of the conference. With a strong push from the BASIC bloc, the AOSIS proposed text was dropped in favour of much weaker negotiating texts put forward by the chairs of the ad hoc working groups on long-term cooperative action and the Kyoto Protocol. This proved only the beginning of the slide away from the science-based targets that AOSIS was championing. When the ministers of countries were unable to agree on the draft language of the negotiating texts when the Heads of State arrived in Copenhagen, the negotiations moved from the open and transparent plenaries to the backrooms. The Copenhagen Accord, as it came to be known, was not the product of any consultations with AOSIS but rather US President Obama agreeing with the BASIC countries on the minimum amount each country was prepared to commit to, which legally was nothing. This was then sold to the rest of the world as the best deal possible, even though it removed any reference to a peak year for global emissions, any target for atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide or even a mid-century emissions reductions goal. The best AOSIS was to achieve in the final stages of the negotiations was their hard-fought victory to maintain a reference to the 1.5 degrees goal, though this is only to be part of a “consideration of strengthening the long-term goal” of 2 degrees, which review need not be completed until 2015 (the same year AOSIS hoped for global emissions to peak, and possibly past the point of achieving the 1.5 degree goal.)
Despite the shortcomings of the Copenhagen Accord, CCLN members played an important role in Copenhagen as they were instrumental in supporting a number of the PSIDS delegations who were at the forefront of the negotiations. CCLN members provided briefing packages on key issues to Heads of State and ministers and wrote a number of articles profiling the PSIDS in the popular publication Outreach that was circulated around the conference. CCLN also worked closely with Yale Law School and Yale School of Forestry students on these tasks and other legal research for the PSIDS as well as tracking various negotiations and summarizing the rapidly evolving negotiating texts. With the Canadian government winning the “Colossal Fossil” award for the most obstructionist country in the negotiations, Canadians should be proud of the progressive work done by the CCLN lawyers in Copenhagen and the possibilities of future collaborations with Islands First and the PSIDS in this forum.
