As the final hours waned away and the 6:00 Friday deadline arrived in Copenhagen, it became clear that talks at the climate change summit would need to continue into overtime to try to reach a constructive agreement.
Not wanting to walk away empty handed with nothing of substance to present to a rapt world audience, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon asked negotiators to stay at the table to continue to work towards a breakthrough.
Although the United States has said they would support a $100 billion (U.S.) fund to assist developing countries, in particular China, to fight climate change, the U.S. and China continue to disagree on issues, most notably, transparency. Developed countries insist on international monitoring and verification of steps taken to reduce emissions, which China considers an infringement of their sovereignty.
President Obama expressed his feelings of doubt: “So the question before us is no longer the nature of the challenge – the question is our capacity to meet it. For while the reality of climate change is not in doubt, our ability to take collective action hangs in the balance.” He added, “I have to be honest, as the world watches us today, I think ability to take collective action is in doubt right now and it hangs in the balance.”
A new draft agreement, called the Copenhagen Accord, was negotiated. It would not be binding in international law but would include earlier goals and objectives, and it replaced a previous draft which pushed the deadline for a legally binding agreement to the end of 2010. Though hours of deliberation were invested, the draft seems broad and lacking in detail, beyond the general goal of keeping the increase of global temperature below two degrees.
While negotiations continue in a last-ditch attempt to secure some unified stand to combat climate change, Obama urged negotiators to work together and accept a less-than-perfect agreement, stating, “This is not fiction, this is science. Unchecked, climate change will pose unacceptable risks to our security, our economies, and our planet. That much we know.”
At present, that seems to be all we know.
