A stripped-down climate deal is likely to bring about dangerous global warming

Update at 10.30 am, 19 December: After a night of wrangling and behind-the-scenes arguments, the United Nations conference agreed to “take note” of the Copenhagen accord (see “5.30 am, 19 December”, below), but countries were not forced to endorse it. With a number of Latin American nations and Sudan hostile to it, the meeting agreed that countries choosing to endorse the US-brokered deal would be listed in the text.

UN sources told New Scientist that this would entitle listed countries to receive funds to cope with the impacts of climate change and reduce their carbon emissions – to the tune of $30 billion over the next three years. By 2020, rich nations have promised the fund will contain $100 billion a year.

5.30 am, 19 December

Western leaders began to leave Copenhagen in the early hours of Saturday morning, claiming to have secured a global agreement to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius. But the deal provoked immediate anger for failing to include concrete measures to reach that target, and scientists at the talks said it would set the world on a path to 3.5 ºC of warming by 2100.


The Western leaders responded to the accusations that the text was stripped of any concrete measures by blaming China and other developing nations for the failure of the Copenhagen conference to achieve more.

Separate, US-led talks

The deal came in the form of a brief statement, named the Copenhagen accord, agreed by about 25 heads of state who had been meeting most of the day separately from the main conference. At 5.30 am local time, amid procedural chaos, the main meeting of the 193 nations attending the summit had yet to decide what to do with the accord.

Meanwhile, a team of climate scientists who have been calculating how the pledges to cut emissions translate into temperature rises over the coming century, and were waiting for the final text to update their models, were left baffled. The accord fails to commit any countries to new emissions cuts. An annexe simply lists existing commitments as “information”.

“We have nothing to calculate,” said Michiel Schaeffer of Climate Analytics. “It’s as though the last two years have not happened.”

Wide-open loopholes

The accord also fails to offer ways of closing loopholes in existing emissions controls under the Kyoto protocol. For instance, it does not address rising emissions from aircraft and shipping, which are not covered by the protocol. Nor does it limit future sales of spare emissions permits held by many eastern European nations – so-called “hot air”. Expectation had been high that both loopholes would be closed by agreements in Copenhagen.

Schaeffer and his colleague Niklas Hoehne of the climate consultancy ECOFYS told New Scientist that the loopholes could allow developed nations to carry on increasing their emissions until 2020. The finding is in line with those of a similar study given to New Scientist by WWF earlier this week.

With no new commitments on the table, and loopholes still wide open, Schaeffer and colleagues find that the world is on track to warm by 3.5 ºC by 2100, and concentrations of carbon dioxide are set to rise to around 700 parts per million – far above the 450 ppm scientists say constitute the limit for keeping global warming below 2 ºC.

‘Should have done better’

The text is a significant setback from where talks stood on Friday. Earlier drafts of the text, circulated during Friday, had stipulated that countries should ensure a 50 per cent cut in global greenhouse gas emissions, with 80 per cent cuts by developed nations. Scientists have warned cuts on this scale are necessary to meet the aim of curtailing warming below two degrees. Both targets disappeared in the final version.

Also missing was a promise to review the need for a tougher 1.5 ºC target by 2016. Many small island states and African nations that are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change such as sea level rise have demanded this target.

“We should have done better,” UN climate chief Yvo de Boer told journalists before hurrying away. A senior European environmentalist, John Lanchbery of Birdlife International, called the accord “a carefully managed collapse”.

Two steps backwards

Western leaders suggested the talks had failed to live up to expectations largely because China had refused US demands to include its national emissions targets in the international text. UK prime minister Gordon Brown said: “I hope China will come to support a treaty. They do not support it at the moment.”

Obama defended his stand against China. He said that if commitments from developing countries were not legally binding there could be no sanctions for failure. Without such policing the US has said it will not contribute to the proposed $100 billion a year fund to help developing countries cope with climate change.

Before returning to the US, Obama admitted that “instead of taking one step forward, we may have taken two steps back”. But he promised to resume work “to build trust” so that countries would in future accept legally binding commitments.

Developing nations that had not taken part in the US-led talks responded to the text with fury, saying 25-nation accord was an affront to the consensus principle that governs these UN talks. The head of the Sudanese delegation, Lumumba Di-Aping, said: “Gross violations have been committed against participation on equal footing and against common sense. Industrialised nations have decided that damage to developing countries is acceptable.”

Read more: New Scientist‘s full coverage of the latest Copenhagen and climate change news