Climate summit avoids collapse by acknowledging US-led deal

[FarCenter]

The UN climate talks in Copenhagen avoided a total collapse by skirting bitter opposition from several nations to a deal championed by the US and five emerging economies.

"The conference decides to take note of the Copenhagen Accord of December 18, 2009," the chairman of the plenary session of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) declared on Saturday, swiftly banging down his gavel.

After bitter exchanges through the night, the summit chair reportedly forced through the deal using a procedural tool that effectively dropped all obstacles to the Copenhagen Accord.

According to the decision, countries in favor and against the deal would be listed. Under conference rules, decisions by the 193 participating countries are made by consensus.

The summit stopped far from a full endorsement of the plan, which sets a target of limiting global warming to a maximum two degree Celsius rise over pre-industrial times and holds out the prospect of $100 billion in annual aid from 2020 for developing nations.

However, the plan does not specify greenhouse gas cuts needed to achieve the two Celsius goal that is seen as a threshold for dangerous changes such as more floods, droughts, mudslides, sandstorms and rising seas.

<SNIP> http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5039082,00.html

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Emphasis added -- "taking note" of the Copenhagen Accord is the weakest possible outcome other than outright rejection and failure. It basically abridges the procedure for unanimous adoption by recording who was for and who was against, but no formal vote is taken, and the accord is not agreed to.

[FarCenter]

1. Opinion: Climate fiasco in Copenhagen

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5039403,00.html

It's been almost two years since the climate conference in Bali, where plans were made for signing a new climate treaty by December 2009 in Copenhagen. But it was clear months before this year's meeting that no such agreement would be reached.

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But conflicting interests got in the way of compromise: The Chinese didn't want supervisors in their country; the Europeans didn't want to increase CO-2 reduction goals; the Americans didn't want to go too far on any deal. Africans wanted more money, but had a problem with being transparent on how it would be spent. In the end the conference reached a complete stand-still.

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The results of this conference have widened the gap between the developed and developing world. Meetings such as these offer poorer nations the unique opportunity to discuss their problems on a world stage, and they have done so here with impressive assertiveness.

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[L0oniX]

2. The US-led deal is extortion.