The Copenhagen Accord.

Yesterday the COP15 Climate Change Summit came to an end with the recognition of the Copenhagen Accord which can be read here; http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/cop15/eng/l07.pdf

Given the high expectations that some people had placed on the Summit the fact that is has only resulted in an accord rather then a protocol could cause some people to accuse Copenhagen to be a failure or a waste of time. This is simply not the case. Copenhagen marked an important watershed in the worlds response to Climate Change. It's failure to reach a more robust agreement is more indicative of the failures of the COP summit process then Copenhagen itself. The past summits have been very wasteful with national delegates being more concerned with politics for the sake of politics then finding solutions to the problems. These failures have been the result of problems with attitudes of the main power blocks who between them represent almost 7bn people in 192 countries and often overlap. I hope you will excuse me then any crass generalisations.

The Royalists. Led by the British monarchy and its arc of influence across the world which included the United States during the Bush Presidency this groups attitude to Climate Change is the most problematic and hard to understand. Like Copernicus and the Catholic church in the fifteenth century this group will not even entertain the idea that Climate Change could be real and they will never allow the science to support the theory regardless of the reality. They are though very keen on the idea of large international summits to address Climate Change. This is because gathering all the countries of the world together in order to argue over an issue that cannot be definitively settled one way or another allows the Royalists to observe the local feuds and allegiances that bind the world together in order to use that knowledge to their advantage. Now that it is looking as if the climate change can be settled definitively highlighting the need to find a solution the Royalists are desperate to kill off the issue in case the solution threatens their power base.

The European Federalists. Basically these are the countries of the European Union like France and Germany. To confuse matters this group also includes the British government when it's made up by the Labour party. Although this group is more flexible then the Royalists on the existence of climate change their main priority is not to protect the environment. Instead they want to use the issue as a way to bind the world together through legally binding treaties and mechanisms of reporting and inspection. The conclusion of this process is to form a one world government. The only reason for doing that is to create a very powerful political job like World President for these career politicians to aspire to.

The Large Developing Nations. These are the countries like Brazil, India, Argentina and South Africa who although can't be described as developed nations have such sustained levels of growth that they are close to being reclassified. Although these nations are more at risk from climate change then their developed counterparts and some of them are beginning to feel its effects they, at the moment, lack the depth of political and scientific experience to convince the developed nations to take action. This is not helped by the fact that some of these nations sometime place more of a priority on using climate change summits to boost their emerging global status while others still use the issue as a way to trick money out of the developed nations in order to sustain their economic growth.

The Small Developed Nations. These are the tiny Island nations and borderline failed states of South America, parts of Africa and the Pacific's. Due to internal strife or simply tiny populations these countries are in no way equipped to engage scientifically or politically with the developed world. This forces them to rely on assistance from developed nations who are members of either the Royalist or Federalist groups. As such they are often unwittingly used as pawns in these groups larger political games. This is a shame because it is these nations who are the most at risk from climate change and some have already sustained so much damage that they are largely dependent on subsidies from developed nations. The perilous position that many of these countries are in means that they simply cannot afford to be patient while other nations argue. As result they sometimes end up vetoing good ideas because they don't understand their sometimes abstract importance.

China. Although China is a large developing nation their status as a Communist nuclear power means that the represent a separate group on the issue of climate change and strangely are the group I trust the most. This is because while the democratic world was allowing private interests to cloud the debate over climate change China was doing something that can only really happen in countries where the governments voice is the only voice allowed and the government alone controls the means of production. They took a long and impartial look at the science behind climate change and concluded that on the basis of the available evidence that it was more then likely that climate change is real and it is man made. This gave them a massive head start in developing green technology and incorporating it into the centrally organised development plans. The problem is that China is a country with massive and unwarranted inferiority complex that is currently engaged in a superpower battle with the United States. Therefore they want to use their advantage in green technology to increase their global dominance. Obviously America wants to buy time in order to develop it's own green technology to prevent this happening because while America continues to deny even the possibility of the existence of climate change its position in the world is slipping.

Against this backdrop of complicated and conflicting political interests that were being played out at a conference hosted by satellite Royalist faction the Copenhagen Accord is an almost unbelievably strong agreement. Not only does is accept the need to limit global temperature rises to 2C it commits developed nations to economy wide emission cuts and commits developing nations to put in place mitigation policies. At the moment these are independent commitments to be made at a national level but the accord does leave the way open for countries to make joint commitments. It also decides to pursue a market based mechanism to promote low carbon development (carbon trading) and accepts the immediate need to set up a fund to tackle deforestation in the short term. Importantly it pledges $30bn of fast start money to fund mitigation projects in the nations where they are most needed. Most importantly it declares the need for the accord to be reviewed by 2015 which paves the way for it to be significantly strengthened at the Mexico Summit in November 2010. However no-one is entirely satisfied with this accord and I am no exception. Apart from the obvious fact that is doesn't go anywhere near far enough I am worried that it seems to be used to justify a follow up summit in Germany in June 2010. There already will be another summit in Mexico in November 2010. As the pre-negotiations for this summit will take up most of the year I am not convinced that the German summit is needed and will probably only complicate preparations for the Mexico summit.

Despite all this I think that UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon was right when he described the accord as an "essential beginning." it's just a shame the world had to waste so much time to get to this point. The test now will be to see how many nations will be prepared to support the accord by pledging voluntary emission cuts.