Copenhagen cop-out - "a
historic failure that will live in infamy"
Written by Editorial from February 2009 edition of Socialism Today,
magazine of the Socialist Party (CWI in England & Wales)
Monday, 01 February 2010
14:40
The
UN conference on climate change (Cop15), held in Copenhagen 7-18
December, was a fiasco. The Independent called it “a historic
failure that will live in infamy”. After years of
preparation, the representatives of 193 countries discussed and
wrangled for two weeks. In the closing hours, leaders such as Barak
Obama and Wen Jinbao (and Gordon Brown) flew in, supposedly to break
the deadlock. All of them accepted the urgency of reaching agreement.
Unless global warming is limited to 2°C above pre-industrial
levels, the planet faces catastrophe. But no agreement was reached, let
alone the framework for a binding international treaty,
Cop15’s original aim. Backroom discussions between the US,
China and a handful of neo-colonial states (Brazil, India, South
Africa, etc) produced an ‘accord’ – a
brief memo of vague aims and even vaguer pledges. Completely sidelined,
the Cop15 assembly merely ‘noted’ the accord.
Almost immediately, China’s representative, Su Wei, announced
that, as it was not a formal UN agreement, China reserved the right to
repudiate even the accord.
Rest of artilce is here.
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