Copenhagen Climate Change Negotiations: Results And The Way Forward

The fifteenth Conference of Parties ("COP 15") to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (the "Convention") and the fifth meeting of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol ended in Copenhagen with seriously mixed feelings on big picture issues. Some took comfort from the fact that for the first time a substantial percentage of the world's heads of state and governments attended the talks. Some of those leaders, most notably of the United States, India, China, Brazil and South Africa (the latter four jurisdictions now being referred to as the BASIC group of countries), participated in the negotiation of the Copenhagen Accord (the "Accord"), a political document that has at this time little or no legal standing and that will come to define the talks. Many feel the negotiations were a failure as they did not result in a legally binding agreement with ambitious and fair commitments dealing with climate change mitigation and adaptation.

The two ad hoc working groups established in Bali two years before COP 15 delivered reports reflecting the state of negotiations on various issues. The reports were received and the mandates of each working group were renewed with a view to their work continuing through to and reaching a conclusion during the next plenary meetings of the parties to be held in Mexico City later in 2010. The work of the groups is not reflected in the Accord. Also, dates for the resumption of the ad hoc group's work have not been set and there is concern regarding funding for that work.

It remains to be seen how the work started in Bali will proceed whilst key parties move to "operationalise" the Accord in anticipation of it effectively replacing the Kyoto Protocol with a fundamentally different, bottom up approach to emissions reduction. The next scheduled Convention meeting will be held in Bonn in May. Leadership may arise from meetings of the BASIC countries pending clarity of legislative progress in the United States.

It also remains to be seen how much of the work of the Convention's supporting scientific and administrative bodies will progress on a host of important multilateral issues whilst the attention of key parties shifts to the Accord.

The Accord

Though a political document with no legal standing and notwithstanding serious procedural concerns expressed by many countries, the Accord is likely to be the basis on which future multilateral action on climate change proceeds. The Accord is not a protocol, an...