THE COPENHAGEN DEAL

January 2010

The `Accord' that emerged out of the Copenhagen Conference is a slim document - it in only two and half pages long. What is more significant is that it did not come out of the two weeks of multilateral negotiation process of the Conference of Parties to the UNFCC (COP 15 as the Copenhagen Conference is known) but from a backroom parley between the US and the BASIC bloc of countries.

Though the chairman of the COP tried to push it through the conference, the majority of the delegates refused to be cowed down. Decisions at the COP are made by consensus, and objections from several developing countries first to the undemocratic process and second to the content of the Accord, meant that the COP only "took note" of the document, and did not "adopt" it. In UN terms, taking note of a document gives it a low status. It means that the meeting did not approve or pass it, and did not view it either positively or negatively.

This is a sad reflection of the Copenhagen conference and the 17 years of negotiations since the Rio Summit in 1992 that this fraudulent document is being held up as its main achievement - an agreement that was not acceptable to the majority of the UNFCCC's membership.

CLIMATE CHANGE - Wheeling and Dealing: From Rio to Copenhagen

“In the space of a few decades, a new form of global inequality has abruptly become politically important. An industrialised minority has been shown to be overusing the earth’s ability to cleanse the atmosphere of excess carbon and other greenhouse gases. Awkwardly, this inequality has turned out to be one that threatens survival itself – including, ultimately, the survival of the rich”.