Copenhagen treaty was 'held to ransom', says Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown calls for reform of UN climate talks after Copenhagen talks end in weak agreement

David Adam, environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Monday 21 December 2009 17.56 GMT

Gordon Brown today said a new global treaty on climate change had been "held to ransom" by some countries opposed to a deal in Copenhagen, and called for reform of the way such negotiations take place, including an international body to handle environmental stewardship.
The prime minister said the weak agreement reached in Copenhagen at the weekend after all-night deliberations was a "first step towards a new alliance to overcome the enormous challenges of climate change". He called on all countries to show greater ambition as part of a campaign over the coming months to turn the agreement into a legally binding treaty.
"The talks in Copenhagen were not easy and as they reached conclusion I did fear the process would collapse and we would have no deal at all," he said. "We must learn lessons from Copenhagen and the tough negotiations that took place. Never again should we face the deadlock that threatened to pull down these talks. Never again should we let a global deal to move towards a greener future be held to ransom by only a handful of countries."
Brown added: "One of the frustrations for me was the lack of a global body with the sole responsibility for environmental stewardship. I believe that in 2010 we will need to look at reforming our international institutions to meet the common challenges we face as an international community."
Brown said it was important for the UK and developing countries such as the Maldives and Bangladesh that support a legally binding deal to form an "alliance" to persuade sceptical nations including China to sign up. British officials said they misjudged the attitude of the Chinese government, which took a harder line than expected in Copenhagen and vetoed efforts to introduce carbon targets and a deadline to make the deal legally binding. Ed Miliband, energy and climate change secretary, said in yesterday's Guardian that China had led a group of countries that "hijacked" the negotiations.
China's premier, Wen Jiabao, insisted his government had played an "important and constructive" role.
Other nations, including Venezuela and Bolivia, tried to block the agreement being passed by the wider conference.
Miliband told a meeting in London today that the world could still agree on an ambitious and legally binding treaty by the end of the year. "It is important to convince China that it has nothing to fear from a legal treaty."
But he echoed Brown's criticisms of the process, and said the world needed to reassess the way the UN climate talks work. "The majority of countries want a legal treaty but unfortunately the UN doesn't work on a majority."
Ministers should have got involved earlier, he said. The Copenhagen talks spent so long arguing about process that it left little time to negotiate the substance of an agreement. Aides suggested Britain could push for a streamlined negotiation process over the next twelve months, with groups of countries asked to put forward a representative, rather than debate everything between all 193 states.
The Copenhagen deal requires countries to submit pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the end of January. Brown said that if all countries, including China and the US, showed greater ambition, then the promised cuts could leave the world within "striking distance" of limiting global warming to 2C.
He said: "We will need to harness the best of low carbon technology for the world to continue to grow, while keeping to our pledge made this weekend to limit the increase in global temperatures to 2C."
In a separate report, aid charity Oxfam called for an "overhaul" of the UN negotiating process.
Antonio Hill, Oxfam's climate change adviser, said: "The Copenhagen accord is hugely disappointing but it also reveals how the traditional approach to international negotiations, based on brinkmanship and national self-interest, is both unfit for pursuing our common destiny and downright dangerous."
He added: "There is too much at stake for this politics-as-usual approach. We must act quickly to address the shortfalls of these negotiations so that we can make up for lost time and tackle climate change with the decisiveness and urgency needed. This cannot happen again."
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a global ambassador for the charity, said: "The failure of the political process in Copenhagen to achieve a fair, adequate and binding deal on climate change is profoundly distressing. A higher purpose was at stake but our political leaders have proven themselves unable to rise to the challenge. We must look to the future. Our leaders must regroup, learn and make good their failure for the sake of humanity's future."