Experts on the chances of a global climate deal working in Mexico in 2010

Politicians, climate negotiators, scientists and NGO experts on the outlook for a global climate change dealChances of Copenhagen 'rematch' unlikely, say experts

Alok Jha, Suzanne Goldenberg, John Vidal, Jonathan Watts, David Smith, James Randerson, Damian Carrington, David Adam, Tom Hennigan
guardian.co.uk, Monday 1 February 2010 13.58 GMT
With the rancour of the failed Copenhagen climate talks still fresh, the election of Scott Brown leaving President Obama without a super-majority in the Senate and doubts over the reputation of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the chances of a global climate deal look further away than ever. The Guardian asked 39 politicians, climate negotiators, scientists and representatives of NGOs whether they thought a global deal was likely in 2010. Many would not speak on the record, but this is what the rest had to say.
Spokesperson for low-carbon investment fund Climate Change Capital, USIn many respects the election of Scott Brown changes little about the prospects of Congress passing economy-wide cap and trade legislation in 2010. A wide-reaching bill already faced opposition within the Democratic camp and a lot of convincing was needed on both sides in order to assemble enough votes to get it through. We had previously assumed that a comprehensive bill had about a one in five chance of passing. Much more likely, both then and now, was the prospect of passing a series of scaled-down bills focused on the energy sector and the economy. Brown has said that job creation will be a focus of his efforts on Capitol Hill. The good news is many of the best opportunities to create jobs lie in expanding the green economy. Here the private sector has already left the government in the dust, moved beyond the perceived politics of climate change, and is already extracting economic gains from lower-carbon strategies. This will continue whether or not there is one more senator opposed to cap & trade, and whether or not Senator Lisa Murkowski tries to block the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon. Unfortunately this is not what the international community wants and expects from the United States around a carbon cap, but the Obama administration has promised to keep pushing that ball uphill.
Professor Bob Watson - chief scientific adviser to the UK's Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
I obviously don't know what the election of one Republican senator will do, but it was always a challenge to get the US Senate to work hard on climate change. Unless a very meaningful bill gets through the US Senate there could be major global implications. If we don't have something in the US, as one of the biggest two emitters, then I don't see how we could get a legally binding treaty for other major emitters. It would send a signal to other major emitters and could undermine the chances of a potential agreement in the near future.
Eugen Weinberg, head of commodities research at Commerzbank in Bonn, Germany
Markets were looking to the US for a national cap-and-trade bill to stimulate an expansion. This does not increase the chances of success. It's less likely now that there will be a climate bill this year. But because the carbon price is already depressed it will not have that much effect on prices.
Rae Kwon-cheung, the climate ambassador of South Korea
I think the Copenhagen hangover continues. The statement by the "Basic" group of countries - China, India, South Africa, Brazil - is a sign of that because it showed the nations feel the necessity of clearing things up. But it was very positive that they expressed a willingness to submit information by the end of this month. There are still many things in flux [to predict whether a deal could be achieved this year]. There is a schedule this year for five negotiating sessions. The first of them is in March. It remains to be seen how things will go from there.
Senior member of Japan's climate negotiating teamJapan is a strong advocate of establishing a new legally binding treaty in which all emitters participate. The Japanese government would like to continue to work very hard for a legally binding agreement at Mexico COP16. But we still have to coordinate with other government and parties about the details.
Yang Fuqiang, director of global climate solutions WWF
The key issue now is not the US. It is the EU. Privately, the EU says it will adopt a 30% target and give $10bn to developing nations immediately. That can help. But otherwise, the position of the four Basic countries is fixed. And the US is very conservative. The EU has to take leadership. I don't think China's position will change. Despite mistakes by IPCC, it doesn't change the trends.
Li Yan, Greenpeace China's climate campaigner
I think the Chinese government is still feeling a Copenhagen hangover. The recent Basic meeting was encouraging because the countries said they will stick to the UN process. But I think all key counties need to think more deeply and map out a new strategy. At this point, it will be difficult to secure a deal but I am still positive.
In China, now there are stronger conservative voices and more concerns about the changed diplomatic circumstances and the economic downturn. In the media, you see more climate scepticism, particularly global cooling stories after the heavy winter snow. Famous economists such as Lang Xinping, are publicly criticising the interest groups that stand to benefit from the switch to a low-carbon economy and some scientists are questioning the need for a 2050 global target and the implications for China.
As more scepticism emerges, this demonstrates that scientists, economists and other opinion leaders are no longer looking at climate change as a simple, easy issue. After the failure of Copenhagen, it will be difficult to secure a deal this year, but I am still positive. Climate issues have moved higher up the agenda.
Bryony Worthington, director of sandbag.org.ukI'd say things look pretty gloomy on the UN front. I am not at all optimistic about the chances of a deal in Mexico. The problem will be the US not having legislated and therefore not being able to sign up to anything which will hold everyone else up. They might go for a less comprehensive bill and try to get that through before the mid-term elections but it's very hard to tell if they're up for any kind of fight at the moment. I suspect they might not be. The EU's continued stalling isn't helping either.
The decision from the Basic countries to provide finance to the least developed countries is interesting and important and the only positive sign I've seen since Copenhagen.
The only other glimmer of hope is that the accord will gain reasonable support and start to be worked on and improved in subsequent negotiations this year.
As for the main negotiations if there aren't substantial changes in UN process, ie a decision-making fora established that is based on majority voting rather than full consensus or consensus amongst a smaller group of nations (ie accord signatories) then Mexico will be hijacked by the same lobbies (Saudi, Cuba, Bolivia and Venezuela blocking everything, Tuvalu blocking weak deals, US and China blocking strong deals), and deliver the same disappointing result as Copenhagen.
I think the angle [President Obama took in the State of the Union address] regarding jobs and American competitiveness was well done and he took care to address the concerns of some of the fossil fuel lobby and win support from nukes. A comprehensive bill may still be beyond him but could look to pass a pared-down one."

Tom Burke, director of E3G
"Copenhagen killed any real chance of a US bill this year. Procrastination is written into the DNA of the Senate and without the need to validate commitments made in Copenhagen there is no overwhelming reason for the Senate to do something this difficult this year. Brown's election simply reduces the prospects from less than 10% to less than 5%. There is some possibility that there will be enough in an energy bill to call it an energy and climate bill but the climate stuff will be window dressing and base massaging not substantive."
The State of the Union was much as expected – high on energy and jobs, low on climate. No serious expectation of a climate bill this year.
There is also very little prospect of a legally binding agreement being reached in Mexico but it is important to keep this as a goal. Sooner or later everyone, including the Chinese and Indians will talk themselves back to understanding that without a comprehensive global regime there is no solving this problem. There is a line in Edwward Albee's play The Zoo Story where a character says something like 'Sometimes you have to go a long way out of your way to come back a short way the right way.'
We are now setting off on the long way out of our way. This will be very expensive in terms of both money and the climate but that's where we have landed ourselves. The real problem is going to be with the US where I think the requirement for 67 votes for a treaty will make their participation in a comprehensive global regime on climate change always too difficult. The rest of the world should therefore go ahead with what it needs to do and find someway to allow the US to associate itself with whatever regime is constructed. We just need to laugh politely when Americans talk of their leadership.
This is not a short-term strategy but may be the best we can get. In the meantime, the Copenhagen Accord is not going to go anywhere except in the headlines. It has no machinery and no resources outside of the UNFCCC so everything you try to do to make it work will have to go back to the UNFCCC to get done. Think of the period between Bali and Copenhagen as the most expensive political education exercise in history. It is going to take some time to digest all the lessons but when we (collectively) have done so we will find that we are back pretty much to the start but in a far worse climate.
I don't think the [IPCC's] glacier gaff froth matters very much in the real world. There were no climate sceptics among the 192 governments in Copenhagen.
Peter Madden, chief executive, Forum for the Future
"I'm pessimistic about the prospects for a global deal. The misjudgements and mishandling around Copenhagen wasted a lot of political momentum, and actually set the whole process back. And I don't see how the stumbling blocks can easily be resolved: Obama's domestic political problems; China's unwillingness to compromise; and the inadequacies of the international framework for negotiating a deal and for implementing any agreement.
Unfortunately, global warming is not going to pause while we get our collective act together; climate change grinds on, indifferent to our hopes, fears and failed conferences.
However, the business case for action remains as strong as it did before Copenhagen. Peak oil is around the corner. Most of the measures needed to decarbonise bring business benefits and it make good sense to act now rather than later. And history tells us that responding to a constraint can drive game-changing innovation, opening up new opportunities.
The good news is that our leading companies have got the low-carbon message and are forging ahead. The likes of Cadbury, M&S, O2 and Unilever are getting on with decarbonising their businesses, offering new products and services and positioning themselves for success in the future. I hope their example can convince politicians and the general public that we can crack this one."
Steve Howard, CEO of The Climate Group and chair of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Climate Change
"It's probably a bit too early to be writing the obituary of COP 16 just yet. While a legally binding deal may now be less likely in 2010, it is very possible to make real progress on a politically binding deal that acts as a platform for meaningful national commitments to cut global emissions. In many ways a politically binding deal amongst major economies can be as significant as a legally binding one if it starts a "race to the top" in terms of ambitious action. Although it is legally binding, is anyone really going to arrest any signatories to the Kyoto Protocol for non-compliance? The good news is that business and sub-national governments are not waiting for COP16. They are already moving because they understand people want to live in a better, cleaner, more energy independent world and the major opportunities for investment, growth and jobs in the low carbon economy are too exciting and compelling to ignore."
David Kennedy, chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change
"Despite the disappointments, there were some positive things to come out of Copenhagen. Implicit in the agreement to limit temperature change to 2 degrees is that global emissions should peak in the next ten years. If the commitments to reduce emissions due at the end of January reflect the top end of ambition that was on the table at Copenhagen, then we would be on track. There is great deal of uncertainty, for example about the domestic political situation and whether it will be possible to get through climate change legislation this year, and what the negotiating position of major developing countries will be. This uncertainty will resolve over the course of the year and we hope that there will be an ambitious agreement in Mexico in December. In the meantime, it is important that he UK focuses on laying the foundations for low carbon economy, putting in place policies that will be required to drive the step change here. The UK has a good opportunity to show other countries that reducing emissions is feasible and brings economic benefits for people and for businesses".
Tom Picken, international climate campaigner, Friends of the Earth
Where we are at the moment, we've seen a strategic gain for the US in weakening the expectations on them. Where we had a very clear legal instrument in the Kyoto Protocol that required reductions from a group of countries who were deemed historically responsible and who were committed to action, now what we have is a gain for the US in creating a new space where there is no longer mandatory scientific-led cuts but pledge-and-review.
If we see the momentum pushing the Copenhagen Accord forward this year, I'm very sceptical about any meaningful agreement before the end of the year. Given where we are with the accord, it's opened up parallel political negotiations, much more than the Major Economies Forum meeting had last year. Now we've got the Berlin meeting that Merkel is going to call; then there's the G20 meetings; the Greenland dialogue.
There's certainly a lot of political momentum in the parallel processes but the extent to which the accord politically binds some countries to bring across the weaker proposals into the UN process, that's the determining factor of where we end up at the end of the year. If we're stuck with pledge-and-review as the basis, the ability to having a meaningful international climate regime to tackle the science fairly is significantly undermined. It also opens up tremendous new offsetting opportunities which will further weaken the climate regime.
We haven't yet seen the peak in political pressure to get the shift in ambition that's needed. I think it's too early to call what we can get by the end of 2010 but certainly I don't see the political pressure as having peaked, it'll only get much stronger.
Greg Clark MP, shadow secretary of state for energy and climate change
Copenhagen was a setback. Estimating the chances of a deal is difficult but I do think you need to understand what Copenhagen taught us. There's a danger that the wrong lessons are taken from Copenhagen. There was clearly a procedural story there with the arrangements and chaos, which clearly were a problem and contributed to it not being a success.
The big revelation of Copenhagen was that a number of countries that were big in importance were not prepared to sign a binding deal. That was a stark revelation. We need to understand why it was that countries like China considered a global deal to be against their interests.
[On UNFCC process being best way to do this] It's completely irrelevant – there may or may not be different forms. You find a procedure and protocol to agree a deal if there is a deal that people are willing to do. But, if they're not, then having the right process will not result in a deal.
Simon Hughes MP, Liberal Democrat environment spokesperson
The world needs a global climate deal this year even more than last. The new parliament to be elected in just a few months may be the last chance that we have to help rescue the world from climate crisis. Whatever the US political difficulties, the British government and the European Union must set a bolder example of cuts in emissions and real contributions to help the developing world. A new UN Climate Security Council could be a positive way of making sure we never get a Copenhagen confusion again.
Maria McCaffery, chief executive of the British Wind Energy Association
No I don't [think there will be a deal in 2010]. We are disappointed that we didn't reach an agreement in Copenhagen but disappointment is a function of expectation. We've got a way to go before everyone's signed up and on the same page. The most emphatic point I'd make is that Copenhagen and all those talks are global but we already have a European deal that we're wholly signed up to and, up to Copenhagen we were very much on track, fully supporting that and motoring at a great rate of knots. And we still are. The failure at Copenhagen was of great interest but it hasn't deflected or derailed us in any way from the trajectory were were already on to achieving renewable energy targets. They, in turn, are reducing emissions and addressing exactly what Copenhagen was all about.
Rhian Kelly, head of climate change at the CBI
There are some sectors that are more international in the way they approach investment decisions – the big energy companies or anyone who looks at the emissions trading schemes or is involved in some of the offset or CDM mechanisms. For them, Copenhagen would have provided certainty and confidence and overall direction of global markets. When we talk to members, the majority of them say that that national frameworks will continue moving forwards and that government has climate change firmly within its eyesight – in that sense, national policy is a far larger driver than an international climate deal. We find, these days, that members have embedded climate change and sustainability into their businesses so they'll do it anyway.
I have a glass-half-full approach. It was really disappointing that Copenhagen didn't deliver more but, looking at some of the movement in the past couple of days such as what happened with Brazil, India, South Africa and China, it looks really positive that the accord, post-31 January, will have captured actions to reduce emissions in a significant portion of the local greenhouse gas emissions. That's really positive but there's a job to do in building trust in the process in developing countries and how to work out how the process will deliver a deal. It won't be an easy year, there's a lot of work to be done.
It doesn't matter which forum delivers it as long was we get something that delivers the global context.
Gareth Morgan, shadow minister of water and environmental affairs, Democratic Alliance (South Africa's main opposition party)
Some of the most common correspondence I get is from people referring to the leaked East Anglia emails and the ramifications. If there is a vaccuum it's going to be filled by those who are sceptical. There is a need for negotiators to occupy the void and start arguing back.
We needed a deal in Copenhagen. It wasn't delivered and this has led to people losing confidence. There's going to be a fightback from business because they're going to say we don't see a climate change deal on the table. The momentum has been lost and huge amount of work has to happen. There has be a diplomatic representation to China – I know a lot of Europeans were stunned that the Chinese argued against firm targets.
The South African parliament has finally started taking climate change seriously. Six months ago you could have counted on one hand the number of MPs who knew anything about the debate. There is now a serious move to form a climate change committee. But all these things will become more difficult without knowing what the global plan is.
HaraldWinkler, associate professor at the Energy Research Centre, Cape Town University, South Africa
India's environment minister said the Kyoto Protocol is in "intensive care" and I think that's apt, it needs to be saved. So much now depends on what the US does - it all flows from that. If the US legislation doesn't go through, the whole process of multilateral agreements could be more difficult. Businesses in South Africa might say, 'If the US isn't doing something as a country, why should we?' That's unanswerable.
South Africa did well at Copenhagen but it didn't achieve what it wanted, a legally binding treaty and a second commitment period under Kyoto. South Africa has been very pro-active in the negotiations and has put ideas forward. But it's not that big a country at the end of the day when political deals are made between the US and China.
Joanne Yawitch, deputy director general, environmental quality and protection, South African government
We believe that the climate issue is fundamentally a global problem and its resolution must be achievedwithin that context. We believe that the developed world must lead and in particular if we are to avoid irreversible and dangerous climate change the scale of ambition in relation to emission reductions from the developed world must be increased.
We are clear that the way forward is through engagement in the multilateral process and specfically through the UNFCCC negotiations. We recognise that there are difficult issues to be resolved, but we cannot see any other way to find a resolution. Indeed a legally binding international agreement can only be achieved through the UNFCCC. South Africa therefore is committed to continuing its engagement in the UNFCCC processes in order to be able to achieve in Mexico in 2010 the legally binding outcome that we had hoped for in Copenhagen."
Will Day, Sustainable Development Commission
The word people are using about Copenhagen is disappointing. That is an understatement because the expectations were high. In fact the expectations were probably unrealistic, given the issue at hand polarises views.
People feel very strongly about this issue and it's often not on the basis of well-thought-through information, it's quite often on misinformation. The debate is unattractive in a lot of ways.
Is a global deal likely? I'm a glass half-full person and I would like to think that it is possible.
There are individuals within apparently obstructive nations that clearly want something to happen. If you look at the US, they're problem has been at a federal level; at a city and state level, there are people and organisations and collectives and communities doing stuff. One of the real problems is that Copenhagen was sort of polarised as a struggle between rich and poor. That's hugely damaging because there will have been some political opportunism because there were large sums of money involved. That complicates matters and distracts attention from what we need to do, which is collaborative. The process ended up being competitive.
The UN is kind of the only show in town when it comes to getting global coherence on this thing. We can and will see bilateral and group conversations. But we're talking about a global good here and the mechanism we have is the United Nations, we don't have any alternatives.
I would hope we got a deal this year but the track record hasn't been great so far.
John Prescott, former UK deputy prime minister
[Will there be a legal agreement this year?] In Europe it will be a legal framework, in other places such as China, it might be one based upon what they've nationally have agreed upon. That raises questions of verification but, nevertheless, if you take what people commit themselves to for the 2015-2020 period, whether it's by legal agreement or by voluntarily stating those targets, you add that up and then get to the first stage and if you can show there's sufficient commitments to cutting emissions, you could say we're on target to achieving something. But it might not be a legal agreement.
I don't care if it's NGOs or government ministers – if they think you can get a legal agreement all signed up and framed up by November in Mexico, I don't believe it.
The trouble [with the negotiation process] we've got at the moment is that each nation delegation stays at its position until the ministers arrive so it's almost an impossible timetable for leaders to fly in and fix the deal unless it's fixed before.
Let's be positive about it, if you look at the number of nations that came together – Brazil, South Africa, China, Europe, America - they represent well over 80% of the carbon-producing countries at the present time and for them to say we're prepared to move along to the next stage and commit ourselves to carbon cuts, that is a step forward.
Mohan Munasinghe, director general of the Sustainable Consumption Institute at the University of Manchester, UK
[The Copenhagen talks] failed miserably to meet expectations (as demanded by the science), and also displayed the remarkable lack of political will by world leaders! To have a "global climate deal worth the name", several conditions are required (see below). I doubt very much whether this will happen in 2010, and it will likely be too late after that, since global emissions must decline by 2020 to reach the 2C (and 400-450 ppmv) maximum target!
1. Industrial countries (already exceeding safe limits) should mitigate and follow the future growth path CE, by restructuring their development patterns to make both production and consumption more sustainable and delink carbon emissions from economic growth.
2. The poorest countries must be provided an adaptation safety net, to reduce vulnerability to climate change impacts.
3. Middle income countries could adopt innovative policies to "tunnel" through (along BDE – below the safe limit), by learning from past experiences of the industrialized world.
4. Developing countries should receive technical and financial assistance, to simultaneously continue to develop (and g ow) more sustainably, by following a less carbon-intensive growth path that also reduces climate vulnerability.
Furthermore, both adaptation and mitigation policies must be fully integrated into sustainable development strategy, satisfying three conditions of sustainomics:
1. Economic viability: cost-effective and affordable.
2. Environmental protection: ecosystem services and natural resources (water, food, energy).
3. Social equity: climate justice includes recognition of climate debt due to past emissions of Annex 1, and fair burden sharing for both mitigation and adaptation in the future.
Simon Retallack, associate director and head of climate change at the Institute for Public Policy Research
It is unlikely that there will be a meaningful global climate deal this year. We need to be honest and recognise that the national political conditions in the countries that matter most on climate change just weren't conducive to a deal in Copenhagen and if anything they have become worse since. If we're to make progress at all, we will need to overcome the deep concerns that exist in both the US and China about the impact of action to reduce or limit emissions on economic prosperity.
We need more of a bottom up approach focused on national politics to convince governments and publics alike that climate action can produce development, jobs and security, and that people working in fossil fuel dependent sectors can achieve a just transition, paving the way for the domestic adoption of policies and measures to deliver emissions targets. That can and must happen regardless of what takes place at the international level.
Prof Anthony Giddens, British sociologist and author of The Politics of Climate Change
I was never much in favour of the Kyoto-Copenhagen-style approach, which was too slow-moving, cumbersome and bureaucratic to make the impact needed. If indeed it does progress, the Accord will be driven by a smaller group of countries. But that group is likely to include all the big polluters and, just as important, cross-cuts the divide between the developed and developing countries, the prime source of acrimony at Copenhagen.
The Accord therefore could provide a lynch-pin for emissions reductions, but we have to think and act on a much broader scale too. Copenhagen was not a singular event: its failure expresses deep-seated problems of global governance. We live in a far more interdependent world than any previous generation – climate change is the negative expression of that interdependence. Yet the institutions of trans-national governance have not advanced in tandem with it. The United Nations is regularly paralysed by the very divisions that sunk the hopes entertained at Copenhagen.
The debacle at Copenhagen could lead to a period of quiescence, in which nothing much is done to pursue active climate change policy. I don't think it is what will happen though. We stand on the edge of an era of profound change. The social and economic system created by the fusion of political and industrial revolution in Europe and America, now becoming globalised, is starting to subvert itself. The dangers posed by climate change are the most dramatic and far-reaching expressions of this, but alongside them one can range much broader issues of sustainability. Whatever happens with formal agreements, we can anticipate a burst of innovation, economic, social and political as well as technological, over the next decade and beyond.
Ben Caldecott, Climate Change Capital
After Copenhagen it's clear that international climate change policy is set to become more fragmented. In many ways this is a suboptimal outcome, especially given the international nature of the challenge we face.
Fortunately, the consequences of this are not as dramatic as many people fear. Sustained and coordinated efforts to tackle climate change will continue via the UNFCCC and be complemented by other processes, such as the Major Economies Forum, World Economic Forum, G20, and G8.
We should also acknowledge that it is regional and national policy, in the form of incentives, regulations, market mechanisms and taxes, that drive forward investment in low carbon alternatives. If these continue to be developed and expanded as planned, we will be in a position to tackle the threat from climate change.
Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society
It's important to maintain the momentum – not only via the cumbersome UN route but via the EU, the G20 and of course bilateral discussions between US and China. It would be regrettable if too much delay were caused by the slow progress of the US domestic agenda. The UK government – especially through the efforts of the prime minister and Ed Miliband – deserves credit for its commitment. It's important also to provide appropriate incentives to ensure that the UK takes a lead – to our long-term economic benefit – in R and D into clean energy technologies."
Colin Challen MP, author of Too Little Too Late: the Politics of Climate Change
A climate deal worth having can only mean one which has a universal carbon cap set at a level which forces the price of carbon well beyond $100 a tonne. That would get things moving, but as it is I do not see the will, least of all in the United States to go anywhere near that level of commitment.