Connie Hedegaard, the Danish Minister for climate change and future President of the Conference of the Parties (COP) in Copenhagen, gave a clear and very urgent speech at the opening of the talks today. Five negotiating days are left before the end game in Copenhagen, and there are still fundamental unresolved issues in many sections of the legal text that the world is supposed to sign up to in less than seven weeks.
No one is wearing rose-tinted glasses here in Barcelona; the mood oscillates between fighting against all odds, sudden bursts of hope and anger, and the wish to move these negotiations that little bit faster that would give us the deal.
After the opening plenary sessions, the negotiators moved rapidly into their different contact groups to set out their work plan for the week and get to work on the text. Naturally in this first day, news are still limited as the agreements and confrontations yet need to arise. But a number of remarkable and/or disappointing things happened:
The African countries announced in the Working Group on the Kyoto Protocol that they insist on clarity of the aggregate emissions reductions of Annex 1 Countries. Most Annex 1 countries – with the US and Russia as the main exceptions – have announced their emisisons reduction targets, but they don’t add up to the level of at least 40% below 1990 levels that is needed to give Africa some certainty against the worst consequences of climate change. And the annex 1 countries have not yet agreed to an aggregate target. The African countries blocked some meetings of subgroups to underline the importance of this point.
This is a clear illustration of the level of frustration on the side of the vulnerable countries with the lack of ambition on the side of developed countries, who should long ago have agreed to the level of emission reductions they are striving for. And who should have shown the courage to choose an ambitious aggregate target in line with the science.
One discussion has been constant here: if a 'legally binding' legal text as an outcome of Copenhagen could be replaced by a 'politically binding' statement. We all know that if 50 km/h maximum speed for cars in settlements were only politically binding and not legally, these places would be pretty dangerous places to walk around in, and you would certainly be worried for your kids. Yet a range of politicians and delegations have floated the idea of a 'politically binding' result - which would mean that any notion of a reliable and honourable deal would go down the drain. Barcelona is the place where we NGOs are working to ensure that the 'politically binding' idea dies a fast death.
The surprise FOSSIL OF THE DAY went to Denmark. The Danish Prime Minister has been one of the main architects in coining new wooly weasel words like the "politically binding" deal in Copenhagen as a possible alternative to a "legally binding" framework agreement.
COMMUNICATIONS
A communications technique that is keeping us amused and inspired here in Barcelona are the sketches of two graphic artists. Both Stine and Ole specialise in graphic facilitation - in this heavily wordy environment where everyone is focussed on text, their sketches and comic-like drawings should help us - but even more so negotiators and parties - to see things in a new and different light.
WWF Spain held a highly successful stunt outside the centre, where a local theatre group showed the impacts of climate change on nature, and how decisive action could blow away the threat of pollution. Inside, we are working the media - a fair number of international media are here and will stay through the week, enough to keep us busy.
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