Day 4 for me today.  Yesterday, the developing nations staged a walkout from the negotiations.  This was largely to dramatise their concern about the developed world’s unwillingness to taken on meaningful pollution reduction targets.  After negotiations were suspended, there was a lot of discussion over what would happen here over the four days of the Conference that remain. To simplify massively, there are four big sticking points in the way of reaching a comprehensive agreement -  the targets each country adopts; the level of compensation to be paid to developing countries; the best way to measure and police each nation’s emissions; and how the Copenhagen agreement takes over from the Kyoto Protocol.

Based on what veterans of the process have been saying, the consensus is that there are four alternative scenarios for how the week will end up:

1. A comprehensive agreement with detailed rules. Unfortunately, given the complexity of the issues that remain to be agreed, and the fact that the US is not a party to the Kyoto Protocol, but is the key player in terms of making commitments for its replacement, this seems virtually impossible.  The US has only really been engaging since President Obama’s coming into office in January, and although considerable progress has been made, including developing countries voluntarily agreeing to some fairly impressive emissions reduction targets, an enormous amount of detail still has to be resolved.

2. A political framework with minimal detail. This seems to be the best outcome that can be hoped for.  Under it, countries will agree to a set of principles and goals that lack final numbers, with those numbers being negotiated in the two years between now and the expiry of the Kyoto Protocol.  This is in fact how Kyoto itself came about – in 1995, countries agreed the “Berlin Mandate” which two years later became the detailed set of rules we now know as the Protocol.

3. A ‘greenwash’ agreement. Under this scenario, countries paper over their many disagreements but fail to make and real progress, or agree further steps.  A high level statement of concern, but no agreed timetable for concrete actions, would be the outcome.  In many ways, the worst possible outcome because it would take huge effort to get things back on track.

4. A dramatic failure. Developing nations,especially small island states at risk of devastation from climate change,  frustrated at a lack of commitment from wealthy countries, walk out of the negotiations permanently because they won’t agree to a greenwash.  Some new framwork would need to be found going forward, potentially via individual UN bodies like the Food and Agriculture Organisation on land use change and forestry, and International Martime Organisation and IATA on bunker fuels.

The NZ officials from MFAT, MFE and MAF are really well thought of here – as opposed to the political leaders from NZ.  The officials are seen as having worked hard for many years on the technical issues at stake, and have a reputation for diligence, honesty and integrity.  Thank goodness for them, even if they make our current Government look better than it deserves.  It would not surprise me if the officials end up playing an important role in brokering any forward deal.  Hopefully there will be one!

Here is a photo of me with Aaron Packard, one of the driving forces behind 350 Aotearoa, in the Radhudspladsen in Central Copenhagen, on Sunday afternoon.  Aaron has done a terrific job working with other young people, first in New Zealand and more lately internationally, to raise awareness about climate change.  350.org works in a non-partisan way, and invites representatives from all political parties to participate in its events.  One of its most recent rallies was a candlelight vigil held in Wellington on Saturday night.

I ran into Aaron as he and a colleague were putting up posters around the Radhudsplatsen – which has been set up as a people’s centre on climate change – to advertise a talk being given tomorrow by President Nasheed of Mauritius and Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org.  I met Bill today, and I’m looking forward to hearing the talk tomorrow. Mauritius is in the same position as many of our Pacific neighbours – it has contributed little or nothing to the problem of climate change, but being comprised of low-lying atolls, it will be amongst the first and most drastically to be affected by the problem.

Tomorrow also sees the arrival of ministerial delegations in Copenhagen.  Business groups are miffed that they have been omitted from New Zealand’s (large) delegation, which – apart from Nick Smith and Tim Groser, and representatives of the iwi leaders’ group who were added as part of the National/Maori Party deal to amend the ETS – is
entirely composed of officials.  Like NGO groups and media, business representatives are having to rely on briefings, conducted to date by Nick Smith’s politically-appointed climate change advisor, a former Business New Zealand staffer.  A broader-based delegation, including key business and NGO figures, with direct access to official advice
and support, would be more likely to work in New Zealand’s interests.

Meanwhile, the Government maintains its increasingly untenable positions on:

• pollution reduction targets (”Unless we get every concession out of the Copenhagen Conference that we want, we won’t be announcing tougher targets, even if other countries do”)
• its lack of a plan to get domestic pollution down (”We want to change the way in which emissions are counted, rather than actually reduce emissions.  Failing that, we’ll just buy emissions credits offshore rather than achieve reductions at home”)
• support for the small island states (”We follow the USA and Australia in all things because Tim Groser sees climate change talks as an extension of our trade negotiation strategy rather than an environmental issue”)

And we all thought their “moderated” ETS was bad enough.  It was just a warm-up (no pun intended).