Out in the Cold

Sleepless nights following hours and hours of negotiations at the Copenhagen climate change conference can get to you, especially when one’s flight home via Frankfurt is canceled.

Perfect. Not only did the conference fail to deliver a legally binding deal, as hoped by the 45,000 delegates who descended on the Danish capital, but I ended up stuck at the airport. And I’m not even Tom Hanks, and there’s definitely no Catherine Zeta-Jones anywhere in sight.

If only there had been a more uplifting resolution, then I might be among thousands of people popping champagne corks in celebration. It was anything but.

To be honest, even before arriving at the conference I sensed that no happy ending was in sight.

That feeling began when Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen put forward a draft political declaration for a select group of countries before the conference began – a move certain to annoy and raise suspicions among those not on the list.

Arriving for the second week of the conference, just days before the high-level sessions began, I was blindsided by an accreditation nightmare. In the dead of winter, I along with thousands of others had to stand in line for 10 freezing hours, only to be denied entry.

The reason was that the Bella Center, which hosted the talks, could only accommodate 15,000 people, and a figure of 45,000 was beyond expectation. But that reason in itself was unacceptable because those of us left out in the cold had been accredited online by the UN.

It’s too bad that many of those denied entry to the conference came from civil society groups that should have been inside to ensure the voice of ordinary people – those most affected by climate change – was heard.

The next day was better, until the negotiations became mired in deadlock, followed by boycotts, protests and on the last two days, marathon rounds of meetings that lasted until daybreak.

Thousands of people came to the summit, including 119 heads of states and government, bracing the biting Copenhagen winter, convinced of the need for a new global agreement to fight climate change as agreed at the Bali conference two years prior.

As the delegates left Copenhagen without a real deal or an agreement for a legally binding treaty to be made next year in Mexico, I could not help imagining what I would have tried to do as one of the leaders entrusted to determine the future of humankind.

If I were President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, I would certainly have played hardball to make sure a deal was reached in Copenhagen, rather than merely agree to a deal struck by several nations led by the United States – the world’s second-biggest CO2 emitter, which rejected the climate treaty of the Kyoto Protocol.

As the host of the Bali climate conference, which required that Copenhagen produce a legally binding deal, I would not have bowed to pressure to shift from the original plan.

But I guess it would be hard for the President to focus on climate change amid the constant pressure from the Bank Century scandal back home (most of the journalists in his entourage were also more interested in reporting on the happenings in Jakarta).

Sure, progress was made in that several countries cut a deal to reduce emissions, with their targets to be measured and verified transparently, but the main goal remained to have a treaty that bound countries to act as one.

I do not envy US President Barack Obama. It would be hard to be in his position, required to get approval from Congress to make a pledge to cut emissions further even if he wanted to.

On the other hand, high hopes were on him to help salvage the original objectives of the conference and include the United States in the new deal.

His desperate last-minute efforts to secure a deal – from personally getting involved in making the draft, even checking the commas – deserve credit, no matter how weak the Copenhagen Accord (and at least it includes China, the world’s biggest CO2 emitter).

Still, I could not understand why the European Union did not reject the accord. Taking action against the United States might not look good, but if I had led any of the EU delegations, I would do just that, convinced that many developing countries would follow my lead.
I would also insist, in writing, that we produce a binding climate treaty the next year.

During the conference, I could not help sympathizing with President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives. In his heartfelt speeches, he came across as a man who simply wanted a decent deal to save his island nation, which faces probably the greatest threat from rising sea levels. Having been there, I understand his fears.

He captivated listeners with his simple wish that his grandchildren would still be able to call the Maldives their home.

And there are two people I would definitely not want to be at this time: Lars Lokke Rasmussen and UN climate chief Yvo de Boer.

While everybody else can pretend to forget and move on, they must be suffering sleepless nights and feeling responsible for the conference’s failure.

I still do not understand why Prime Minister Rasmussen dismissed chief Danish negotiator Thomas Becker just weeks before the summit, or his decision to take over the summit’s presidency from Connie Hedegaard during the high-level sessions.

He might have been trying to ensure a deal could be reached, or he might have been trying to be polite to the arriving heads of states.
But the conference should have been chaired by someone with the required broad knowledge of the climate convention and the politics involved. No one else.

De Boer was also probably out of sorts, because several delegates had raised fears the climate change conference might suffer the same fate as the collapsed Doha trade talks in 2001. Despite assurances from the World Trade Organization, no deal has been agreed upon.

At the final press conference, de Boer, looking tired and not his usual jovial self with the media, declared he would repeat his Christmas wish from Bali 2007 for the legally binding treaty to be realized, only this time for the next climate conference in Mexico.

But a wish is just a wish, as easily forgotten and forsaken as the New Year’s resolutions that I make every each year. After all the hype and hope of Copenhagen, we definitely need something stronger than that.

+ Stevie Emilia

Back to The top page