Introduction

At present, global warming is undoubtedly the greatest threat faced by the world. For the past
century, Earth’s temperature is continuously rising, resulting in major climate changes like
melting of glaciers and rising sea levels. Global warming in no exaggeration blatantly endangers
life in all its forms. Rapid industrialization and increase in burning petrol in vehicles is the main
cause for such alarming greenhouse emissions that are causing Global warming (Syah 2009).

For this very reason, people worldwide are now getting wary of this impending threat and
realizing the dangers await them and their future generations. Governments and other world
bodies are joining hands to fight this calamity. One such action is that of the Copenhagen Accord
(Ravindranath 2010).

Copenhagen Accord
The Copenhagen Accord, approved on 18th December 2009 was a series of decisions undertaken
by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and is apparently
a continuation of Kyoto Protocol. (<http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/cop15/eng/l07.pdf>).

The accord focuses on the prime elements of the Bali Action Plan of 2007. Firstly, a long-term
goal was set which recognizes the scientific view that the earth’s temperature must not rise
above 2 degree Celsius. Also, it demands an assessment of the accord by 2015 as well as the
objective of strengthening the goal to temperature rises of 1.5 degrees Celsius. In addition, was
the adaptation section which recognized that countries worldwide face adverse impacts of
climate change, for which developed countries shall provide developing countries with enough
financial resources to implement adaptation action in them. Moreover, the mitigation element
states that Annex I (developed countries) must commit to execute economy-wide emission
targets for 2020, whereas the Annex II (developing) countries should implement mitigation acts
(lessen their emissions). There will be complete transparency, whereby delivery of reductions
and financing by Annex I nations will be measured, reported and verified based on guidelines
established in the UNFCCC Conference. It was expected that the developed country targets and

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some initial actions of developing countries would be entered in two appendices by January 31 st
2010, to which additional actions could be later included. Moreover, actions for which
developing countries are seeking and receiving support should be listed in the developing
country appendix (<http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/cop15/eng/l07.pdf>).

In order to encourage the fulfillment of adaptation actions in developing countries, it was stated
that developed countries would provide adequate, predictable and sustainable technology,
finance and capacity building. The accord also calls for an instantaneous establishment of a
mechanism for mobilizing financial resources from developed countries to support the reduction
of emissions from deforestation, forest degradation and also to elevate forest sinks. To drive
technology development and transfer, the bargain also enacted a new Technology Mechanism.
The deal asked developed countries to have a joint commitment of giving $30 billion of aid for
developing nations over 2010-2012 as well as collectively put together $100 billion for
mitigation and transparency actions on implementation. Finance to achieve the long-term goal is
to be a combination of both public and private resources. A new Copenhagen Green Climate
Fund and a High Level Panel are also called on for to ensure effective delivering of finance to
achieve the long-term goal (<http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/cop15/eng/l07.pdf>).

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Reasons why Copenhagen Accord is difficult to be
legally binding

The Copenhagen Accord in simple terms, is a short document of about 1400 words having little
detail and ambition. After two years of intense negotiation and anticipations of a new climate-
change framework, the Copenhagen accord showed weak progress toward being a legally
binding treaty. There was much disagreement between the nations due to the accord having a
lack of details and ‘ulterior motives’ by nations (Lane & Hwang 2010). The large scale
consensus on seriousness of global warming failed to overcome the collective-action problem,
mostly believed to be a result of failure of industrialized countries to support their ending of the
climate change bargain. Copenhagen Accord suggested to be as ‘Bali 2’ highlighting that it is
limited to repeating many goals set out in the Bali Action Plan, instead of making any
development on them. Several South American countries, including Venezuela, Cuba and
Nicaragua protested that the accord was a document of powerful countries aimed at killing the
KP (Kyoto Protocol) which had put the blame and responsibility on developed countries to clear
up the disaster (Ravindranath 2010).

The framework began with a statement emphasizing the importance of climate change and its
global challenges. It is stated in the agreement that rise in world temperature should be below 2
degrees Celsius, but exactly how the atmospheric gas levels are to be stabilized is not clearly
stated in the accord. It vaguely highlights that developed nations must commit to implement
(individually or jointly) the economy wide targets for 2020, to be submitted to the UN secretariat
by 31 January 2010 but these are self set targets which do not conform goal attainment (Levi
2009).

Moreover, in response to Obama administration’s vision of a new treaty to succeed Kyoto,

parties refused to approve the Copenhagen Accord. After a week of bitter negotiations, 194
countries agreed to “take note of” rather than “accept” the accord. This meant that United States
and the BASIC countries were not legally bound, as they simply noted the document but refused
to sign on it. Not only that, but the Copenhagen Accord evidently does not have a deadline for
passing a binding treaty at COP 16 Mexico, 2011. This certainly makes it unclear whether the
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agreement is a formal UN deal. Moreover, reports on climate changes do not have formal
agreement and the draft was made only for “important countries” rather than all countries inside
the court. Due to this reason, countries that are not in the list could not give their statement
whether they want to accept the accord. In addition, some representatives from island nations
that directly affected by global warming did not want to sign “suicide part” (Becker & Seidler
2009).

The US and China, world’s largest contributors to climate change and emitters were also
believed to be the core reason for failure to reach a considerable agreement. The US rejected
their targets. On the other hand, China and other developing countries felt that the outcome of the
meeting had resulted in unfairness of cutting emission in some countries. Findings suggest that
United States, China, European Union, Russia and India are the main countries that are blamed
for the increase in CO2 due to production process (Reuters 2010). In Copenhagen Accord, China
blamed United States and other rich countries because of the unfairness in cutting emission. For
developed countries such as United States, the reduction of the emission is to be 17% from 2005
by 2020 or around 4% below by 1990 levels. On the other hand, developing countries such as
China has to reduce the emission around 40% - 45% by 2020 (Englum 2010). It is unfair since
China has a greater population than United States and the reduction will prevent millions of
people from having access to electricity, even for their basic cooking and washing activities. In
other words, the poorer countries are expected to tackle a problem they did not mainly cause
(Syah 2009). Moreover, the poorer countries do not have sufficient resources to do so which is
why China refused to be legally bound, due to the clear unfairness in China cutting its emissions
while many other rich countries failed to achieve Kyoto Protocol.

Moreover, the Accord itself did not give further information for long term. In Copenhagen
Accord 2009, there was a lack of commitment and continuous agreement (Science 2010). The
draft itself seemed to be unclear because there were no further statements such as:

• How much the reduction of emission in several years later?

• Will developed countries provide long term funds?

• How much are major developing countries willing to reduce their emission?
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 • How is the help given by developed countries in order to reduce the emission for
developing countries in adapting the climate changes?

The other reason would be there was undemocratic result. As mentioned before, Copenhagen
Accord was showed only for the “important countries”. Therefore, the result will be unfair for
the rest vulnerable countries especially the countries that are mostly affected by climate changes.
A major issue of Copenhagen Accord is the lack of ambitions in order to reduce the emission.
EU has made their decision to cut the emission by 20% by 2020 and will increase to 30% if the
others countries also increase their emission reduction (France 24 2009). However, this statement
made China and United States to reschedule their emission reduction until next month. In
addition, China has been persistent in accusing rich nations to have responsibility to the global
warming issues. On the other hand, according to (Sunderland 2009), in Copenhagen Accord
there was no emphasis on transfer of technology from developed countries to developing
countries. Technology transfers will allow developing countries to lower the damage that are
caused by climate changes and lower their emission. However, there is a lack of political
assistance to help. This shows that developed countries have not recognized the needs from
developing countries.

In addition, developing countries are trying to avoid mitigation topic since developed countries
have not decided and verified the amount of technology and funds. According to (Meyer 2009),
Copenhagen Accord uses “bottom up” approach rather than “top-down” approach. Which means
that the accord would like to determine what they want to do and add up together to see how far
it will work rather than determine the overall assessment of emission reduction and budget, and
divide the budget among the countries. In this case, it shows that the negotiation among the
“important” countries which are United States, China, Brazil and India have led to many
questions whether the Accord will divide the task fairly or show some countries’ fear which
represent “ unwillingness to cooperate”. Developing countries was asking developed countries to
give them as much as one percent to their collective GDP or around $300 billion annually in
order to reduce the emission. However, the western politicians would not send this amount of
money because they see developing countries as their economic competitor in term of trade (Levi
2009). As it is known, for developing countries, GDP is more important compared to the money
that they will receive from the rich countries.
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More than 80 countries do not support the deal. OPEC countries like Saudi Arabia refused in
fearing loss of their oil revenues if the world shifted to renewable energies and some small island
states like Tuvalu worried about rising sea levels and asked for more effective implementation
(Becker & Seidler 2009).

Conclusion

The overall failure of Copenhagen is observed to be the nearly impossible challenge of bringing
together 200 nations with varying levels of economic development to agree on generalized
emission reduction targets. The animosity between developing countries and developed countries
may perhaps only diminish when increased commitments are made by developed nations to
provide aid. It now depends on these developed nations on how they may raise billions of dollars
to help developing countries adapt to global warming. Nonetheless, it cannot be denied that
Copenhagen Accord is a stepping stone covering all major issues such as forestry and start up
funds.

Reference List

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Becker, M & Seidler, C 2009, Failure Looming at Copenhagen Climate Summit, Spiegel
International, viewed on 5 May 2010,
<http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,667346,00.html>.

Draft decision-cp.15-Copenhagen Accord, viewed 28 April 2010,

<http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/cop15/eng/l07.pdf>.

Englum, L 2010, China, India and Brazil Agree to the Copenhagen Accord’s Deadline for
Climate Pollution Commitments, WWF, viewed 3 May 2010,

< http://www.wwfblogs.org/climate/content/china-india-and-brazil-agree-copenhagen-
accord’s-deadline-climate-pollution-commitments>.

Environment New Service 2009, A Copenhagen Climate Accord, Not Nothing, But Not Enough,
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France 24 International News 2009, Europe laments 'lack of ambition' in climate deal, viewed 6
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Lane, T and Hwang, T 2010, Putting a Price on Climate Change, Harvard Political Review,
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Levi, M 2009, Copenhagen's Inconvenient Truth: How to Salvage the Climate Conference,
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Meyer, A 2009, The Copenhagen Accord: Not everything we wanted, but something to build on,
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< http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/big_picture_solutions/the-copenhagen-
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Pellerin, C 2009, Copenhagen Accord Politically Significant but Not Legally Binding:
Last-minute agreement targets temperature rise, financing, deforestation, viewed 2 May 2010,
<www.america.gov/st/energyenglish/2009/December/20091222131726lcnirellep0.1802179.ht>.

Ravindranath, NH 2010, “The Copenhagen Accord”, Current Science, vol. 98, no. 6, pp. 751-53.

Reuters 2010, China and India endorse Copenhagen deal, TVNZ, viewed 2 May 2010,
< http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/china-endorses-copenhagen-accord-3400728>.

Science, I 2010, Copenhagen conference: success or failure, I Science, Viewed on 5 May 2010,
< http://dougal.union.ic.ac.uk/media/iscience/?p=896>.

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accord-success-or-failure-the-green-piece/>.

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< http://www.globalissues.org/article/784/cop15-copenhagen-climate-conference>.