Was the Copenhagen summit a failure? What will the international climate change regime look like in the next three to five years?

• Pages: 46-47

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Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, Match/April 2010

THE FORUM

Was the Copenhagen summit a failure?

What will the international climate change

regime look like in the next three to f‌ive years?

Ayear ago, the hope was that the U.S.

Congress would pass climate change

legislation in 2009, followed by the tri-

umphal rollout of a new, enforceable,

mandatory program of national green-

house gas emission reductions at the 15th meeting

of the parties to the U.N. Framework Convention

on Climate Change in December. Unfortunately,

the negotiators and heads of state at the Copen-

hagen summit failed to pass a real successor to the

convention’s Kyoto Protocol, which governs emis-

sion during the period from 2008 to 2012 and con-

tains enforceable limits for the world’s industrial

powerhouses.

Several nations, including both developed and

developing countries, did come together on an

agreement called the Copenhagen Accord, which

establishes for the f‌irst time a call to restrict emis-

sions of GHGs that applies to all countries alike,

although developing countries will only be asked

to reduce emissions intensity, not overall levels. In

addition, the agreement establishes a top limit to

global average temperature of 2 degrees Celsius.

But is that enough? What more is needed in

terms of national commitments to make the next

conference of the parties in Mexico later this year a

success in bringing together all the world’s econo-

mies in an enforceable emissions reduction regime?