Flopenhagen. Brokenhagen, COP-OUT-HAGEN… The historical climate conference turned into a historical failure.

What does the political agreement called “Copenhagen Accord” mean?

1.      The developed countries (biggest GHG emitters) have no specific reductions. They need to submit their voluntary reductions by January 31^st 2010.

2.      The developed countries shall put 30 billion dollars for mitigation and adaptation in the developing ones during the 2010-2012 period. It is not clear whether all these money will be “fresh and new” or the bigger part will be simply ”recycled” old money. Most of these funds will be secured by private sources (buying and selling carbon credits) and some “alternative sources of funding” are mentioned without any further explanation. The developed countries shall also mobilize 100 billion dollars a year by 2020 for the needs of the developing ones. It is even more unclear where will this money come from and what exactly will their purpose be. What is clear is that a big portion of these funds would be distributed through a newly established Copenhagen Green Climate Fond.

3.      None of the above is legally binding.

To put it in more appropriate words: Copenhagen did not provide fair, ambitious and legally binding agreement which will ensure that the global warming is limited to 2°C, thus preventing the most catastrophic consequences, let alone an agreement which would limit the warming to 1,5°C, as requested rightfully by the most vulnerable countries in the world.

How was the “agreement” concluded?

In a highly non-transparent way, behind closed doors and by very few selected members of the “exclusive club”. Some official delegations from Africa heard that there is an agreement from the Obama press conference. The NGOs were kicked out of the Bella Center early during the week, in an aggressive and scandalous way, which is a clear breach of the Aarhus Convention Denmark and many of the Annex1 countries ratified.

Conclusion?

Nothing is done yet. On the contrary, the lesson learnt in Copenhagen is that the citizens and NGOs around the world in the next year, until COP16 in Mexico, need to mobilize even more and create even greater pressure on the politicians. In a civilized and peaceful way, but a pressure which can not be ignored. Simply because we have no other choice – if the politicians put profit before the planet, we have to find a way to wake them up.

Take a look at a short video sum up from Guardian here