http://www.independent.co.uk

Efforts to secure a legally-binding climate change deal failed last week because talks were “held to ransom” by a small number of countries, Gordon Brown said today.

As the UK pointed the finger of blame at China for blocking progress at the UN-sponsored summit in Copenhagen, he called for a new international body to take charge of future negotiations.

Days of chaotic talks between more than 190 countries produced an accord that average world temperature rises should not exceed 2C but without commitments to emissions cuts to achieve it.

There was also agreement on a fund, to reach 100 billion US dollars by 2020, to help poorer countries deal with global warming, but no precise detail on where the money will come from.

The Prime Minister, who spent four days in the Danish capital trying to secure a stronger deal, admitted that he feared the talks could collapse without even those advances.

And, in a webcast to be posted on the Number 10 site, he pledged to continue pressing for a binding deal and demanded action to ensure a minority of countries could not block future efforts.

“The talks in Copenhagen were not easy. and, as they reached conclusion, I did fear the process would collapse and we would have no deal at all,” he said.

“Yet, through strength of common purpose, we were able finally to break the deadlock and – in a breakthrough never seen on this scale before – secure agreement from the international community.”

Calling on the world to “learn lessons” from last week’s frantic scenes, he said: “Never again should we face the deadlock that threatened to pull down those talks; never again should we let a global deal to move towards a greener future be held to ransom by only a handful of countries.

“One of the frustrations for me was the lack of a global body with the sole responsibility for environmental stewardship.

“I believe that in 2010 we will need to look at reforming our international institutions to meet the common challenges we face as a global community.”

Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband earlier accused China of “hijacking” the Copenhagen summit and said Beijing had “vetoed” moves to give legal force to the accord and prevented agreement on 50% global reductions in greenhouse emissions – 80% in the most developed countries – by 2050.

“We did not get an agreement on 50% reductions in global emissions by 2050 or on 80% reductions by developed countries. Both were vetoed by China, despite the support of a coalition of developed and the vast majority of developing countries,” he wrote in The Guardian.

“Together we will make clear to those countries holding out against a binding legal treaty that we will not allow them to block global progress,” he said.

“The last two weeks at times have presented a farcical picture to the public. We cannot again allow negotiations on real points of substance to be hijacked in this way.

“We will need to have major reform of the UN body overseeing the negotiations and of the way the negotiations are conducted.”

Despite his frustrations, Mr Miliband insisted that Britain was right to sign the limited Copenhagen accord, which he said delivered “real outcomes” on temperature rises and finance.

“We should take heart from the achievements and step up our efforts,” he said.

“The road from Copenhagen will have as many obstacles as the road to it. But this year has proved what can be done, as well as the scale of the challenge we face.”

Oxfam joined the calls for a revamp of the negotiating system to avoid a repeat of what its “global ambassador” Archbishop Desmond Tutu called the “profoundly distressing” failure of the Copenhagen talks to get a binding deal.

The aid charity warned that by the time of the next scheduled round of UN-sponsored talks, in Mexico in December, around 150,000 people would have died and a million been displaced as a result of climate change.

It said a series of ministerial-level meetings should be held before then and the talks given a permanent base – as Geneva serves as a location for world trade talks – and more help given to developing countries.

Oxfam’s climate change adviser Antonio Hill said: “The Copenhagen Accord is hugely disappointing but it also reveals how the traditional approach to international negotiations, based on brinkmanship and national self-interest, is both unfit for pursuing our common destiny and downright dangerous.

“There is too much at stake for this politics-as-usual approach. We must act quickly to address the shortfalls of these negotiations so that we can make up for lost time and tackle climate change with the decisiveness and urgency needed. This cannot happen again.”

Archbishop Tutu said: “The failure of the political process in Copenhagen to achieve a fair, adequate and binding deal on climate change is profoundly distressing.

“A higher purpose was at stake but our political leaders have proven themselves unable to rise to the challenge. We must look to the future. Our leaders must regroup, learn and make good their failure for the sake of humanity’s failure.”

Speaking via videolink to a gathering in London, Mr Brown said reform of the UN decision-making was necessary because the final Copenhagen accord had not represented the level of agreement across the world.

The Prime Minister said: “We have just got to find a way to actually move the process forward, because what Copenhagen disguised in its last day was that the level of agreement between the countries was a great deal higher than was being reflected in the detailed text that was being provided,” the Prime Minister said.

He pledged to work with island states, the African Union and directly-affected countries like Bangladesh among others to develop a “better process where the agreement that we have amongst each other is better reflected in the text”.

Mr Brown also called on the United States and China to show more “ambition”, arguing that it was not enough for the EU to say it was prepared to cut emissions by 30%.

“What we need is not just one part of the world going to higher ranges of ambitions, we need the other parts of the world as well,” Mr Brown said.

“If America and China were able to show that they were doing more, and I believe that they could, then all countries – Australia, Brazil, Japan, Korea – all these countries that have got ranges would be prepared to go to their highest level of ambition.”

Describing the decision-making process in the Danish capital as “at best flawed, at worst chaotic”, Mr Brown said: “The United Nations needs to be in a position where we can get agreements with Governments working together without having these last-minute negotiations where threats and fear can actually dominate the proceedings.”

The Prime Minister said he remained committed to achieving a legally-binding deal and would continue to work to achieve it.

He added: “I believe there is sufficient goodwill around the world to want to make this happen, and I can assure you that over the next weeks and months we will press hard not only for a climate treaty but for the means in which the world can come together.”

Tory leader David Cameron described the summit as disappointing.

He said: “We should be thankful for the small things that have been achieved like the 2C limit on temperature rises and the good work on rainforests.

“But it’s disappointing overall because there are no carbon reduction targets, the details on help for poorer countries to tackle global warming is vague and it’s not a legally binding treaty.

“We need now to step up the work to get that done.”

Lessons should be learnt from Copenhagen about how to make the machinery of international talks work better, he added.

“I think we need better and different and more rigorous machinery to get countries together and to get the preliminary work done first,” he said. “We need to get the Sherpas to do more before they get to the summit.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/gordon-brown-small-number-of-countries-held-copenhagen-talks-to-ransom-1846794.html

By Michael McCarthy

http://www.independent.co.uk

Global warming scientists join attack on email theft as Copenhagen summit begins.

It has been billed as the most important meeting for half a century, and yesterday, with 15,000 people in attendance, the Copenhagen Climate Conference opened with a robust and angry defence of the science of global warming by two of the world’s leading climate science figures.

Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the Nobel-Prize winning head of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC), and Dr Jonathan Pershing, the head of the US delegation to the conference, both hit out at the theft of emails from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, which has been used by climate sceptics in Britain, the US and elsewhere to allege that global warming is not man-made.

There has been widespread speculation that the timing of the theft represented a specific attempt to destabilise the conference, in which the world community will attempt to construct a new treaty to cut back on the emissions of carbon dioxide causing the atmosphere to warm.

But yesterday Dr Pershing said that all the incident had done was to “release a barrage of further information which makes clear the robustness of the science.” He said it was “shameful” how some of the scientists involved were now being pilloried.

Dr Pachauri told the conference opening ceremony, presided over by the Danish Prime Minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, that some people clearly found it “inconvenient” to accept the inevitability of the changes that would have to be made in the face of the climate change threat.

“The recent incident of stealing the emails of scientists at the University of East Anglia shows that some would go to the extent of carrying out illegal acts perhaps in an attempt to discredit the IPCC,” he said. “But the panel has a record of transparent and objective assessment stretching back over 21 years, performed by tens of thousands of dedicated scientists from all corners of the globe.”

The conference, being held at the giant Bella Centre in Copenhagen’s southern suburbs, is bringing together 192 countries, all of whom accept the verdict of the IPCC’s most recent report, published in 2007, that the warming of the climate system is “unequivocal” and that there is a better than nine out of 10 chance that it is being caused by human actions – principally the emissions of carbon dioxide from industry, transport and deforestation, which retain the Sun’s heat in the atmosphere.

The 2007 report said that if CO2 emissions continued without being checked, the Earth’s temperature would be likely to rise by between 1.8C and 4C over the coming century – with an outside chance that it could hit 6C, which would be disastrous for the natural world and human society. But more recent scientific assessments have suggested that emissions are now rising so fast that the Earth is firmly on track to hit the 6C rise if action is not taken.

Dr Pachauri listed for the conference – and for the world – some of the consequences global warming would lead to if it were left unchecked. They included widespread increases in droughts and floods, greater stress on water resources, increases in tropical cyclone intensity, more extinctions of wild species and the eventual melting of the Greenland ice sheet, which would cause sea levels around the world to rise by more than 20 feet.

Cutting back on the emissions responsible was now the urgent task of the “historically important meeting”, he said. But it will not be a matter just for the thousands of delegates. Mr Rasmussen announced that the number of world leaders who would be attending the finale of the conference at the end of next week had now reached 110. He said: “Their presence reflects an unprecedented mobilisation of political determination to combat climate change. It represents a huge opportunity – an opportunity the world cannot afford to miss.”

This morning the negotiations proper get under way, with the aim being an agreement in which the industrialised countries such as the US and Britain make strong commitments to cut back their CO2 by up to 40 per cent by 2020, with the leading developing countries such as China and India making firm pledges to move away from “business as usual” in terms of their emissions growth.

Underpinning the deal will have to be a major new financial agreement which provides the developing nations with billions of dollars from the rich world in new climate aid, to help them cut their emissions and also adapt to climate change which is now probably unavoidable, such as widely increased flooding.

Day One: The highlights

*UN Climate Conference, two years in preparation, opens in Copenhagen with 15,000 delegates, observers and media personnel in attendance.

*United Nations climate chief and head of American delegation attack climate sceptics and defend science behind global warming.

*110 heads of state and government, including US President Barack Obama, now preparing to attend conference finale next week.

*European Union says it wants stronger commitments from the US and China to cut CO2 before raising its own ambitions.

*South Africa is final big developing country to announce a climate target.

*Danish Prime Minister apologises to delegates for lack of Little Mermaid figurine in their conference kits.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/we-wont-let-sceptics-hijack-climate-talks-1836029.html

by Roger Harrabin

http://news.bbc.co.uk

This year will be one of the top five warmest years globally since records began 150 years ago, according to figures compiled by the Met Office.

The UK’s weather service projects that, unless there is an exceptionally cold spell before the end of the year, temperatures will be up on last year.

Climate sceptics had pointed out that the temperature rise appeared to have stalled in the last decade or so.

That was caused in part by the Pacific La Nina current, which cools the Earth.

But the influence of La Nina declined in the spring and the Met Office project that, barring a very cold December, this year will be the fifth warmest on record.

Other sources say it could even be the third warmest.

The last ten years have been in the top 15 warmest on record. And this summer the UK enjoyed temperatures higher than the long-term average.

Although the Met Office was pilloried after forecasting a “barbecue summer”, it was their rainfall forecast, not the projected temperatures, that was wrong.

Next year we will see the influence of the warming El Nino current, and the Met Office says there is a 50% chance that global temperatures will hit an all-time high.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8377128.stm

by Richard Black

http://news.bbc.co.uk

Average temperatures across the world are on course to rise by up to 6C without urgent action to curb CO2 emissions, according a new analysis.

Emissions rose by 29% between 2000 and 2008, says the Global Carbon Project.

All of that growth came in developing countries, but a quarter of it came through production of goods for consumption in industrialised nations.

The study comes against a backdrop of mixed messages on the chances of a new deal at next month’s UN climate summit.

According to lead scientist Corinne Le Quere, the new findings should add urgency to the political discussions.

“Based on our knowledge of recent trends and the time it takes to change energy infrastructure, I think that the Copenhagen conference next month is our last chance to stabilise at 2C in a smooth and organised way,” she told BBC News.

“If the agreement is too weak or if the commitments are not respected, it’s not two and a half or three degrees that we will get, it’s five or six – that’s the path that we are on right now.”

Professor Le Quere, who holds posts at the UK’s University of East Anglia and the British Antarctic Survey, is lead author on the study that is published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Rising sinks

The Global Carbon Project (GCP) is a network of scientists in academic institutions around the world.

It uses just about every source of data available, from atmospheric observations to business inventories, to build up a detailed picture of carbon dioxide emissions, carbon sinks, and trends.

Before about 2002, global emissions grew by about 1% per year.

Then the rate increased to about 3% per year, the change coming mainly from a ramping up in China’s economic output, before falling slightly in 2008 as the global economy dipped towards recession.

Endorsing similar projections from the International Energy Agency, the GCP suggests emissions will fall by about 3% during 2009 before resuming their rise as the recession ends.

Concentrations in the atmosphere also show an upward trend – as monitored at stations such as Mauna Loa in Hawaii – but at a lower rate.

The team believes that carbon sinks – the oceans and plants – are probably absorbing a slightly lower proportion of the carbon dioxide from fossil fuel emissions than they were 50 years ago, although researchers admit that uncertainty about the behaviour of sinks remains high.

Industrial emissions have climbed, but those from land use change have remains constant.

As a consequence, the proportion of global emissions coming from deforestation has fallen – about 12% now compared with 20% in the 1990s.

“One implication of this low fraction is that there is only limited scope for rich nations to offset emissions by supporting avoidance of deforestation in tropical countries like Indonesia and Brazil,” observed Michael Rapauch from the Australian government research agency CSIRO and co-chair of the GCP.

A mechanism for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) is due to be concluded at next month’s summit.

Future plans

Richard Betts, head of climate impacts at the UK Met Office and an author on the chapter of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report dealing with the effects of a changing atmosphere, suggested the report ought to be of interest to policymakers in the run-up to the Copenhagen summit.

“It’s an important step towards understanding what we’re doing to the world’s carbon budget,” he said.

However, he questioned the conclusion that society is necessarily on a trajectory leading towards 6C.

The IPCC plots out a number of “scenarios” – visions of how society might develop in terms of the size of the human population, economic growth and energy use – each of which comes with projected ranges of temperature rise.

Although the GCP study suggests society is on one of the high emission (and therefore high temperature rise) pathways, Dr Betts cautioned that it was too soon to discern a long-term trend.

“Year-to-year changes in the global economy have quite an effect, and it’s too early to discern longer term, robust changes,” he said.

“However, if we continue to let emissions rise without mitigation, there’s a strong chance we’ll hit 4C and beyond.

“If we want to be staying below 2C then it’s true to say we’ve only got a few years to curb emissions.”

These temperature rises – measured against a 19th Century baseline – would be expected to occur around the end of this century or the middle of next century, said Professor Le Quere.

Border controls

One of the most intriguing findings from the study is the difference between the emissions produced directly by a given nation and the emissions generated through production of the goods and services consumed by its citizens.

Emissions from within the UK’s borders, for example, fell by 5% between 1992 and 2004, says the GCP analysis.

However, emissions from goods and services consumed in the UK rose by 12% over the same period.

“The developed world has exported to the developing world the emissions it would have produced had it met its growing appetite for consumer goods itself for the last two decades,” said CSIRO’s John Finnegan.

“In one sense, the developed world owns a large fraction of the developing world’s emissions.”

Another of the analyses shows that per-capita emissions across the globe are rising.

On average, each human now consumes goods and services “worth” 1.3 tonnes of carbon – up from 1.1 tonnes in 2000.

The GCP analysis suggests that constraining the global temperature rise to 2C would entail reducing per-capita emissions to 0.3 tonnes by 2050.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8364926.stm

The United States of America is the nation least concerned about climate change according to a new survey.

The HSBC Climate Confidence Monitor polled consumers from 12 nations – Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Mexico, the UK and the USA – on their attitudes and behaviour regarding the threat of climate change.

For numerous questions in the survey, it was the citizens of the United States who emerged as the least worried or active when it came to tackling climate change.

For example, when participants were asked to rank how concerned they were about a list of world issues (global economic stability, terrorism, violence in everyday life, climate change, pandemic diseases, global poverty, social breakdown and natural disasters), just 6% of US consumers stipulated climate change as a top concern, the lowest percentage of any country. Only natural disasters ranked lower as a concern among US consumers at 3%. (See Concern about World Issues.)

Concern about World Issues

It was a similar story regarding commitment. The survey showed the US had the least number of people making a significant effort to help reduce climate change through how they live their life today (see Commitment by Country).

Commitment by Country

US consumers also had the lowest net rating for making low carbon choices to tackle climate change and reduce carbon footprints (see All Low-carbon Choices by Country).

All Low-carbon Choices by Country

Ahead of the crucial United Nations meeting in Copenhagen in December to try and reach a new international agreement on emissions reduction before the Kyoto Protocol expires, the survey asked the people of the world how much importance they placed on a global deal being achieved. Once again, the people of the US were revealed to be the least concerned, well behind all the other nations participating in the survey (see New Global Emissions Deal “Extremely Important” by Country).

New Global Emissions Deal "Extremely Important" by Country

For more on the HSBC Climate Confidence Monitor 2009 see http://www.hsbc.com/1/2/climateconfidencemonitor

Climate change vs crime

According to 63% of the world’s consumers, tackling climate change is every bit as important as fighting crime – in fact, as many as 13% among them think it is MORE important.

That is one of the revelations from the HSBC Climate Confidence Monitor 2009, a survey which questioned people from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Mexico, the UK and the USA regarding their attitudes to climate change.

Priorities for Spending Public Money vs. Climate Change

A country-by-country analysis of the crime vs. climate change debate shows broadly similar opinions across the globe, with some interesting variations.

In France, as many as 18% think dealing with climate change is more important than fighting crime, and 17% in Hong Kong agree with them, while only 7% from the United Kingdom concur.

The UK places the highest priority on tackling crime, with 58% believing it to be more important than battling climate change, followed by the US with 50%.

However, the people of Hong Kong, Germany, France and Mexico differ, with those seeing crime as a greater priority than climate change numbering 22%, 23%, 25% and 27% respectively.

The majority of consumers in Germany (63%), Hong Kong (61%), Mexico (60%), France (57%), China (54%) and Brazil (53%) think tackling climate change and fighting crime are equally important.

The importance of tackling crime compared to climate change, by country, 2009

For more information, see http://www.hsbc.com/1/2/climateconfidencemonitor

Climate change matters more than defence, say consumers

Tackling climate change is either as important or more important than strengthening national defences – that’s the view of nearly 80% of the world’s consumers according to a survey from HSBC.

The HSBC Climate Confidence Monitor 2009 questioned people from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Mexico, the UK and the USA to gauge their attitudes and behaviour regarding climate change.

The results show that overall, 37 per cent believe that strengthening national defences should be a lower priority than dealing with climate change, while 41 per cent think they are equally important and only 22% believe national defences should take precedence over climate change measures.

Priorities for Spending Public Money vs. Climate Change

However, a country-by-country analysis of the answers reveals a marked difference in attitudes across the globe.

In both France and Germany, at the hub of the European Union, 63 per cent of consumers prioritize tackling climate change over strengthening defences, with only eight per cent in France and seven per cent in Germany believing that defences are more important.

But in the USA it’s a different story, with 45 per cent prioritizing their nation’s defences over dealing with global warming and only 17 per cent seeing climate change as the more important issue. India is the only nation placing more importance over national defences than the US, with just 15% who believe tackling climate change should take priority.

China is another country generally placing more importance on national defensive strength than climate change, with 51 per cent seeing the issues as equal, and 31 per cent believing that defences are a higher priority.

In the UK, as many as 70 per cent of consumers believe that national defences are a lower priority (31 per cent) or about equal in priority (39 per cent) to tackling climate change.

Other nations with a large proporation of consumers who believe global warming is a more important issue than strengthening national defences include Mexico (50 per cent), Hong Kong (47 per cent), Brazil (45 per cent) and Canada.

Strengthening National Defence, by country, 2009

Despite this, the HSBC Climate Confidence Monitor 2009 shows an overall drop in levels of concern for climate change – falling eight per cent globally among consumers in the last year and 12 per cent in developing countries since 2007.

The report cites the economic downturn as a likely reason behind the drop in concern levels, and points out that even among those who strongly disagree that climate change is one of the biggest issues they worry about today, more than half are active in undertaking a number of low-carbon  choices that reduce their carbon footprint.

For more information, see http://www.hsbc.com/1/2/climateconfidencemonitor

http://www.telegraph.co.uk

Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, has declared a “breakthrough” in climate change as EU leaders name the price of tackling carbon emissions.

Subject to formal endorsement in summit conclusions being prepared in Brussels, Europe has agreed to make a conditional offer to the rest of the world at global environment negotiations in Copenhagen in December.

The move is a victory for the Prime Minister, who on Thursday warned the summit that failure to include figures would risk the breakdown of the UN talks.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said the financial cost should not be included in the EU’s proposed package of ambitious climate change targets – at least not until other nations signal their readiness to pay their share.

But the summit text puts a 100 billion euros-a-year (£89.6 billion) price on curbing global warming by 2020, of which annual public funding is estimated at 22-50bn euros.(£19.7bn – £44.8bn.)

The EU’s combined share of that would be between 7-10bn euros (£6.2bn – £8.96bn) a year by 2020.

UK officials say that, subject to the “conditional offer” being accepted in Copenhagen, the UK share of the EU contribution would work out at about £1bn a year by 2020.

Mr Brown had wanted a narrower range of 30-40bn euros (£26.8bn – £35.8bn) as the global public funding estimate to keeping global warming below a two degree rise, but, to bring Ms Merkel on board, he accepted the need for a looser range of figures.

“I think that this is a breakthrough that takes us forward to Copenhagen and makes a Copenhagen agreement possible.” said the Prime Minister.

“Europe is making three conditional offers – money on the table, saying we will do everything we can to make a climate change agreement happen, and help for developing countries into that agreement.

“Now we want other countries to respond to what we’re doing.

“I think developing countries can now say they are ready to cut their emissions substantially over the next few years.”

Mr Brown also wants to up the ante by pressing the world to start making financial contributions to the climate change costs earlier than the planned start-date of 2013.

Additional figures added to the EU offer today call for global pre-2013 spending on climate change of 5-7bn euros (£4.5bn – £6.2bn).

A UK government official said: “All of this is conditional on other countries putting in their fair share”.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/6466949/Gordon-Brown-hails-breakthrough-as-EU-names-price-of-tackling-climate-change.html

by Suzanne Goldenberg

http://www.guardian.co.uk

The number of Americans who believe in global warming has plummeted, falling 20% in two years, a survey said today.

Only 57% of Americans believe there is solid scientific evidence that the Earth’s atmosphere is warming, said the poll of 1,500 people by the Pew Research Centre for the People & the Press.

That is a fall of 77% from 2007. The number of people who believe that human activity is causing global warming also fell to just 36%.

The public uncertainty about the evidence behind global warming comes as the Senate prepares to begin debate next week on climate change legislation. Yesterday, 18 scientific organisations wrote Congress to reaffirm the consensus behind global warming.

Michael Dimock, the associate director of the Pew Centre, said the economic crisis and the struggles over healthcare reform had squeezed out climate change and the environment as issues of concern. “The public is just not as focused on global warming and environmental [issues] as they have been in the past.”

But James Hoggan, a PR executive and author of Climate Cover-Up, blamed an intense lobbying campaign against global warming legislation now before the Senate. “I would say a big part of this problem is this campaign to mislead Americans about climate science,” he said. “This is a very sophisticated group of people who know how to create doubt and confusion and they have done a very good job of it.”

The decline was sharpest among independent voters and Republicans. Republicans in Congress have almost uniformly lined up against climate change legislation. There were also regional differences, with people in the mid-west and Rocky mountain states less inclined to see climate change as a serious problem.

But the perceived lack of concrete evidence for global warming did not necessarily hurt the prospects of voting on climate change legislation, Dimock said. Half of Americans polled remain in favour of putting limits and carbon emissions and making companies pay for their emissions — the basics of the cap and trade bill now before the Senate.

A majority, 56%, also want America to join other countries in a global agreement on climate change.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/22/climate-change-us-pew-survey

by Jonathan Watts

http://www.guardian.co.uk

China and India have signed a pact to coordinate their approach to climate negotiations and some domestic policies.

The world’s two most populous nations signed a memorandum of understanding yesterday ahead of back-to-back summits between their leaders and US president Barack Obama next month.

The two nations will also form a joint working group that will meet once a year to coordinate policies. And they will cooperate on renewable energy and research into the effects of climate change on Himalayan glaciers.

But the timing of the announcement highlights the importance of maintaining at least a show of unity on the climate issue, despite heightened tensions between the two nations. China and India are among the leaders of the G77 bloc of developing nations, who have consistently argued that they should not be obliged to set internationally binding targets for reducing greenhouse gases because richer nations have a far greater historical responsibility for the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

But with China now the world’s biggest emitter and India the fourth, one of the central goals of the Copenhagen summit is to find a formula that encourages these nations to make verifiable commitments to tackle climate change while leaving room for their economies to develop. The United States hopes to make progress towards a breakthrough when Obama meets China’s president Hu Jintao in Beijing on November 16-17 and then plays host to India’s prime minister Manmohan Singh at the White House on November 24.

But many inside these Asian nations are wary of efforts to make emerging economies break ranks. Earlier this week, Indian media criticised the country’s environment minister Jairam Ramesh and opposition parties for considering a softening of India’s negotiating position.

Ramesh has since clarified there is no change in Indian policy or its alliance with other developing nations. At the signing ceremony for the memorandum yesterday, he stressed: “There is no difference between the Indian and Chinese negotiating positions and we are discussing further what the two countries should be doing for a successful outcome at Copenhagen.”

New Delhi has also sought reassurance from Beijing that China will not sign a bilateral deal with the US that runs contrary to G77 goals. At the signing ceremony, Xie Zhenhua, China’s vice-chairman of National Development and Reform Commission and the country’s top climate change negotiator, tried to soothe such concerns: “We regard India as a sincere, devoted friend and the MoU [memorandum of understanding] on climate change will take our cooperation on the issue to a new high.”

Indian and Chinese climate campaigners welcomed the show of solidarity. “This is a good sign that developing nations are sticking together despite pressure from developed nations,” said Siddharth Pathak, climate and energy campaigner of Greenpeace India. “They will not allow themselves to bullied by other countries.”

Shirish Sinha, the head of the climate change programme at WWF India said the two nations faced common challenges in ensuring energy security and reducing poverty that set them apart from wealthier economies.

“It is largely in the interests of both countries given the pressure coming on them to take action, to really come together,” he said. Despite the apparent hardening of positions and the lack of time before Copenhagen, climate negotiators said they had not given up hope of a positive outcome.”

“I think the Copenhagen talks will eventually come up with something. So many people have been working on it for such a long time, and the whole world is watching, there will be something,” said Liu Bin a climate expert at Tsinghua University and Chinese negotiator.

“I am getting a little more hopeful,” said Chung Rae-Kwon, the climate change ambassador for South Korea. “I think we are getting progress in finding an agreement.”

South Korea has proposed a compromise under which developing nations would register domestic actions to slow the growth of emissions. Although these targets would not be internationally binding, they would be subject to outside verification.

It is unclear, however, whether a suitable formula can be found in time to persuade India, China and the United States to sign up at Copenhagen. Preparatory talks last month in Bangkok ended in acrimonious squabbles.

“Time is running out,” said Yang Fuqiang, the director of the climate change and energy programme of WWF China. “It’s possible that all we will get at Copenhagen is a political declaration and an agreement to extend the process.”

A key to any agreement is for the US Senate to ratify a climate bill before the country’s negotiators go to Copenhagen. Former vice-president Al Gore, who is spearheading efforts to get a bill passed, told an audience in Beijing yesterday that he was confident of success, but he cautioned against over-expectation.

He said any global pact reached in Copenhagen was bound to disappoint many people, but it would be a step forward that could be strengthened at a later date once the business community received a signal that they would have to change their ways. “I choose to be optimistic,” he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/22/china-india-climate-change-cooperation