No climate change deal at Copenhagen, world leaders say

The international summit on climate change in Copenhagen next month is unlikely to produce a binding agreement, after world leaders said at the recent APEC meeting in Singapore that producing legal requirements in 22 days is “unrealistic”.

The announcement comes as the Federal Government will attempt to push through its emissions trading scheme legislation this week.

World leaders including US president Barack Obama and Danish prime minister Lars Rasmussen debated the merit of next month’s meeting, and concluded the Copenhagen summit will only see a political framework developed for any further action.

While many climate change activists had hoped the Copenhagen summit would see a definitive timeline developed for reducing emissions, a White House official told reporters the summit is now just “an important step forward”.

“Even if we may not hammer out the last dots of a legally binding instrument, I do believe a political binding agreement with specific commitment to mitigation and finance provides a strong basis for immediate action in the years to come,” Danish prime minister Lars Rasmussen said.

Instead, Rasmussen said a two-track process had been organised yesterday that will enable a preliminary agreement in Copenhagen to be made.

In the APEC leader’s statement released after the meeting, instead of committing towards a final agreement, the group stated they will “reaffirm our commitment to tackle the threat of climate change and work towards an ambitious outcome in Copenhagen”.

Prime minister Kevin Rudd said the summit was only “a stepping stone to Copenhagen”, and maintained developing an agreement will be difficult.

“Leaders in their interventions around the table were clear in their view that the current officials-led process is running into all sorts of difficulties, and therefore it is time for leaders, politically, to step in,” he said. “That was the purpose of our gathering this morning. The tone and content of the meeting was strong and positive.”

Rudd also deferred attention to talks between the US and China, which are set to occur over the next few days as Obama travels on his first diplomatic journey across Asia.

But despite the move to downplay next month’s summit as a critical event, the APEC members said the biggest part of a deal, which would involve agreeing on requirements for cutting emissions, will take place until next year at the earliest.

The decision was attacked by environmental lobby group WWF, saying the group had “missed a great opportunity to move the world closer to a fair, ambitious and binding agreement”.

This means individual countries are now responsible for their own emissions trading programs once again, but even those agreements are in doubt.

It is expected the Obama administration in the US will see significant opposition to its own climate bill, while several members of parliament in Australia are expected to vote against the Federal Government’s emissions trading scheme this week.