After a controversial draft of a climate treaty was leaked from the host Danish government earlier this week, questions were raised about Danish leadership (host nations usually play a crucial role in the talks, i.e., Japan in 1997 at COP3 Kyoto) and the strength of a final Copenhagen treaty. Because the Danish draft allows much higher per capita emissions up to 2050 than previous drafts, and because it gives the UN a lesser role in climate financing for poorer nations, developing nations reacted harshly to the leaked draft, including staging impromptu protests in Copenhagen.
Today, though, the Los Angeles Times reports that major developing nations actually helped craft the same draft they’re protesting:
Developing countries including China, India, Brazil, Algeria, Ethiopia and Bangladesh had “input into the process and product” of the proposed agreement, the source [with “deep knowledge of the negotiations”] said.
Representatives of those nations knew about the agreement’s most controversial provisions, including commitments for greenhouse gas reductions by developing countries and a reduced role for the United Nations in climate policy, well before the summit began. It was unclear if everyone in the room agreed to every provision.
As many have pointed out, the Danish draft was largely perceived as developed countries applying some pressure on their poorer counterparts as part of the negotiation process. “The rich countries are demanding something in return for the dollars they are promising to spend,” the Financial Times‘ Fiona Harvey recently wrote, “rather than doing what some developing countries and many NGOs demand, which is to give that money for free as ‘reparations’ for the damage they have already done to the climate.” But if several major developing countries had a hand in the Danish text, then perhaps that’s evidence of some early agreement bridging the developed-developing chasm—which, if you remember, pretty much sunk the Kyoto Protocol from a US perspective—on what language could make it into a final, necessary treaty.
