Those who were expecting clarity and resolution on how the world would tackle climate change beyond 2012 to emerge from the Copenhagen conference in December will have to wait. The fair, ambitious and legally binding agreement that many were hoping would come out of the fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP15) did not emerge.

There was no two-track outcome in the form of a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, with developed countries taking on the required emissions reduction targets; or developed nations committing to comply with their convention obligations of providing assistance on adaptation, finance and technology to developing countries - which was what South Africa's Department of Water and Environmental Affairs (DWEA) initially sought.

What Copenhagen did offer, was the Copenhagen Accord - a three-page document, sculpted in a room where 28 of the 193 partici- pating member countries were present, and which has only been ‘noted', and not adopted, by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Debate sways on how important the Copenhagen Accord is, with some calling it disappointingly weak and a way for leading politicians to save face, and others regarding it as a good starting point or stepping stone. It is a purely political agreement, with no legal standing, and it has not been accepted through consensus by all UNFCCC member States.

The accord emphasises the strong political will to combat climate change, and accepts the scientific view that global warming should be kept below 2 ºC; and leaders agree that deep cuts in emissions are needed, while recognising that developing countries will need a longer timeframe for emissions to peak.

"Everything [the accord] puts on the table, it also subtly subverts. For example, it says the global average temperature rise must be kept below 2 ºC, but doesn't say how this will be achieved," notes Imbewu Sustainability Legal Specialists director Andrew Gilder.

One of the main areas where it was felt that the accord progressed matters was that it showed that the US was participating in the negotiations at a more meaningful level. However, at the same time, it was felt that the US position was one of the most intransigent on show at the summit. While US President Barack Obama is viewed as a charismatic man, with good advisers, he cannot promise more than the US Congress has decided can be offered.

The accord also created a space for advanced developing countries like China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, Mexico and South Korea to record, at international level, their emissions reduction actions. These were to be formally submitted to the UNFCC by January 31, 2010, at the same time that developed countries were to outline and submit their quantified emissions reduction commitments.

The accord states that developed countries commit to providing funding to developing nations, reaching $30-billion for the period from 2010 to 2012, and with a goal of mobilising $100-billion a year by 2020 to assist developing countries.

A "significant portion" of this money should flow through the Copenhagen Green Climate Fund, which will be established as the operating entity of the financial mechanism, to support projects, programmes, policies and other mitigation-related activities in the developing world. It adds that a high-level panel will be established to study the contribution of potential sources of revenue to meet the goal of $100-billion a year by 2020.

"A big problem is the lack of clarity on additional finance. Thirty-billion dollars a year by 2012 is a step up, but still short of what studies indicate will be needed. It also doesn't move us forward on the sources of finance, which will require innovative ideas," adds World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) climate change programme manager Richard Worthington.

It was felt that positive progress was made in the field of Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (Redd) at COP15, and the accord notes that Redd plays a crucial role in combating climate change and that positive incentives must be provided through the establishment of a mechanism to mobilise financial resources from developed countries.

The accord also states that a technology mechanism will be established to accel- erate technology development and transfer on adaptation and mitigation, and will be guided by and based on national circumstances and priorities.

University of Cambridge programme for sustainability leadership senior associate Stefan Raubenheimer points out that an emerging trend for countries is to pick a certain technology, and lead in the research and development of that technology. For example, South Korea was progressing in work on smart grids, while Germany pushed forward with photovoltaic advancement, and the UK showed growing interest in commercialising carbon capture and storage technology.

However, there were important areas where the Copenhagen Accord did not deliver. There was a lack of agreement on the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, which developing countries are largely in favour of as a means of legally binding emissions reduction from developed countries. The European Union, in contrast, increasingly seems to be abandoning the Kyoto Protocol as an unworkable experiment.

"Let's not pretend that this accord is worth the paper it's written on yet. It is not enough by a long shot. But it means [South Africa] is in the big club now. We have made a conditional offer, and are setting out our intended mitigation actions, and an unprece- dented amount of work lies ahead of all the stakeholders in South Africa to align ourselves behind this mitigation trajectory," emphasises Raubenheimer.

A New World Order
"The accord, and the way in which it was agreed, shows a shift in geopolitics," WWF trade and investment adviser Peet du Plooy tells Engineering News.

The accord that was finally noted by the UNFCCC was, at first, constructed by the Basic group of countries (Brazil, South Africa, India, and China). The Environment Ministers of these countries have met again since the Copenhagen conference, reaffirming their commitment to coordinate climate change responses.

"The Copenhagen Accord is an interesting document. There were about 30 countries in the room, and a number of different blocs were reflected. There were probably about 17 developing countries there," South African Department of Environmental Affairs deputy director-general Joanne Yawitch explains.

In addition to a new involvement from the US, China is also viewed as playing a very different role to what it did previously. It is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and, while being regarded as a leading country in the negotiations, is also relatively new to negotiations of this sort and displays caution by blocking decisions that it is concerned about.

Another vocal bloc of countries emerging at the negotiations is what is known as the Alba countries, or Bolivarian countries, which include Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Dominica, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Antigua and Barbuda, and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

The Alba bloc refused to accept the Copenhagen Accord. Led by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales, these countries are challenging capitalism and promoting a fundamental redistribution of wealth.

"Let's not change the climate, let's change the system!" emphasised Chavez in his speech at COP15, which was received with applause. "If the climate was one of the biggest capitalist banks, the rich governments would have saved it," he added, paying credit to slogans being shouted outside the conference hall by protestors.

Another voice emerged from the Small Island Developing States (Sids), largely highlighted by Tuvalu, a Polynesian island nation in the Pacific Ocean near Fiji, and, at a mere 26 km2, the smallest country in the world.

The Sids also refused to sign the accord, stating that signing any agreement that could mean an increase in temperatures of more than 1,5 ºC was tantamount to signing a suicide note. If the average global temperature increased by more than 1,5 ºC, the accom- panying sea-level rise would mean their countries would disappear completely.

"The distrust between the developing and the developed groups was huge at the beginning of the COP. This is partly because they see the problem in different ways - the developing countries construct the problem as one of an equitable sharing of the develop- ment space - [the amount of space left for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere] - whereas the developed countries see it as a techno- managerial problem to be solved with the aid of markets," points out Raubenheimer.

Multilateral Process in Question
"In addition to multilateral processes, we are likely to see, in future, increased regional and domestic approaches.

As to whether or not that will dilute the multilateral process - I don't think that will happen in the next three or four years," says Gilder.

Yawitch concedes that much international debate has emerged about the United Nations (UN) and whether it would be easier for countries to reach agreement in smaller groupings, rather that trying to reach general consensus.

"But for us, as a country and as part of the African continent, the multilateral process is absolutely prime. We believe in participating and inclusion and, for us, the UN is really where the space is to do it. Consensus may seem impossible to achieve but, with the will and correct processes, we can achieve it. So we are going to stick firmly within the UNFCCC process and we will talk to anyone," she affirms.

South Africa's Commitment
Prior to the global climate change conference in Copenhagen in December, South African President Jacob Zuma outlined that South Africa would undertake greenhouse-gas emissions mitigation action that would result in a deviation below the current emissions baseline of around 34% by 2020 and by around 42% by 2025.

Despite being contingent on a legally supportive framework and stable financial flows from developed nations, this is viewed as an ambitious target.

Yawitch explains that these targets were derived largely from the long-term mitigation scenario document, as well as the latest version of the Department of Energy's inte-grated resources plan with its various renew- able energy and energy efficiency commitments, and the clean technology investment fund portfolio commitments.

"The commitments that South Africa is making are commitments that we need to understand, unpack and take very seriously, even though they are conditional, for now. They are something totally new for us in South Africa - they are something that is going to mean that our commitment to energy efficiency, recycling, renewable energy and so on is now going to have to be scaled up by an order of magnitude. And it will present new challenges, not [only] for Eskom and Sasol but [also] for every one of us," confirms Raubenheimer.

Yawitch adds that, if South Africa does not step up to the mark in terms of clean technology, the country could lose its competitive edge and be a "market taker instead or a market maker".

Importantly, the DWEA has said that it aims to release South Africa's national climate change policy and White Paper by the end of 2010.

It is hoped that, in creating this policy, an integrated stakeholder management process will inform decisions on the way forward. This document will provide guidance for sectors and companies on what they should be doing, and will be required to do, with regard to climate change, which is a phenomenon that touches almost every sector in some way.

COP17 in South Africa
The seventeenth COP will be hosted in South Africa in 2011, and Yawitch has highlighted that the country must start preparing for this now.

According to Yawitch, one of the funda-mental lessons that came out of Copenhagen was that "if you don't get your processes right, you can't produce a content outcome".

Indeed, as the host of COP15, Denmark has come under much fire, following the conference in Copenhagen, for bad organisation and mismanagement. Some 45 000 people were accredited to attend the con- ference while the venue could hold only 15 000 delegates. Some have blamed the inability to reach a global agreement on the disorder at the conference.

The bad handling of issues by Denmark was seen by some, at best, as simple chaos and inadequate processes, and, at worst, as deliberate attempts by various parties to sow dissention and weaken structures to ensure no agreement was reached.

However, Raubenheimer notes that an important issue is the "tremendous disjuncture between the technical work and the political decisions", and adds that the nature of the climate change debate is too technical for the politicians, and too political for the technocrats.

"We need to be clear that in the lead-up to Mexico (COP16 in 2010) and into 2011, when we host COP17, we are going to need to build trust and confidence in the process. We would like to run a 2011 COP as the ‘people's COP' where everyone feels that they can see themselves in the process and engage with it," says Yawitch.