The Climate Group publishes briefing on the Copenhagen Accord

The Climate Group has published an assessment of the Copenhagen summit together with a shorter Q&A.

It concludes that there are positive and less positive points in the Copenhagen Accord:

Positive points

• Having the US, China, India and other major developing countries sign up to a joint climate agreement for the first time.
• All of these countries making unconditional national pledges to either cut or slow the growth of their emissions and/or implement specific measures to achieve this.
• Securing agreement on limiting average global temperature increase to 2oC or less.
• Resolution of the monitoring, reporting and verification issue relating to developing country mitigation action (a previous deadlock issue).
• Developed countries’ commitment to provide 30 billion US dollars of short-term funding through to 2012, and 100 billion US dollars per annum of long-term funding by 2020, close to the level many had been demanding.

Less positive points

• Lack of a long-term global emission reduction goal (e.g. 50% reduction of emissions by 2050).
• Lack of both individual and aggregate absolute emission targets for developed countries for 2020.
• Lack of relative emission reduction targets for developing countries for 2020 (i.e. deviation from BAU trajectories).
• Absence of any reference to a global emissions peaking date, or even a developed country peaking date, meaning that, together with the above, no clear pathway for emissions has been agreed.
• No mention of a timetable for concluding a legally binding agreement.
• Little or no reference to the need for, and role of, expanded carbon markets and no clarity over the future of the CDM and other market-based instruments.
• The uncertainty created over the future of the UNFCCC process, and particularly the Kyoto Protocol.
• Lack of any obvious mechanism for regularly ratcheting up levels of ambition (apart from the 2015 review).

The overall assessment is that the ’Accord represents an important political step, which, if implemented with ambition and in a spirit of cooperation, has the potential to unlock real and significant action at both national and international levels. However, this is conditional on immediate, concrete and ongoing commitment from all major economies beginning in early 2010.’