Copenhagen conference blows up over leaked draft

The long-awaited Copenhagen climate-change summit broke down last night, after the leak of a new draft treaty, apparently intended to substitute for the long-anticipated draft, enraged the representatives of most of the participating countries in the Fifteenth United Nations Conference of Parties (COP-15).

The new draft, called the "Danish Text" because the Danish delegation was allegedly putting it forward, nullifies completely the earlier draft put forward in October. The latest draft, dated November 27, apparently vests control of any emissions-mitigating scheme in the World Bank, not the United Nations. The draft would also abandon the Kyoto Protocol rather than renewing it, and make any financial aid to developing countries subject to several conditions that several developing-country delegates found objectionable. Among other conditions, developing countries would now be asked to agree to their own emissions cuts, a thing that the Kyoto Protocol did not require, and would also limit developing countries to a much lower per-capita level of emissions.

Developing-country delegates and various worldwide environment advocates are clearly angry. Said one diplomat (name and country affiliation withheld):

It is being done in secret. Clearly the intention is to get Obama and the leaders of other rich countries to muscle it through when they arrive next week. It effectively is the end of the UN process.

US President Barack Obama had announced, two days prior to the start of the conference, his altered plans to attend the conference toward its end, not on Wednesday as originally scheduled. His abrupt change of plans has fueled speculation that he would arrive with a secret draft or offer in hand, and many had connected his change of plans with the announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that it had found carbon dioxide to be a clear and present danger to environmental health, therefore subject to regulation. The release of the so-called "Danish Text" now suggests that Obama anticipated being able to return to the United States Senate with a treaty that that body was much more likely to ratify than was the Kyoto Protocol, which the Senate pre-emptively rejected in its year.

The furor shows every sign of worsening. At 17:30 UTC, a dedicated COP-15 website took note of an article in The Jakarta Post reporting that the Indonesian delegation is already proposing that any climate-change treaty discussions be extended until June of next year, on account of widening differences among the G-77 nations.

This article is a follow-up to this earlier article:

Copenhagen conference begins today

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