The Copenhagen summit might have flopped, but South Africa could be the hero of 2010 in finding a way to unite divergent climate change approaches
South Africa and President Jacob Zuma may have been sucked into a “weak” political agreement for the sake of clinching any deal in the frenzy of negotiations at the Copenhagen climate talks.
Some critics have expressed concerns that the Copenhagen accord is a betrayal of the strong negotiating position the South African team insisted on.
The accord’s major drawback is that it stipulates no targets for nations to cap their emissions to counter climate change. There are also fears that the strong G77 coalition of mostly developing nations has been split by the accord.
Countries such as Sudan are describing the agreement as a huge betrayal. Venezuela, under President Hugo Chávez, has begun campaigning against it. Rich nations have also tried to blame China for the collapse of talks, while ignoring their own role.
A legally binding agreement was expected to come out of Copenhagen at the end of last year, but all that participating nations managed to achieve was a controversial political agreement. It is now hoped that the full agreement will be delivered in Mexico at the end of this year.
In the wake of the disappointments of Copenhagen, South African negotiators are gearing up for a year of tough negotiations aimed at securing a legally binding agreement for the world.
Despite the country’s strong role in drawing up the much-decried Copenhagen Accord, many delegates at the talks still believe that South Africa could be the hero of the climate change conference scheduled to be held in Mexico at the end of 2010.
“South Africa has a very moral position, though the shenanigans of Copenhagen drowned out its voice a little,” a delegate said. “But expect a lot from it in 2010. And forget the Copenhagen Accord. That is politics led by [United States President Barack] Obama. [South Africa] will be critical in getting the desired legally binding agreement.”
Tasneem Essop, a political analyst at WWF South Africa, said the accord was neither what NGOs expected nor what they wanted. “It wasn’t even close,” she said.
But Essop said it had to be understood that the accord was a political agreement driven by the force of the large number of heads of state at Copenhagen.
“When you get political leaders together to move the process forward, you will get a political agreement,” she said. “Negotiators work outside that framework to get an accord, but political heads bring a new dimension to the negotiations.”
She hoped the political deals would lead to something more substantial.
The first step for South Africa is to meet its partner countries from the influential so-called Basic — Brazil, South Africa, India and China — states in Delhi at the end of the month.
The alliance has been described as the most powerful to emerge from the Copenhagen talks and a major development in the realignment of world power.
In Copenhagen the nations held daily meetings to firm up their position against rich nations such as the US, Canada, Australia and Japan, which were pressurising them to take on emissions caps.
On the last day, heads of state, including Zuma, were in constant talks, which ended with a critical meeting between the Basic nations and Obama, in which the US president used his political muscle.
There was also huge pressure to ditch the Kyoto Protocol, which the Basic nations countered.
The meeting in Delhi will try to sort out the common positions of the states. South Africa’s lead negotiators and Environment Minister Buyelwa Sonjica are likely to attend.
The pressure on the Basic countries to commit in a legally binding agreement to capping their emissions will be even heavier this year, and they believe a common position to counter it is essential.
At the same time, they will have to discuss the concessions they are likely to make in tough negotiations, and exactly what their position is on the Copenhagen Accord.
The Basic nations were critical to drawing up the Copenhagen agreement, which is not final.
Denmark, the host, must still formally ask countries to join the accord, which currently has no United Nations status.
Under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change the accord will become a legally binding instrument only if all 192 member countries sign it.
But already, four countries — Bolivia, Venezuela, Sudan and the small island state of Tuvalu — have refused to sign. The conference decided that endorsements should be voluntary.
Despite the criticism of the accord South Africa still believes it contains many positive features that could lead to a legally binding contract.
Joanne Yawitch, one of South Africa’s top negotiators at Copenhagen, said the accord’s provisions on finance and technology, and in particular the agreement on new mechanisms, were encouraging.
Other features, particularly the agreement about the way all developed countries will reflect their targets, also showed progress. But she added: “South Africa is disappointed that no legally binding agreement was achieved in Copenhagen.”
Yawitch said the Copenhagen process started on the back foot because of numerous problems about the way matters should be approached. These wasted time and created mistrust, which hampered the work required for a deal. “There were big problems with process,” she said.
The attempts by developed nations to ditch the Kyoto Protocol and their failure to put targets on the table that met the requirements of climate science had also significantly damaged the prospects of a successful outcome, Yawitch said.
Reacting to the criticism of the accord by some developing countries Yawitch said the negotiations were not dominated by the Basic countries and the US, as has been reported. It was a 28-nation effort and developing countries, such as Sudan, which are now complaining, were part of the process. There were five African states among the 28 nations around the table.
The next official UN meeting is in May in Bonn. “We dearly hope that in Mexico in 2010 we will be able to negotiate a legally binding deal,” Yawitch said.
“That would mean that the 2011 COP [Conference of the Parties] that we will host would be able to focus on implementation.”