Obama: A binding deal is still our goal

The most important result in Copenhagen was, according to US President Barack Obama, that large emerging economies began “for the first time” to open up to taking on responsibilities for limiting growth of greenhouse gases. “If you look at a country like India, they still have hundreds of millions of people that don’t even have electricity, hundreds of millions that live in dire poverty. For them to, even voluntarily, say that they will be willing to reduce their carbon intensity by a given percentage is a huge step. We applaud them for that,” Barack Obama told at a press conference for American correspondents before he left the venue of the Copenhagen conference Friday night.

The US President played a key role in producing a so-called Copenhagen Accord late Friday together with leaders from China, Brazil, India and South Africa. According to some reports, Barack Obama simply crashed an ongoing summit between the four other countries. However, according to US Today, quoting a US official on condition of anonymity, Barack Obama was invited to meet with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and “the only surprise we had, in all honesty, was (…) that in that room wasn’t just the Chinese having a meeting (…) but in fact all the four countries that we had been trying to arrange meetings with.”

The Copenhagen Accord will have an annex to which countries are to state their reduction targets. These national actions will be subject to international consultations but the pledges given will not be legally binding. “We need more work, more confidence building between emerging economies, the least developed countries and developed countries before another legally binding treaty can be signed,” Barack Obama said at his press conference, stressing that he finds it “necessary ultimately to get” a legally binding agreement. “However, this is a classic example of, if we wait to have just that, we wouldn’t make any progress. In fact I think there may be so much frustration, so much cynicism, that we end up instead of taking one step forward to take two steps backwards.”

A solution to global warming will not come if only developed countries act, the US president stressed: “We have to assure that whatever carbon we take out is not just dumped in by other parties. Emerging countries will need to have some sort of responsibilities. Not exactly the same and not at the same pace. And if we could also set up a funding mechanism to help the most vulnerable countries, like Bangladesh, we would have a framework that would allow us to be effective in the future.”

Source: 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference