COP-15 was a failure waiting to happen.

Hardly any of the disagreements between countries on major issues that the two-year Bali Roadmap intended to resolve were bridged, in time to conclude with a full set of agreements in Copenhagen. Coming into the summit, almost everyone knew that a final deal could not be reached. As the deadline closed in, leaders downgraded expectations for the summit’s presumed outcome to a “political agreement”, something that can at least provide a framework for details to be filled in as negotiations extend for another six to twelve months. This, despite the science pointing to the need for urgent and drastic action, particularly as emissions continue to climb and as changes in the climate continue to overshoot earlier projections.

In seventeen years of international climate diplomacy under the UNFCCC, there has been little agreement between states, divided in coalitions of Northern and Southern countries, on how to move forward in implementing the Framework Convention. The Convention set out a framework by which burdens in cutting emissions are to be allocated across countries on the basis of historical responsibility, equity, and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR). Looked at another  way, it sets out a framework by which the remaining carbon budget might be reallocated in such a way as to avert catastrophic climate change, and at the same time allow developing countries to develop within a safe emissions path. The Convention explicitly states that the North must take the lead in reducing emissions and assist developing countries to reduce emissions and in adaptation. The Convention, meanwhile, recognizes that development and poverty alleviation remain as the main goals of developing countries, and that while they too have commitments, they are not of the same weight and status as those of developed countries.

This might have been a relatively straightforward guide for the Parties to agree on the more specific details of the Convention’s implementation, in particular, on the quantities of emissions reductions and the allocation thereof, and the timetables in which they should proceed. But this has not been the case. The rich and industrialized countries of the North have demonstrated little commitment to fulfill their obligation, as the largest historical polluters, primarily make deep domestic emissions reductions, but also to support international mitigation and adaptation efforts. This unwillingness is most starkly displayed by the United States, to which other developed countries eventually fell behind: first, in the introduction of “flexibility mechanisms” that allow developed countries to fulfill national targets by paying cheaper emissions reductions done overseas; and then, in demanding developing countries, particularly major economies such as China and India, to submit to formal commitments comparable to those of developed countries themselves.

This last move, one that is described as an attempt to renegotiate the Convention and modify the architecture that has been in place since the creation of the Kyoto Protocol, has been the bone of contention between developed and developing countries for at least the last ten years. Southern governments see this as an attempt on the part of developed countries to backslide from their obligations. They insist that the international balance of commitments enshrined in the Convention and the Protocol, and implied in the principle of CBRD, is not up for negotiation, and that Southern actions should remain dependent on Northern leadership in emissions reductions as well as in the provision of international support for mitigation and adaptation actions.

This is the international

[Combating climate change
requires] abandoning the
unsustainable and unequal
growth economy, and
transitioning to a system whose
sustainability derives from
greater equity, cooperation,
and democracy in the use of
resources and the distribution
of economic benefits.

impasse that has bogged down the multilateral negotiations and kept a strong and equitable response far from reach. At the heart of this impasse is a shared commitment by governments of both the North and the South to a model of development and material welfare based on growth, i.e., accumulation, rising national and individual incomes, and rising levels of production and consumption. Notably, it is a model that has been, and still is, being powered by energy from the increased burning of fossil fuels, which is primarily responsible for climate change. Notably still, it is a model underpinned by inequalities in the distribution and control of the resources required to feed growth, as well as of the material and financial benefits that accrue from it.

Advanced industrialized countries owe their developed status to this model. Two hundred years of fossil-fuelled growth bestowed the North with disproportionate economic power: they now account for more than half of the world economy, and enjoy levels of material consumption up to eight times higher than in the world’s poorer regions. But this degree  of material affluence is supported by their disproportionate use of the planet’s resources, often beyond their own borders, and through colonial and unequal relations. With just 15% of the world’s population, the North consumed around 80% of the global carbon budget in the course of its growth. They now consume over half the planet’s biocapacity, close to 50% of all fossil fuel energy, and emit up to five times more carbon dioxide per person than developing countries.

At stake for the North, should they ever abide by the balance of obligations provided in the UNFCCC, is their economic ascendancy. This would have required them to commit to long-term structural changes in their energy sectors, particularly to shift away from conventional fossil fuels, and in other domestic industries dependent on it. Domestic measures such as this would likely raise costs for corporations – especially as alternative energy sources remain expensive – and thus risk undermining their profitability and competitiveness. And, insofar as the international allocation of emissions targets is seen as the redistribution of emissions rights, this would require the North to progressively pare back their resource use to more equitable levels – a measure that would impact directly on the power their economies command, as well as the levels of consumption their populations enjoy. But planned de-growth is a policy no Northern government has seriously contemplated.

Meanwhile, poor and developing countries of the South shared little of the economic growth that the resource-intensive development path brought the North, more so to the extent that they had been subject to patterns of colonial exploitation and wealth appropriation. Per capita income and levels of material consumption remain low in these countries, often well below levels that can sustain human well-being. Their overriding priority remains overcoming poverty and building economies that can secure dignified standards of living for their populations. And this demands, almost unavoidably, improved access to energy and natural resources.

Since the middle of the last century, Southern governments have embarked on strategies of development aimed at ‘catching up’ with the North, that is, closing the wide gaps in living standards the North’s development had left in its wake. These development efforts have all been pursued with the same carbon-intensive and unequal growth-centered model of development as the North’s. Rapid economic growth in developing countries will drive much of the forecasted increase in global output, energy consumption, and energy-related CO2 emissions. Between 1990 and 2030, global energy consumption and CO2 emissions are projected to double, while the global economy is projected to almost quadruple in size. Developing countries will be responsible for 60% of the global GDP growth, 75% of energy consumption growth, and 80% of CO2 emissions growth.

It is obvious that this path to development is not consistent with the science, and would, should it come to pass, most certainly endanger the planet. And this is the South’s dilemma. They remain overwhelmingly poor, but they also remain tied to a model of development that allocates the benefits of growth very unequally, such that growth achieved at great environmental cost will have to be sustained over long stretches of time for it to have more than a marginal effect on the poor. This would require more emissions space and more natural resources to accommodate greater growth – of which, because of the North’s development path, we have little left.

Northern governments call attention to the South’s growing share of emissions to pressure them to submit to greater obligations, not because of its unsustainability, for which the North is no doubt more culpable, but to offload their responsibilities to the South. The South fears the North would lock in the inequitable share of emissions and crowd them out of the remaining carbon budget, imperiling their drive to development, more so to the extent that it is emissions-intensive. In response, Southern governments point out that their per capita emissions and income levels are still very low relative to those of developed countries. They insist that it is their right to develop; that their emissions have to increase in order to achieve a certain level of development; and that they cannot commit to mitigation obligations that would truncate their growth and undermine their paths to development.

Copenhagen demonstrates that the Copenhagen demonstrates that the ruling fossil-fuelled growth economic model cause and exacerbate global warming and climate change. Because of its colonial and exploitative legacy and the economic divisions it occasions, the growth economy also guts the international political effort to address the climate crisis. Copenhagen tells us that the global effort to combat climate change demands far more than agreeing on emissions targets and timetables, or allocating the remaining carbon budget. It would require, at bottom, abandoning the unsustainable and unequal growth economy, and transitioning to a system whose sustainability derives from greater equity, cooperation, and democracy in the use of resources and the distribution of economic benefits. This is the key to unlock the political process.

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John Paul Corpus is a Research Assistant with IBON International.

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