The Road to Copenhagen

Robert Laubacher, MIT Center for Collective Intelligence
July 17, 2009

The G8 at L'Aquila

At the end of their meeting earlier this month in L'Aquila, Italy, the leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) nations issued a declaration on climate change. It called for global greenhouse gas emissions to be cut in half between now and 2050 and for emissions from the G8 and other industrial economies to be cut by substantially more — 80 percent — over the same period. After the meeting, the chief U.S. negotiator noted, "[W]e're still a fair ways away from Copenhagen, and we'll be working...between now and then to try and firm up commitments."

In speaking of "Copenhagen," the U.S. negotiator was referring to the upcoming meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) scheduled for this December. At the Copenhagen meeting, the nations of the world will seek to reach a global agreement on what to do about climate change.

Background on the UNFCCC

The UNFCCC is an international treaty negotiated at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio in June 1992. The treaty's objective was to stabilize atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations levels that would prevent dangerous climate change. A UN Secretariat was subsequently established to administer the work of the convention.

The original treaty set no mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions and contained no enforcement provisions. But it did call for updates, called protocols, which would set mandatory limits. The primary update is the Kyoto Protocol, negotiated in 1997, the first international agreement to set binding emission reduction targets.

Since Kyoto, the UNFCCC has continued to meet, in an effort to reach further agreement on binding targets in two key areas:

The targets at the heart of the UNFCCC process are typically delineated by dates in the first half of the 21st century, for example, 2020 or 2030 or 2050. For example, the recent G8 declaration called for a 50 percent reduction in global GHG emissions by 2050.

Another central issue in the UNFCCC process is the development of financial mechanisms to enable less developed economies pay for the commitments they make.

Although the UNFCC holds quarterly gatherings, major annual meetings are the centerpiece of the process. The 2008 meeting was held in Poznan, Poland.

The run up to Copenhagen

Yvo de Boer, the head of the UNFCCC has noted that there are four key issues that must be resolved to reach an agreement at Copenhagen:

To help ensure that the delegates are able to come to an agreement in December, the UNFCCC has scheduled a number of additional meetings this year: in June and August in Bonn, in September in Bangkok, and in November in a location still to be announced. The Major Economies Forum, a gathering of the 17 leading economies convened by the U.S. for the first time in 2008 to serve as an adjunct to the UNFCCC process, will also meet every month between now and December.

As a result, the rest of the year promise to be very busy. Future installments of "The Road to Copenhagen" will describe in more detail the issues that will be under negotiation at Copenhagen and track progress between now and December. Stay tuned.

Robert Laubacher is project manager for the Climate Collaboratorium, an MIT research project that is building a Web tool that will enable large numbers of people to work together in developing solutions for climate change. To learn more, contact Rob rjl@mit.edu.