Secret rich nations’ plan leak sparks Third World fury — Copenhagen being reduced to rubble

In the lead up to the Copenhagen talks, poor nations had expressed their anger and frustration at the rich nations over the rich nations plans to refuse to agree to serious, binding cuts in their emissions and for compensation for poor nations over climate change effects.

Poor nations are bearing the brunt of the already all-too-real effects of climate change, caused overwhelmingly by the industrial development of the rich countries.

The summit barely started before the actions of the rich nations blew it up. Anger of the poor nations has exploded over a leaked text of an agreement worked beforehand by a cabal of rich nations (known as the “circle of commitment” and including Australia) that lets rich nations off the hook and spits in the face of Third World demands.

The greed of the great (First World-based) corporate interests, and the slavish commitment to those interests of rich nation governments, is more than sickening: it is threatening the potential for life on this planet to continue.

This is exactly why I support so wholeheartedly Hugo Chavez’s call for an International to Save the Planet.

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(Taken from Climateandcapitalism.com)

Leaked Document Shows Rich Nations Plan Climate Coup in Copenhagen

December 8, 2009

Developing countries react furiously to leaked draft agreement that would hand more power to rich nations, sideline the UN’s negotiating role and abandon the Kyoto protocol

by John Vidal
The Guardian, December 8, 2009

The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents that show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN’s role in all future climate change negotiations.

The document is also being interpreted by developing countries as setting unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.

The so-called Danish text, a secret draft agreement worked on by a group of individuals known as “the circle of commitment” – but understood to include the UK, US and Denmark – has only been shown to a handful of countries since it was finalized this week.

The agreement, leaked to the Guardian, is a departure from the Kyoto protocol’s principle that rich nations, which have emitted the bulk of the CO2, should take on firm and binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, while poorer nations were not compelled to act.

The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank; would abandon the Kyoto protocol — the only legally binding treaty that the world has on emissions reductions; and would make any money to help poor countries adapt to climate change dependent on them taking a range of actions.

The document was described last night by one senior diplomat as “a very dangerous document for developing countries. It is a fundamental reworking of the UN balance of obligations. It is to be superimposed without discussion on the talks.”

A confidential analysis of the text by developing countries also seen by the Guardian shows deep unease over details of the text. In particular, it is understood to:

* Force developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement;
* Divide poor countries further by creating a new category of developing countries called “the most vulnerable”;
* Weaken the UN’s role in handling climate finance;
* Not allow poor countries to emit more than 1.44 tonnes of carbon per person by 2050, while allowing rich countries to emit 2.67 tonnes.

Developing countries that have seen the text are understood to be furious that it is being promoted by rich countries without their knowledge and without discussion in the negotiations.

“It is being done in secret. Clearly the intention is to get [Barack] 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,” said one diplomat, who asked to remain nameless.

Antonio Hill, climate policy adviser for Oxfam International, said: “This is only a draft but it highlights the risk that when the big countries come together, the small ones get hurting. On every count the emission cuts need to be scaled up.

“It allows too many loopholes and does not suggest anything like the 40% cuts that science is saying is needed.”

Hill continued: “It proposes a green fund to be run by a board but the big risk is that it will run by the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility [a partnership of 10 agencies including the World Bank and the UN Environment Programme] and not the UN.

“That would be a step backwards, and it tries to put constraints in developing countries when none were negotiated in earlier UN climate talks.”

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The Sydney Morning Herald noted, meanwhile: “Drafted by the Danish Government after talks with the so-called ‘circle of commitment’, including Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the document said global emissions should peak by the end of the next decade but did not include any emissions targets for 2020 or specific proposals for the creation of a green fund to help the most vulnerable ...

“it prompted a furious rebuke to rich nations from China. In a surreal press conference in a cramped room next to the Chinese delegation office, chief negotiator Su Wei claimed he was unaware of the leaked Danish proposal that had hijacked the mood of the convention centre while attacking the European Union, Japan and the US for claiming they were acting on climate change while doing very little.

In a detailed analysis of the flaws of rich nations’ 2020 targets, he said Europe had already done more to limit emissions under the flawed Kyoto Protocol than it proposed to do under a Copenhagen pact, Japan’s proposed 25 per cent cut was meaningless because it had set conditions that would never be met and the US had promised a ‘remarkable and notable’ emissions target but proposed only a provisional 1 per cent cut below 1990 levels.

“‘I’m not very good at English, but I doubt whether just a 1 per cent reduction can be described as remarkable or notable,’ he said.

“He said the $US10 billion annual green fund, that has won wide support at the conference and is included in the draft Danish agreement, worked out to just $2 per person across the planet - not enough to buy a coffee in Copenhagen, or a coffin.

“‘Climate change is a life and death issue,’ he said.”


The key to this, as has been the key for so much of human progress in recent centuries, is the actions of ordinary people. We are many and they are few, and all that.

It is true if you look at how trade union rights and universal suffrage were won, abominations like apartheid defeated, civil rights for a wide range of sectors secured in country after country, etc etc etc.

Therefore, the real action at Copenhagen will be occurring on the streets outside it.

In the lead-up, these two articles have just been posted to Green Left Weekly

Britain: Massive climate protest demands real deal at Copenhagen


Canada: Protests condemn climate crimes