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If there was any doubt remaining, the US Delegation has now confirmed that there will be no treaty coming out of Copenhagen.

Two years of negotiations at the bureaucratic level have failed to create the grounds for bridging significant remaining gaps between developed and developing countries over a post-2012 climate change regime. No number of Heads of State at this point could resolve these differences in the hours remaining.

There will be a political statement at best confirming the continuation of the two track negotiation process (LCA and Kyoto Protocol), with a new timetable to complete a treaty by mid or late 2010.

Today has been more focused on work than at any previous time over the past fortnight. If a developed/developing country consensus can be reached overnight, this fortnight will be the beginning of a negotiation to finalise the detail of a treaty that can be signed by the end of 2010.

With less than 24 hours remaining, attention is turning toward a warmer climate at COP 16 in Mexico City.

Frozen out

Another day in Copenhagen; another day of queues. At least today they were a little more organised … but no more successful, as after two hours of shuffling, the queues came to a halt and did not move again. During that time, secretariat staff paraded up and down the line telling all that anyone with a press pass could make their way to the front of the queue. Many did. Media were now at the front of a queue that did not move. One quipped, “At least we’re travelling first class on the Titanic!” He was mocked; the Titanic was a ship that moved.

Inside the Bella Centre, the climate glitterati were starting to arrive … Prince Charles, Al Gore, Arnold Schwarzenegger and so on.

The past few days of negotiations were replaced with the ceremonial opening. Negotiations that did continue were almost all closed to non-government stakeholders.

There was no movement on CCS in the CDM but Saudi Arabia is insisting that this is one issue that needs to be moved from bureaucrats and ministers to Heads of State.

However, the reality is that at this point all the minutiae of any post-2012 agreement is secondary to the bigger picture. Despite global expectations of a success in Copenhagen, developed and developing countries remain well apart and getting any area of agreement between them that can be portrayed as a ‘success’ is the primary and possibly only focus of frantic late night closed meetings.

Back outside the Bella Centre, after two and a half hours of shuffling progress, a message was finally broadcast that the frozen masses could expect to wait at least another five hours before collecting their badges. We had hit rock bottom.

And then it started sleeting.

A day of rest for many, negotiators from key countries were locked behind closed doors feverishly attempting to provide some basis for a successful second and final week of these negotiations. Meanwhile, demonstrations continued on the streets with Danish police providing a physical reminder of the need to avoid earlier ‘excesses’.

For business and industry there were numerous side events, lunches and workshops. A key event for us today was supporting an EU Zero Emissions Platform (ZEP) event on CCS at the Danish National Museum.

Speakers included Graeme Sweeney (Shell and Chairman of ZEP), Frederic Hauge (President Bellona Foundation) and Rajendra Pachauri (Chairman Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).

All speakers spoke strongly in favour of CCS with Sweeney remarking that it was the missing element in the mitigation armoury. Pachauri emphasised the need to be realistic, stating that coal cannot simply be ‘wished away’ and will be an important feature of the global energy scene for decades to come. Given this reality, CCS needs to be commercialised, and will only be successfully deployed if there is a partnership between government, industry and civil society.

Next week

Tomorrow formal negotiations resume with a heightened sense of urgency. After two years of negotiations it comes down to this week.

Rajendra Pachauri, head of the IPCC, speaking at the Zero Emission Technology Platform CCS event

The atmosphere around the Bella Centre seems much more tense today, as delegates and observers realise just how much more work is needed. With tomorrow looming – a day when many of the contact groups are supposed to report back on their progress – an insider to the US delegation remarked that it is “crunch time” and that they have been working through the night on the different texts.

Disarray

Negotiations broke down on Wednesday in the COP plenary over proposals by parties for protocol amendments, after developing countries split between those who favour a new protocol and others who want to continue with the Kyoto agreement. Notably disruptive was an intervention by Tuvalu. Tuvalu has proposed a strengthened protocol that would not only mean much greater (some would say impossible) efforts from developed countries but also necessitate emissions reductions from developing countries.

Both COP and CMP talks are now suspended, pending consultations on whether to establish contact groups to consider proposed new protocols under the convention and proposed amendments to the Kyoto Protocol. A Q&A session with Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, had been scheduled for this morning but it was cancelled at the last minute. Numerous other meetings were also cancelled…perhaps a signal that the negotiations are sliding into disarray.

AWG-LCA & AWG-KP

Today at a session closed to observers, both Michael Zammit Cutajar, the Chair of the Ad-Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA), and John Ashe, the Chair of the Ad-Hoc Working Group on the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP), presented new draft texts to the Parties. The drafts that both Chairs put forward try to make some progress from the current, very lengthy, non-papers that are being negotiated. Both drafts have been cut down to seven pages for the LCA and 27 pages for the KP (they were originally over 100 pages long!). One of the most contentious issues of the talks has been the debate around a base year. The new AWG- LCA draft maintains a base year of 1990. However, the US position is based on 2005 as the base year.

The AWG-KP draft considers the issue of CCS in the CDM. Two proposals are put forward; the first concludes that CCS projects are not eligible for the CDM, laying out reasons for their exclusion. In the second option, CCS projects would be eligible in the second and subsequent commitment periods (that is, well beyond-2012) but requests that the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) recommend ”modalities and procedures for inclusion under the CDM, with a view to forwarding a draft decision to the COP/CMP at its Seventh Session”. This would delay any decision on inclusion for another two years!

Hit and Miss of the Day

The Chinese and Saudi Arabian delegations for complaining about the conference branding. Both parties lodged complaints with the Secretariat on Wednesday, arguing that the conference should be called COP15/CMP5 (see Wednesday’s blog).

There was a noticeable change in the attitude of some of the parties today, especially from the G77/China. At the CMP (Conference of the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol) meeting this morning, the Chinese delegation took the floor first and furiously described how their minister was rejected access to the Bella Centre three days in a row! Tensions between the developing and developed countries are growing as other G77 countries raised concerns over the name of the COP15, stating that it should be COP15/CMP5. The group said that the current name suggests that the Kyoto Protocol is already dead. It is interesting to note that these concerns were raised the day after the ‘Danish text’ was leaked.

Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, said that it is looking like there will be a second Kyoto Protocol in addition to another agreement, thus continuing with the two-track negotiating process after Copenhagen.

CCS in CDM

Late last night, I attended a Q&A session with the Executive Board of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). As I was on my way over, I walked past the ‘Fossil of the Day’ awards ceremony, which takes place every night. There was a huge gathering and I stopped to listen as I heard the announcement of the second place prize being awarded to The Umbrella Group (which consists of Industrialised non-EU countries, Canada, Iceland, Japan, Kazakhstan, New Zealand, Norway, Russian Federation, Ukraine, United States and Australia). The ‘Fossil Award’ was given to Umbrella Group for proposing that CCS projects should qualify as CDM projects. The Fossil of the Day website says that three ‘Fossil of The Day’ awards are given to the countries that they consider “perform the worst during the past day’s negotiations”. There were many cheers and claps as The Umbrella Group was awarded their fossil.

The divergence on the issue of CCS in the CDM is clearly not only left to the negotiators in the official meetings! Once I made my way to the CDM EB Q&A, the room was so full that people were sitting on the floor. The question on CCS in the CDM was covered, but the EB told the group that they do not want to work on CCS anymore and that it is time for the COP to make the decision.

CCS CDM intervention

This afternoon, the CMP heard the recommendations from the CDM EB. The overview of the recommendations put forward by the EB caused over two hours of comments by different parties – with most of the time on spent on CCS. The strongest voice for the inclusion of CCS in the CDM was, again, Saudi Arabia; while Brazil and the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) again strongly opposed this. After all the parties had spoken, an intervention was given on behalf of those in the business community interested in the inclusion of CCS in the CDM. The WCI was apart of this group and strongly supported the document.

Miss of the day: The possibility that half of the main hall of the Bella Centre could be closed next week due to the number of heads of state attending

Hit of the day: The CCS CDM intervention made on behalf of the business community, including WCI