Did you know there was a deal?

• 14 years ago (2009-12-19)
• David Flin

Europe 1061 North America 999

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Five nations – the , , , and – have announced that there has been a successful deal at on a number of issues. US President Barack Obama said that this provided a foundation for global action.

However, the deal might very well be rejected as a number of countries have expressed dissatisfaction – to put it mildly – with both the contents of this deal, and the fact that most of the other countries were not consulted in any way over the terms of the deal to which they are supposedly bound.

The five-nation deal promises to deliver $30 billion of aid for developing nations over the next three years to help poor countries cope with the impacts of climate change, and suggested a goal of providing $100 billion a year by 2020. Obama said that the , , , and : “had agreed to set a mitigation target to limit global warming to no more than 2°C and, importantly, to take action to meet this objective.” The agreement recognises the scientific case for keeping temperature rises to no more than 2°C , but contains no commitments to emission reductions to achieve that goal.

has forced a number of suspensions during the negotiations, accusing the Danish hosts of chairing the conference in an “undemocratic fashion”.

The EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said: “I will not hide my disappointment regarding the non-binding nature of this agreement. The document falls far short of our expectations.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said: “The text we have seen is not perfect. But if we had no deal, that would mean that two countries as important as and would be free of any type of contract. The , which is not in , would be free of any type of contract. That’s why a contract is absolutely vital.”

The contract has no binding target for limiting global temperature rise, no commitment to a legal treaty, and no target year for peaking emissions. The conference had three main items on its agenda: emissions, financial assistance, and the continuance of the process. There is no agreement on emissions in the near-term, and there is no procedural roadmap to continue from this conference.