Obama’s fake ’deal’
In the end, like all good disaster movies, it came down to a nail-biting, nerve-jangling finale where it was impossible to predict what was going to happen next. The real action began on the morning of the final day. Amid rumours that, since he had arrived in town, Barack Obama had been locked in closed meetings with small groups of hand-picked countries, those of us lucky enough to still be in the Bella Centre (by this stage the UN had barred all but 90 of the 14,000 accredited NGO participants – I’d got in with my press pass) awaited his Friday morning speech with something approaching the hysteria that greets a film star.
Our leading man had finally arrived. Would he be able to use his unprecedented stock of international goodwill to break his own negotiators’ intransigence, stand up to the battalion of corporate lobbyists working tirelessly to sabotage things, and somehow charm everyone into reaching a half-decent deal?
I have to admit to being caught up in the moment. I allowed myself to believe in the Obama fantasy. I forgot, fatally, that he’s a US President, and so found myself doubly disappointed when he behaved not as hero but as villain. Delivering a brusque, stern, charmless speech devoid of any new concessions, he had one message for the rest of the world; get in line with what the US wants, which is what’s on the table now. Period.
The next few hours were tragically farcical. With no Obama-led breakthrough, the deadlock looked terminal – surely they’ll just have to admit failure? But negotiating texts kept being leaked. Over five hours we saw as many draft agreements trickle out from behind the closed doors, each getting successively weaker. Behind the scenes, one delegate told me, ‘it’s like the last hours of the Titanic; everyone running round shooting each other and stealing their money.’
Then, suddenly: news! Obama was holding a press conference. What was he going to announce? No-one knew. We stampeded in the direction of the press conference room, to be told that it was taking place elsewhere with just the White House press corps. We should wait, though, because the EU would give their own press conference here straight afterwards.
We waited. And waited. Around 9.30pm those with laptops/blackberries got the news first – Obama had announced that there was a deal! The Copenhagen Accord!! What was in it? No-one knew.
Finally the EU spokeswoman took to the stage. At last, some answers. Or not… ‘I’ve just discovered that the EU has gone into another round of negotiations so we have to cancel this press conference, sorry,’ she told us. If there’s a deal why are they still negotiating? Something fishy was clearly going on.
Charging back towards our computers, I bumped into a developing country delegate. ‘It’s NOT a deal. It’s still just a draft. Obama cooked it up with a few countries, outside of the UN process, announced it as a deal in a press conference, is already on a plane back to the US, and most developing countries haven’t even seen the text yet, let alone agreed to it!’ he briefed me, breathlessly. ‘People are furious!’ he said before dashing off into an emergency meeting.
I got my hands on the text. It was appalling – not worth the paper it was hastily photocopied on. The (inadequate) 2 degree target was in there, but no specific emissions reductions targets to achieve it. The year by which global emissions should peak, present in some of the afternoon’s drafts, had been dropped. The measly financing that had been on offer just a day ago had mysteriously shrunk. The agreement on forests, said to be completed, had disappeared. It delayed all substantive decisions to this time next year. And it wasn’t legally-binding. It was several steps back from where things had been before negotiators had even arrived here…
Furious final hours
Emotions were getting high in the Bella Centre. I was not alone in struggling to contain my anger at the way Obama had imposed this non-deal on the world. Of course, I was well aware of the sheer naked power of the US and the brutal way in which it’s wielded. But it’s still really disturbing to witness it in action like this. ‘I mean, it’s only the bloody future of humanity at stake here’, I ranted at anyone who’d listen. ’300,000 people are dying every year from climate change. How can these politicians be so fucking callous?’
The UN plenary to discuss the ‘Copenhagen Accord’ was finally convened well after midnight. Its chair, the Danish Prime Minister, told countries they had an hour to discuss the draft, then they would agree it.
At this point, fury bubbled over. Tuvalu – a tiny low-lying Pacific island, was the first to refuse to sign: ‘It looks like we are being offered 30 pieces of silver to betray our people and our future,’ its representative fumed. Bolivia and Costa Rica backed them up in rejecting the Accord. Other developing countries also refused to bow to pressure. The Venezuelan delegate, bleeding from whacking her desk so hard trying to get heard, accused Obama of a coup against the UN. ‘This is asking Africa to sign a suicide pact, an incineration pact in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries,’ railed Lumumba Di-Aping, chair of the G77 group of developing nations.
The rumpus carried on throughout the night. Unable to stand any more, I snuck out sometime in the wee small hours to join the sub-zero protest outside, and then get some sleep. A bleary-eyed compromise was finally reached mid-morning – ultimately pushed through by the UK. Because of steadfast opposition by several countries, the UN would merely ‘note’ the accord. This gives it no standing of any kind. But there was a final, desperate sting in the tail: only developing countries who sign up to it will get access to any of the financing.
The blame game
Immediately, the blame game began. The US and UK, who persist in calling it a ‘deal’ when it patently isn’t, say the fault lies squarely with China for blocking progress, and with the developing nations who prevented the adoption of the pathetically pointless ‘Copenhagen Accord’.
This is laughable. There is plenty of blame to go round – hardly anyone comes out of this well. But the true villains of this particular piece were the high-emitting industrialized nations – and the US most of all – who came to the table prepared to offer so little whilst demanding concessions from everyone else, and who then imposed a bogus ‘deal’ when the UN should have simply admitted failure and begun a re-evaluation of the entire process.
Read the whole thing, not just this excerpt.