17-12-09 Latest from Copenhagen

8.00am AEDT

With the UN climate conference in Copenhagen in security lockdown, detailed information on negotiation status is now proving very difficult to access. The CarbonEdge Team provides subscribers with a summary of the headline issues and the best information made available to us by Australian industry negotiators in Copenhagen.

CarbonEdge commented earlier this week on a range of topics in a detailed article. We will not repeat ourselves in this brief, so interested readers should click here to read the companion article.

Its all about the money - no surprises that this is the case, nor that we are talking about 100's of billions of dollars per annum in total. Developing countries are calling for something like US100 billion per annum to flow their way from developed countries. there are some innovative tax models on the table, but don't expect a tax driven outcome.

That would fund their efforts to reduce emissions, as well as measures to address already changing climate. Developed countries have so far offered about US16 billion on our tally. A fair gap to bridge in just 48 hours but a briefing by Prime Ministyer Kevin Rudd a few hours ago suggests that gap is being bridged and countries including Australia have commenced making commitments in specific areas.

A single agreement or two? - Australia is one of the countries pushing hard for a single agreement where every country's negotiated emissions reduction targets are included. But, this is not an effort as characterised by India and some other developing countries, to avoid existing commitments or playing a real role in emissions reductions and pushing effort unfairly onto developing countries.

In interviews this week, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong has been clear that Australia will happily attach its existing commitments under the soon to expire Kyoto Protocol to a new single agreement. This is resolvable and important. A new and sinlge agreement is the only way to bring China and the US to the table at the same time

Emissions reduction target levels for 2012 - 2017 - this will be last item to be resolved and we understand has not entered proper discussion yet between the heads of state who reportedly have 90 sticking points to resolve or something like one every 30 minutes. As many are inter-linked, resolving one issue will help resolve others, but its clearly a laborious task.

Who exactly is locked out of the Conference? - all delegates to the Conference who are not from governments have bene severaly limited in their access to the Conference for security reasons. Just 1,000 will be allowed entry on Thursday and just 100 on Friday (plus we understand some special invitees).

After the violence by thousands in the streets of Copenhagen earlier this week, there was little option but to restrict access. the response as we have seen from television footage is violent demonstrations and attempts to breach the UN security zone, which only serves to demonstrate the necessity of the security lockdown. Making this an Australian story, half a dozen protesters broke through, stormed into the Ministerial level negotiations and interrupted  Penny Wong.

The shame remains that legitimate interests like those from businesses, industry, unions, indigenous peoples forums and so on have been denied access because of the extremist green groups.

CarbonEdge subscribers will receive a subscriber only update and wrap up on Monday 21st December. That article will include our implications analysis for Australian industry and business.

Send specific questions to twoods@fitzpatrickwoods.com.au.

17th December 2009

 

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