What constitutes a good agreement in Copenhagen?

A good agreement is one that sends a strong political signal, which must prove that the international community is embarking on the path to a low-carbon economy and is changing its development trajectory, decoupling the growth in GHG emissions from economic growth. And since some of the impacts of climate change are already inevitable, and the people who suffer the most from this are not the ones who bear the greatest responsibility, it is an agreement that must also prove that the international community undertakes to help the most vulnerable countries and populations.

But political will alone is not enough. A good agreement is therefore one that establishes a new legal instrument to replace the Kyoto Protocol, containing a set of incentives (technological and financial support, etc.) and constraints (sanctions in case of non-compliance with obligations) to give credibility to the international community’s commitment.

A good agreement is one that translates the scientific recommendations into economic and political terms. It is therefore an agreement that guarantees an emissions peak before 2020, and which makes it possible to halve emissions by 2050 compared to 1990 levels. It is also an agreement that builds an effective response to this challenge, organising the tools needed for a massive restructuring of global investment. Finally, a good agreement is one in which all parties commit to undertaking ambitious initiatives because they believe it ensures equitable burden-sharing.

In practice, for two of the building blocks of the negotiations:

Shared vision 

1. The accounting under the agreement is accurate, and does not hide behind different reference years for different countries, or deviations from hypothetical reference scenarios. To have about a one in two chance of limiting global warming to +2 °C, global emissions must be below 20 Gt CO2e by 2050, 35 Gt by 2030 and 44 Gt by 2020.

2. The agreement sets up a cross-disciplinary peer review mechanism, to assess whether the actions undertaken by developed and developing countries are in accordance with these objectives. If not, this mechanism makes it possible to reopen negotiations.

3. The agreement also sets up a review mechanism to reassess short-, medium- and long-term objectives according to the new scientific findings validated by the IPCC.

Mitigation in developed countries 

1. The agreement sets the same kind of commitment for all developed countries: absolute emissions reduction targets in relation to 1990 across the whole economy, which are legally binding at the international level and are accompanied by flexibility mechanisms.

2. The agreement sets the level of collective effort for developed countries: an 80 to 95% cut in emissions by 2050 in relation to 1990, 45 to 60% by 2030 and 25 to 40% by 2020.

3. The agreement sets the level of collective effort for developed countries: an 80 to 95% cut in emissions by 2050 in relation to 1990, 45 to 60% by 2030 and 25 to 40% by 2020.

4. The agreement reproduces the Kyoto Protocol compliance and sanctions mechanism.

Mitigation in developing countries 

1. The agreement encourages developing countries to define and implement low-carbon development strategies.

2. For developing countries, these strategies may be short-term, sectoral or programmatic initiatives to limit emissions.

3. For those countries that have the greatest responsibility and capacities, they also include a long-term emissions reduction target.

4. Added together, and added to the targets of developed countries, these emissions reduction initiatives make it possible to limit global emissions to 44 Gt CO2e by 2020.

5. These emissions limitation initiatives may be either absolute emissions reductions (in relation to a reference year), or relative reductions (deviation from a reference scenario), or may be expressed in terms of energy efficiency improvements or the pace and level of low-carbon technology transfer.

6. These emissions limitation initiatives are partly financed by developing countries themselves, by means of restructuring investment, and are partly supported at the international level through different tools (the carbon market, donations, loans, securities, etc.), which facilitate this restructuring.

7. Unilateral actions are measured and verified by means of national communications and are supported by a registry.