The Australian
By: Matthew Franklin, Chief Political Correspondent
Source: Additional Reporting: Wall Street Journal
A draft 200-page plan has been abandoned and replaced with a political document
World leaders have agreed to a political compromise deal on climate change aimed at salvaging next month's international UN conference in Copenhagen, which scraps the 200-page draft agreement.
The leaders have begun work, instead, on a plan B document of no more than 15 pages that would not be legally binding in which nations would agree to embrace emissions reductions conditional upon other nations adopting and meeting their own targets.
Kevin Rudd and his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderon, have been at the centre of the late bid to prevent the collapse of next month's Copenhagen talks, amid acceptance that the conference will fail to produce binding targets for reducing global carbon emissions.
The pair yesterday helped broker the compromise with US President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao.
The Copenhagen talks have been widely anticipated as the world's best chance of beginning a serious assault on climate change. Federal parliament will this week begin debating the Prime Minister's proposed emissions trading scheme, which will commit Australia to action.
Senior sources said last night that the Copenhagen process had been dead in the water for at least a month, with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen appointing Mr Rudd and Mr Calderon as "friends of the chair'' last month in the hope they could help bring about compromise.
Yesterday the pair used the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation group annual leaders meeting in Singapore to press APEC leaders to intervene personally in negotiations, sidelining diplomats who have spent months producing a 200-page draft agreement, which was described last night by Australian officials as worthless.
After Mr Rasmussen agreed to fly to Singapore from Europe on Saturday night, he joined Mr Rudd and Mr Calderon as they chaired a breakfast meeting with the 21 APEC leaders.
Mr Rasmussen told the meeting the Copenhagen talks were in danger of not producing a result, appealing for the leaders to bring their personal authority into play.
"Even if we may not hammer out the last dots of a legally binding instrument, I do believe a politically binding agreement with specific commitment to mitigation and finance provides a strong basis for immediate action in the years to come,'' he said.
Mr Rasmussen laid out in some detail his goals for the Copenhagen summit. He said leaders should produce a five- to eight-page text with "precise language'' committing developed countries to reductions of emissions thought to be warming the planet, with provisions on adapting to warmer temperatures, financing adaptation and combating climate change in poor countries, and technological development and diffusion. It would include pledges of immediate financing for early action.
Earlier yesterday, speaking just after the breakfast meeting, Mr Rudd declared the future of the Copenhagen talks rested with Mr Obama and Mr Hu. The US President will visit Beijing today.
"There's a lot of pessimism in the international community at the moment about our ability to craft an outcome at Copenhagen,'' Mr Rudd said.
"It's going to be as tough as all hell but, let me tell you, I believe that everyone is seeking right now to put their best foot forward.''
He said leaders at the breakfast meeting had made clear the current process led by officials had run into "all sorts of difficulties'' and that it was time for leaders to step in. "The tone and content of the meeting was strongly positive -- strongly positive about the sort of agreement we could achieve in Copenhagen and positive also about the fact that we needed to provide maximum support for the Danish Prime Minister's leaders-led process to achieve that outcome at Copenhagen,'' Mr Rudd said. "As Copenhagen draws closer we must remember the devastating consequences of climate change.
"There are only two choices here: action or inaction. There is no middle path. It is our responsibility as leaders to act.''
Mr Obama said through a spokesman he backed a two-step plan under which the Copenhagen meeting would create "an operational agreement'' and leave the legally binding details for later.
"There was, I'd say, a general consensus of support for what Prime Minister Rasmussen laid out, which was -- he called it one agreement, two steps -- where Copenhagen would be the first step in a process towards an international legally binding agreement,'' said US negotiator Michael Froman.
Mr Hu did not comment on the breakfast meeting but released a speech he gave to APEC leaders yesterday in which he described climate change as a grave challenge requiring an international response that must accept the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities''.
"Developed countries should continue to take the lead in emissions reduction after 2012 in keeping with the principals set out . . . in the Bali road map,'' Mr Hu said.
"They should at the same time provide financial support and technology transfer to developing countries to help them enhance capacity in tackling climate change.''
The APEC leaders' declaration released last night committed to strong action on climate change.
But a push to name a target of a 50 per cent reduction in emissions (from 1990 levels) by 2050 failed, in the face of Chinese opposition.
"On the 50 per cent reduction target (from 1990 levels) by 2050, yes, it did appear in the draft,'' said Yi Xianliang, a Chinese Foreign Ministry negotiator. "However, it is a very controversial issue in the world community.''