Day 1: Report from Reed Smith Delegates in Copenhagen at the United Nations Climate Change Conference
This post was written by Jennifer Smokelin.
As you know, the United Nations climate conference began today in Copenhagen, Denmark. And Reed Smith is here. Actually it’s the 15th conference of its kind and it is properly known as Conference of the Parties or COP-15 under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). COP-15 may not yield a new global climate treaty with every minor detail in place. But hopefully it will close with agreements on four political essentials, thereby creating some clarity the world – not least the financially struck business world – needs. Stay tuned to this site to find out, day by day, how close the parties some on these issues.
Four issues to follow are:
- How much are industrialized countries willing to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases?
- How much are major developing countries such as China and India willing to do to limit the growth of their emissions?
- How is the help needed by developing countries to engage in reducing their emissions and adapting to the impacts of climate change going to be financed?
- How is that money going to be managed?
As crowds of people arrive in Copenhagen, and amid an assortment of climate-related side events such as Hopenhagen Live, COP-15 opened today. Speakers focused on a lot of “C” words: how the conference marks the culmination of a two-year negotiating process to enhance international climate change cooperation, how countries and the negotiations must be constructive, and how there was hope for consensus.
Much of the news for the day, it seems, was back in the United States. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) announced its final endangerment finding that concludes greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare. The finding does not include any proposed regulations, but it will pave the way for several pending EPA rules. For example, USEPA will be able to finalize draft regulations to impose the first-ever federal tailpipe standards for greenhouse gases and to require the largest industrial sources to install the best available control technology to curb their emissions. EPA is expected to finalize both of those rules by March 2010.
The determination is expected to add to the Obama administration’s bargaining power in the absence of comprehensive U.S. energy and climate legislation. Also, President Obama shifted his visit to the Copenhagen talks from this week to the last day, indicating an increase in the administration’s commitment to, and hopes for, a successful outcome. The President also indicated that there appears to be an emerging consensus for developed nations to mobilize $10 billion a year by 2012 to support climate change adaptation and mitigation in developing countries.
