The final word on China’s climate sabotage
http://www.chinese-tools.com/
The Australian pretty much spells it out. There are many salient points relating to Chinese tactics in Copenhagen, which explains the length of material quoted. But it’s well worth reading (my emphasis in bold):
The deal itself was anything but historic. But the implications of how the Chinese handled this negotiation well might be.
In a disastrous result for the world’s environment and for 19 years of difficult and painstaking environmental diplomacy, China undoubtedly won.
Chinese chief negotiator Xie Zhenhua said China was leaving Copenhagen “happy”, before walking out of the Bella conference centre late on Friday night with his clearly cheerful team .
They are about the only people in the world who are happy about Copenhagen’s failure, except perhaps those who are sceptical about the science of global warming and who therefore think global emission reduction efforts are not necessary in the first place.
Part of the problem was the complete refusal of the Chinese to engage in the talks.
The conference had been bogged down for almost two weeks by procedural blocking tactics by developing countries and China, which senior negotiators believe were almost entirely engineered by the Chinese.
Despite the fact that the “texts” that negotiators had worked on for more than two years were hopelessly far from agreed, China and the G77 block of developing nations resisted all attempts to bring politicians into the talks.
They skilfully exploited heavy-handed tactics by the Danish presidency to achieve a political agreement by describing it as a plot to “kill” the Kyoto Protocol, and were strongly supported by many of the environmental and aid activists at the conference, who in turn provided sound grabs to the assembled world media.
Initially these tactics were seen by negotiators as a strategy by China to force through a more favourable deal in the final days as negotiators grew more and more tired and desperate for a deal and more intent upon getting home for Christmas.
But when Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who was already in Copenhagen, refused to attend the Friday morning talks and was represented by China’s third-ranking official instead, negotiators realised they were dealing with something far more serious.
It was a snub to the US President that deeply angered US and European negotiators because it subverted the purpose of the meeting to crunch a leaders-level deal.
Making progress even harder was the insistence by the G77 group of developing nations that its hardline negotiators, including Sudanese ambassador Lumumba Di-Aping who has now twice likened developed countries’ attitudes towards climate change to Nazism, should be in the room.
In his speech, Obama repeated the demand that developing nations’ emission reduction promises had to be verifiable, a demand China was fiercely resisting in the grounds that it was an assault on its sovereignty.
“Without any accountability, any agreement would be empty words on a page,” Obama said, reportedly offending the Chinese Premier so much that he returned to his hotel.
And Wen did not show again for another leaders-level meeting after the speeches, sending an even lower level official.
When the President and the Premier finally met bilaterally there was an altercation between officials over access for each state’s media.
Finally, late in the day Obama and Clinton met the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa and clinched the “Copenhagen Accord”. According to some reports, quoting unnamed US officials, that meeting only came about because the Americans barged in on a gathering of the developing nation leaders and insisted on taking part.
In any event, having refused to engage in political-level discussions for two weeks on the grounds that everything had to be done by consensus and with the democratic inclusion of all 192 parties to the talks, at the eleventh hour the Chinese did do a deal with just a handful of the most powerful nations in the world.
And that deal protected its own interests, setting back international efforts to put Chinese and Indian emission reduction targets into an international legally binding treaty and weakening demands for international verification.
But it did not protect the interests of the developing countries who had been supporting the Chinese blocking tactics all through the conference, because it did not achieve deeper emission cuts from the main emitters that came anywhere close to what will be needed to contain rising world temperatures.
In fact it achieved a deal far weaker than the worst-case scenarios that might have been imagined when delegates arrived two weeks before.
Even the crucial timetable to achieve a legally binding treaty by 2010 was taken out at the insistence of the Chinese, who said they would otherwise reject the pact.
The powerful G77 block had already fractured during these talks, with developed nations including Australia putting in a lot of effort to convince countries that their best interests did not lie in continuing to be allied with China.
As they left, Copenhagen negotiators were wondering whether, having been abandoned so dramatically, China’s allies will trust the superpower again. It appeared the fracturing of the G77 may have become a permanent fissure.
They were also questioning why China had taken the attitude that it did.
No one was asking China to do anything more than the energy-intensity based emission reduction targets that it had voluntarily announced a few weeks before the negotiations began.
And while there are political and cultural reasons for China to have particular sensitivities about questions of sovereignty, they have not prevented China from participating in verification regimes in other kinds of international agreements.
Nor was it apparently a tactic to secure greater concessions from the US, such as an improvement in its emissions reduction target of 17 per cent by 2020 based on 2005 levels, because these talks never got down to the details.
The endless debate about process, the endless argument about whether or not to talk about a deal, the endless rhetoric about the historical responsibility of the West, the rants about the evils of the capitalist system, meant there was no real top-level negotiation about what emission targets each country would take on.
This negotiation never really got to discover each nation’s bottom line. Business representatives wandered somewhat aimlessly around the conference centre because there wasn’t really a debate in which they could become engaged.
In the end, it probably came down to the fact that China won either way. If a deal collapsed, then they were off the hook of ever having to commit to legally binding targets, If the tactics succeeded in watering down a deal, then a legally binding target could still be shoved off for years.
Of course, among the protesters the US got the blame. As exhausted delegates finally left the Bella Centre they were confronted with a small band of demonstrators bearing posters of Obama with the slogan “climate shame” across his forehead.
But according to the negotiators who ploughed through these past two weeks of bitter negotiations in the bitterly cold Danish winter, China should also take a large share of the opprobrium. Climate is shaping as an issue that will test how China deals with the international responsibilities that sit alongside its emerging superpower status.
In Copenhagen [China] failed that test.
It’s almost as if this outcome was predictable.
Update
Hat tip to contributor Neddy – everyone should read this Guardian reporter’s account of exactly how China deliberately derailed the climate talks. Truly worrying stuff, not least because its actions were clearly predetermined.
Update 2
Danwei has addressed the Copenhagen fallout in an interview with The Guardian’s Jonathan Watts:
Danwei: A bit of media speculation frenzy has been caused by Mark Lynas’ article published in The Guardian, where he claims that China refused to agree on targets and intentionally humiliated Obama during Copenhagen’s final meetings. Should we trust his account or just see it as one voice in a cacophony? What’s your take?
JW: Lynas has given a partial view from the inside. It is fascinating, but we will need a lot more than this to build up a full picture of what happened. The post-conference blame game is now well underway. Europe, and the UK in particular, have come out of Copenhagen with guns blazing. They are frustrated because their strategy for the conference fell apart almost from day one.Their plan had been for the Danish hosts to introduce a compromise deal at some point early in the talks. About a dozen countries, including China, India and Sudan, had been consulted about this in advance, according to one European negotiator. But this strategy collapsed when someone leaked the “Danish Draft” to my Guardian colleague John Vidal. Nations that were not part of the consultation were furious. The authority of the chair was undermined. From then on, the talks ground to a halt. Almost the entire two weeks was wasted as a result.
Was China to blame? Well, there is no smoking gun. The killing of the Danish draft served the interests not only of China, but also other nations such as India that were determined to block any proposal that might constrain their future growth. Nonetheless, China was repeatedly cited as the main obstacle, particularly on the final day. While Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and a core group of leaders from about thirty nations or regions tried to hammer out a deal, Wen Jiabao sent officials in his place. This was primarily a defensive tactic. He did not want to be strongarmed into a deal. Those negotiators choked almost every numerical target.
Three European negotiators confirmed to me that Chinese negotiators not only blocked targets for themselves, but also a target proposed by Angela Merkel for developed nations to trim emissions by 80 percent by 2050.
I found that disturbing and perplexing. Was China doing this because it will be a developed nation by mid-century? I would like to hear China’s explanation, but its delegates have been very quiet since the end of the conference.
Disturbing and perplexing indeed.
December 21st, 2009 at 12:24 pm
The best you can do when facing a negotiator who decided to get all of his ways is to walk out – or similar results, like an agreement that means nothing.
December 23rd, 2009 at 11:03 am
Not that it will go anywhere, but your rubbish shouldn’t go unchallenged
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/us-is-culprit-for-copenhagen-failure-but-shifts-blame-to-china-20091222-lbny.html
“The immediate reason for the failure of the talks can be summarised in two words: Barack Obama. The man elected to put aside childish things proved to be as susceptible to immediate self-interest as any other politician. Just as George Bush did in the approach to the Iraq war, Obama went behind the backs of the UN and most of its member states and assembled a coalition of the willing to strike a deal that outraged the rest of the world. This was then presented to poorer nations without negotiation. Either they signed it, or they lost the adaptation funds required to help them survive the first few decades of climate breakdown.”
” He demanded concessions while offering nothing.”
“…this was a calculated manoeuvre guaranteed to produce intransigence, whereupon China could be blamed for the outcome the US wanted.”
“Why would he do this? Pushing a strong climate program through the Senate, many of whose members are wholly owned subsidiaries of the energy industry, would have been the political battle of his life. Yet again, the absence of effective campaign finance reform in the US makes global progress almost impossible.”
December 23rd, 2009 at 12:19 pm
st
I’m a big fan of George Monbiot, especially when he’s taking on the might of MNCs and challenging various governments and their policies. And I think some of his points are well taken and ‘blame the US’ is an obvious counter to ‘blame China’. But he’s got this one wrong.
Monbiot is too focussed on his loathing for special interest groups and big business to see that it was China who adopted the very strategy he accuses George Bush (re Iraq) of employing in
bullyinglobbying the support of poor countries that need Chinese investment; and by so doing China pushed the Sudanese et al to make demands that ensured there would be no legally binding agreement.Simple, really. Monbiot could do with a little more Occam on his razor.
December 24th, 2009 at 12:46 am
I see the Monbiot’s piece has already been noted and discussed here. Now I bring you something else in case you missed it (I almost did, if it was not for a link on Michael Turton’s blog, of all places). I think that anyone who truly wants to ‘challenge rubbish’ should read “How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room” by Mark Lynas in Guardian:
“Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful “deal” so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/22/copenhagen-climate-change-mark-lynas
Speak of the other side of the coin… but only after you have read the whole article.
December 24th, 2009 at 1:18 am
Thanks Neddy.
Says it all, really.
Although I could almost have scripted Lynas’ account of China’s treachery, I have to admit to being a bit shocked at the degree of the shafting they dished out to the rest of the world.
Just how long do we have to wait for Beijing to make their first globally responsible play?
December 24th, 2009 at 7:20 am
What waits to be seen is which country actually does more to effectively deal with climate change.
December 24th, 2009 at 7:32 am
Sure Mark Lynas was there. So were many others who have different opinions from his.
December 24th, 2009 at 7:52 am
The Bali Action Plan has clear stipulations regarding whether a country’s mitigation action should be subject to international scrutiny, He Yafei quoted Wen as saying.
“For developing countries, only those mitigation actions supported internationally will be subject to the MRV. The voluntary mitigation actions should not be subject to international MRV,” Wen said, referring to the scheme requiring national mitigation action to be “measurable, reportable and verifiable.”
December 24th, 2009 at 10:06 am
“What waits to be seen is which country actually does more to effectively deal with climate change.”
Read the article again. China deliberately blocked proposals that WOULD have dealt more effectively with climate change.
“So were many others who have different opinions from his.”
I think you mean ‘interpretations’ – and please point the way, I’d be happy to include them in this discussion.
December 24th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Well, I expect there are, and will be, other interpretations. What I do not believe is that any of those will (credibly) present China’s role in a truly positive light. Different perspectives will produce, however, evaluations of varying emphasis and severity. Yes, Lynas’ own evaluation is harsh; it appears he was present as a consultant to the Maldives’ delegation. That says a lot to me. But his particular POV does not make him wrong in a substantive way.
There are two more posts about all this by James Fallows (or is it one post in two parts?): “A story that, if true, is important”, and “‘Significant if true’ follow up (China in Copenhagen)”
http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/a_story_that_if_true_seems_ver.php
http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/significant_if_true_follow_up.php
Only one, humorous quote pertaining to what I refer to, above, as “credible”, or not, interpretations. J.Fallows says:
“I could write in my sleep the response that will come from Chinese officials and from Chinese netizens about the unfairness of this view and the possibility that it will ‘hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.’”
BTW, I like Fallows’ approach: “We report, you decide”. Definitely worth reading.
December 24th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Yeah, I read those, Neddy.
Fallows excellent as always. If I have a quibble it’s that the two readers’ views expressed in emails sent to Fallows are both Sino-apologist in essence, although they defend China from different perspectives.
December 24th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
The apologists don’t rattle me, Stuart. As for James Fallows writing, just bringing Mark Lynas’ article up, and saying that “if true, (this) is important” is very valuable contribution, what with Fallows’ reputation and influence.
Oh, and I have two more quotes from Mark Lynas, who was responding to questions on Dot Earth blog (NYT):
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/views-on-china-and-copenhagen/
“I have various beefs here, to be honest. One is that the NGO movement is ten years out of date. They’re still arguing for ‘climate justice’, whatever that means, which is interpreted by the big developing countries like India and China as a right to pollute up to Western levels. To me carbon equity is the logic of mutually assured destruction. I think NGOs are far too soft on the Chinese, given that it’s the world’s biggest polluter, and is the single most important factor in deciding when global emissions will peak, which in turn is the single most important factor in the eventual temperature outcome.”
“I think the bottom line for China (and India) is growth, and given that this growth is mainly based on coal, there is going to have to be much more pressure on China if global emissions are to peak within any reasonable time frame. In Beijing the interests of the Party come first, second and third, and global warming is somewhere further down the list. Growth delivers stability and prosperity, and keeps the party in power.”
Hehehe…
December 25th, 2009 at 1:15 am
Good stuff, Neddy.
I passed comment somewhere that China had played poor countries and NGOs like a banjo in Copenhagen. It’s about time both woke up to the new reality.
December 25th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Here is the Chinese version of events:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-12/25/content_12701355.htm
December 25th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Thanks for that link, Matthew.
Who would have thought it? Wen Jiaobao was the saviour of Copenhagen in the face of capitalist derailers.
December 25th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
[...] to Matthew’s link on Found in [...]
December 28th, 2009 at 5:52 am
“Hat tip to contributor Neddy – everyone should read this Guardian reporter’s account of exactly how China deliberately derailed the climate talks. Truly worrying stuff, not least because its actions were clearly predetermined.”
My experience with journalists is that a lot of them have IQ no higher than the baboons.
December 29th, 2009 at 1:18 am
@17,
If you replace “journalist” with “stuart ” you are probably right as well.
stuart is silly enough to take Mark Lynas’s opinion as gospel just because he was in the room.
December 29th, 2009 at 3:59 am
A British Chinese take on the sinophobia in the media following the Copenhagen failure:
http://madammiaow.blogspot.com/2009/12/sinophobia-and-copenhagen-open-letter.html
December 29th, 2009 at 11:30 am
@ st
I refer you to #14 for an alternative account of history. Xinhua are particularly good at this.
December 29th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
@ Anna (#19)
There are so many tasty morsels to pick from your take on the Lynas article. If I may choose one tender nugget from your comments:
“I’m actually really disappointed that some UK Chinese have again chosen to ignore scapegoating China which stirs up a racist dimension. There are plenty of issues to get them over and I’m sure they were no angels at Copenhagen. But the anti-Chinese tone, not just anti-China, is revolting.”
I can agree that there was geopolitical manoeuvring, posturing, strategising, and backstabbing. No global conference would be complete without them (sadly).
But to inappropriately reduce this to a racial issue suggests that you are, not unlike many sympathetic to Beijing, rather too sensitised to any criticism directed at the middle kingdom. Unless you can learn to more effectively manage the chip on your shoulder and the deep-rooted resentments that fuel your arguments you will forever perceive justified criticisms as racially motivated or ‘anti-China’.
If you feel criticisms are not justified you are at liberty to avail yourself of the very freedoms that Beijing would seek to deny you. And some will agree with you and some won’t. But by branding those that disagree as ‘racist’ or ‘anti-China’ is no different than the CCP branding anyone who refuses to toe the party line as an enemy of the state.
And one more …
“BBCs need to get their finger out and stop siding with forces that demonise us.”
Us?
Your reputation as a blogger is better than that.
December 29th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
@20,
Mark Lynas and your opinion on this matter got caught in my BS filter.
I don’t need anyone else’s account of history to work out Mark Lynas and you have absolutely no credibility.
December 30th, 2009 at 12:29 am
“Mark Lynas and your opinion on this matter got caught in my BS filter.”
I think your filter needs adjusting, old sport.
December 30th, 2009 at 6:37 am
There are something like couple of hundreds representatives from 190 stakeholders nations. How many of these representatives expressed views that blame China only? Why support your arguments based on the unverified claims of some journalists who could not possibly have participated in all meetings at all time and known who said what? Further, there are at least another few hundreds journalists were around reporting on the meeting,.. what have they said? I suspect Mark Lynas was out to get his thrill and probably hoping to get a raise or a new job offer for his efforts.
December 30th, 2009 at 7:02 am
@stuart
I suppose Mr Prescott’s opinion counts more than the 2-bit Mark Lynas.
From the Telegraph
John Prescott: United States as much to blame as China for climate change talks failure
John Prescott, the former deputy prime minister, has defended China against claims that it was responsible for the failure to secure a legally binding deal at the Copenhagen climate change talks.
He said that the United States shared the blame for the lack of a legally-binding deal at this month’s summit, and rejected suggestions that China “wrecked” a global agreement on cutting emissions.
“We require a more objective assessment of the Copenhagen accord, especially the relationship between the world’s two major polluters – China and the US,” Mr Prescott said.
During the talks, Todd Stern, the US special envoy, said that the discussions were about “maths,” because China was projected to produce 60 per cent more CO2 emissions than America by 2030.
But Mr Prescott, who is now the Council of Europe climate change rapporteur, said that this claim ignored the fact that the US currently emitted 20 tonnes of CO2 per person compared to six tonnes in China.
He also criticised United States President Barack Obama for saying in his speech at the talks that there had been “two decades of talking and no action” over climate change, adding that while America may have done little, China and Europe had signed the 1997 Kyoto protocol and “followed a lot” of its policies.
One of the architects of Kyoto, Mr Prescott is said to fear that the Chinese will walk away from upcoming talks in Mexico and Bonn if the accusations continue. In a letter to the Guardian, he said that President Obama’s speech had been “clearly critical” of the Asian superpower.
China has been accused of killing off attempts to impose targets to reduce emissions by 2050 on the grounds they it would inhibit growth, and rejecting calls from smaller countries for a deal based on allowing a 1.5C maximum rise in global temperatures.
Instead, a maximum 2C target by 2050 was agreed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6900320/John-Prescott-United-States-as-much-to-blame-as-China-for-climate-change-talks-failure.html
December 30th, 2009 at 10:55 am
@ Mac
“There are something like couple of hundreds representatives from 190 stakeholders nations. How many of these representatives expressed views that blame China only?”
How many of them have the courage to do so? Most have economic guns held to their temples.
“I suppose Mr Prescott’s opinion counts more than the 2-bit Mark Lynas.”
Prescott was not ‘in the room’. Further, his accusations dwell on the past, as pro-Chinese arguments often do. Attempting to blame Copenhagen on the US by citing Kyoto is straight out of the CCP tu quoque handbook.
December 30th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
@stuart
“How many of them have the courage to do so? Most have economic guns held to their temples.”
You got to be kidding.
Mr Prescott is Council of Europe climate change rapporteur; who is Mark Lynas…a reporter who did not do his proper work but instead pulling off stunt for some limelights.
December 31st, 2009 at 12:12 am
““How many of them have the courage to do so? Most have economic guns held to their temples.””
beep … beep ..beep … my BS filter is working in over drive mode again.
Some hundres and thousands of representives and journalist from 190 countries have economic guns held to their temples and too cowardly to speak out bar one Mr Mark Lynas ? You truely need to have your head examined.
December 31st, 2009 at 1:47 am
“beep … beep ..beep … my BS filter is working in over drive mode again.”
I think MAC is using the same faulty software.
December 31st, 2009 at 9:43 am
@stuart # 21
Oh dear. Here we go. Chippy, over-sensitive us.
There is a context for my plea to an end to the sinophobia. One example is the 2001 attempt by a section of the government and some of the media to scapegoat the British Chinese for the Foot & Mouth Disease outbreak in the UK. MAFF minister Nick Brown eventually apologised and confirmed that the accusation had no foundation. The government tried to deny it came from them but Valerie Elliott of The Times insisted that she had been briefed that it was the Chinese wot dunnit but never said who. I’ll just say that the Labour government has form on this score.
“BBCs need to get their finger out and stop siding with forces that demonise us.”
That was in the thread and in answer to someone who I felt was doing just that. I agree that to reduce politics to pressing buttons on issues of race is negative but the government evidently finds it effective or they wouldn’t keep doing it.
To you it’s a chip on the shoulder — how easy to dismiss someone else’s experience. How casually you minimise that which you don’t feel. To me it’s drearily recurring annoyance.
I suspect something’s coming down the pipeline and my antennae are up.
http://madammiaow.blogspot.com/2009/12/sinophobia-and-copenhagen-open-letter.html
December 31st, 2009 at 11:04 am
@ Anna
“Oh dear. Here we go. Chippy, over-sensitive us.”
Well, yes. Although I’m still concerned about this ‘us’ thing you keep falling back on.
“There is a context for my plea to an end to the sinophobia.”
There you go again.
Sinophobia? Straw man arguments will get you nowhere. I’m quite comfortable rejecting the premise of any statement that deliberately sets out to misrepresent my position.
And then you call upon foot and mouth disease as your key witness. You can’t be serious. Can you?
“…pressing buttons on issues of race is negative but the government evidently finds it effective or they wouldn’t keep doing it.”
Just so you know, there is only one of two things going on here. Either a) your sensitivities (yes, that word again) perceive racism in the BBC’s content where none exists, or b) you seek to deflect a debate that you’re not comfortable with.
“To me it’s drearily recurring annoyance.”
So we’re going with a) in this case.
It’s been lovely to have you visit my humble corner of cyberspace. You’re welcome to come again; but please, no more straw.
December 31st, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Actually, Stuart, looking around your gaff(e) I was thinking more along the lines of spittoons and sawdust.
Ciao.
x
December 31st, 2009 at 12:44 pm
“I was thinking more along the lines of spittoons and sawdust. Ciao. x”
Happy 2010 to you too, Anna.
December 31st, 2009 at 2:07 pm
[...] is clearly a man who can empathise with the plight of Liu Xiaobo, comprehends the nature of what happened in Copenhagen, and understands the global nightmare of a world that sings to the tune of the [...]
January 1st, 2010 at 1:22 am
Indeed, Stuart,
A happy and a peaceful new year.