The failure to reach a real breakthrough at Copenhagen does not bode well for the future.
Let's be clear about this. The only thing that came out of Copenhagen was an agreement to agree and nothing more. No specific date has been set on when a post-Kyoto treaty has to be ready. There is no legally binding agreement which was the only way to make the Copenhagen Accord work. And where will the money for the climate change fund come from ? Worse still, 2C is not actually a formal target. Nor does it identify a year by which emissions should peak. And would a new treaty replace Kyoto or will it just add teeth to the existing treaty? We don't know, and political leaders won't say anything because they don't know.
The key points to the Copenhagen Accord are spelled out here.
Leading environmental scientist Tim Flannery says while the agreement will not stop climate change, it's an important first step with serious gains in commitments to funding for developing nations and protecting tropical rain forests. But as the Guardian
notes, if it's a first step, it will be down a long and difficult road.
So what can we expect? The first thing is we need a treaty. Without that, it will be a return to the days before Kyoto when countries did not have any binding targets. But if they don't sign a treaty by next year, it will make it a lot harder to have one in place by 2015 when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says we reach the point of no return. Already scientists have told New Scientist that temperatures will rise 3.5C.
While this has been greeted as a victory for Big Carbon and polluters, it's actually going to hurt business. As The Wall Street Journal says, a treaty would have created a level playing field for clean energy and carbon pricing. Now everything is up in the air.
That's likely to put pressure on governments to strike a treaty. But if their performance at Copenhagen is anything to by, that might never happen.
Alternatively, it would put pressure on governments to take action at a national level. As Elisa de Wit, a partner and leader of the climate practice at Australian law firm Deacons says: "Certainly for the private sector and the international carbon market, it has not produced a result which provides the certainty and clarity needed for the significant investment required to achieve emissions reductions at the necessary scale to achieve a maximum 2 degree temperature increase. Future involvement by the private sector is now likely to be dependent upon action taken at a national level and there is still much uncertainty about when, or even if, such action will be taken by countries such as Australia and the United States."
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