The Copenhagen Climate Change Conference from December 7 to 18 is meant to come up with answers and commitments. More likely, all it will leave in place is questions and complications.

The months and days ahead of the conference have seen matters proceeding at two levels. First, the event is a hook on which every climate change activist, whatever that may mean, can hang their respective calls to – among other things – ride bicycles, have fewer children and refrain from eating beef for the sake of saving the planet.

The other level has been the protracted process at political level among people who have real power to come up with a meaningful deal, and they have not succeeded, and in terms of real steps, are not expected to.

Climate change dissenters say that everything about Copenhagen is phoney. First, there is the argument that current mainstream theory about climate change is a myth, and it may be added that the planet has seen major climate change periods that long predated industrialisation. Further, some have pointed with alarm that a reference in conference documents to "world government" exposes the process as a prelude to precisely the prospect feared by conspiracy theorists.

As to the latter, a major question would be that if major players seem unable or unwilling to agree on what is meant to be a deal that would succeed the Kyoto Protocol, how on earth are they going to achieve consensus on nothing less than world government?

Cloud cuckoo land?
What would have to be achieved in Copenhagen for the event to be regarded as a success?

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, in essence would like to see specific agreements by industrialised countries on precisely how much they are prepared to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2020; further, specific commitments by China and India about this; huge financial help for poorer countries to limit their emissions; and a plan for how this latter money will be managed. (Cynics might suggest that this translates into seeing how to stop recipient governments using the financial aid to buy carbon-emitting luxury cars.)

De Boer, according to a UN media statement, wants the Copenhagen meeting to see wealthy countries pledge $10 billion a year for three years to help developing nations work against climate change. This, he said, should be used to "jump start" low-emission growth, limit deforestation and finance immediate adaptation measures. He added that up to 2020, medium-term needs would have a price tag of about $100 million.

In the face of skepticism about the prospects for the summit, De Boer said that there was "no doubt in my mind whatsoever that it will be a success".

"I’ve seen some recent reports that Copenhagen has failed even before it starts and I must say that those reports are simply wrong," he said.
Industrialised and developing countries were coming up with new commitments practically every day, De Boer said. He also believed that the US could be brought on board with a commitment from Washington to help foot the bill for developing countries.

The road to Copenhagen has produced a number of memorable soundbites (European Commission President Jose Barosso: "We cannot negotiate with nature. We cannot negotiate with physics. We cannot negotiate with science") and De Boer added one of his own, on the topic of the need to act against deforestation: "If the lungs of the world collapse, the rest will die".

The air up there
But what about the United States, China, India, Russia and the EU as a bloc – the world’s most powerful engines?
The US is putting legislation through the senate that, if approved, would represent a commitment to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 20 per cent of 2005 levels by 2020.

A question was whether US president Barack Obama would go to Copenhagen; underlying the question was whether he would be prepared to go to an event that many see as predestined to be ineffectual – one that would produce a "political commitment", meaning high-sounding intentions, rather than a specific plan with everyone on board with specific commitments – meaning, in turn, a timetable by which goals must be achieved. Second, and not insignificantly, Obama might want to stay in Washington and tend the home fires, if that is not an unfortunate choice of phrase in this context.

In the Copenhagen story, the US and China are closely associated, simply because they are the world’s two biggest polluters as individual countries, with the US said to be producing 30 per cent of the world’s total emissions. Beijing has said that it will reduce its "energy intensity" to a point in 2010 where they would be 20 per cent of what they were in 2006, while aiming to step up the proportion of renewables to 15 per cent in 2020.

A few weeks ahead of Copenhagen, Washington and Beijing agreed on a deal that will see the US assist China in improving its capacity to monitor its emissions. This is being done because, as the Washington Post has reported, several US senators have called into question the reliability of Chinese data on greenhouse gas emissions.
India so far has not been strong on specifics, saying that they will make a major shift towards the use of renewable energy.

These are the countries to which, it is said, the rest of the world is looking for leadership, or at least to see whether the "worst offenders" actually do anything. During his November visit to China, Obama said as much in a public speech in which he underlined that if countries such as the US and China were seen as taking no serious steps, no one else would.