It has only been two days into the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen, but already warring factions and tensions are threatening to derail the negotiations.
All hell broke lose when a “Danish text” was leaked to the media and published in full online by mid-afternoon. The proposal, among other things, mooted a new international agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol - a highly controversial suggestion given that the 130 developing nation group of G77 and China have been lobbying to keep the Kyoto Protocol.
The Kyoto treaty is the only existing legally binding agreement that obliges developed nations to take on reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
G77 and China were scheduled to have a press conference at 3.30pm, shortly after the story on the Danish text broke but was cancelled after reporters were made to wait for half an hour.
The atmosphere in Bella Centre, where the conference is being held, was tense, with some analysts speculating that the G77 nations could stage a walkout from the negotiations.
NGOs scrambled to issue statements slamming the developed nations - apparently the United States, United Kingdom, and Denmark - who were “secretly discussing” the Danish text, while other coalitions rushed to draft their own response.
China, India, South Africa and Brazil; and the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis) were said to have prepared their own text in response.
Kim Carstensen, leader of the WWF Global Climate Initiative said that the “focus on the Danish text right now is a distraction from the negotiations that have just come underway in Copenhagen”.
“Talks must focus on the text that has so far been negotiated and not on new texts that are being negotiated in small group,” she added.
The G77 and China press conference was hastily reinstated at 7pm, and Ambassador Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping had some strong words for developed nations: “I would like to say on behalf of G77, this is a very serious development. It’s a major violation that threatens the success of the Copenhagen negotiations.”
Mr Di-Aping pointed out that the Danish text “does not, even by lip service, include a single proposition by any developing country”.
When a reporter said that the Danish had denied the existence of such text, Mr Di-Aping responded that “it absolutely exists. The idea that it does not exist will not help address the concerns around it.”
In a dig, he added: “Perhaps it’s the Danish idea that maybe developing countries are not confident, not knowledgeable enough, to articulate their own views and their own solutions.”
He insisted, however, that negotiators will not “walk out at this late hour, because we cannot accord failure of Copenhagen.”
“We have to find a way to reach an equitable and a just deal that will save the world and advance the interest and protect humanity and nature,” he said.
When pointed out by a reporter that the text did include some aggressive targets of 80 per cent reduction in emissions by developed nations, the ambassador said he was unaware of it.
Shortly after the press conference, UNFCCC executive secretary Yvo de Boer sent out a statement that said the Danish text was “an informal paper ahead of the conference given to a number of people for the purposes of consultations”.
“The only formal texts in the UN process are the ones tabled by the Chairs of this Copenhagen conference at the behest of the Parties,” he said.
Day Two on the battlefield is over, the world now awaits Day Three.
