Lead U.S. climate negotiator Todd Stern said Thursday the Copenhagen Accord represents the best way forward for a binding global climate deal but that success likely rests with a smaller group of major emitters working outside the unwieldy, multi-national United Nations process.

In his first public remarks since the conclusion of the United Nations climate talks in December, Stern said the Copenhagen Accord - despite its shortcomings - included "significant breakthroughs in a number of respects."

"It is a very important step forward," he said at an investor forum on climate risk hosted jointly by the UN Foundation and CERES.

Most importantly, Stern said, the accord pierced the "firewall" between developed and developing countries, getting the latter to agree for the first time to commit to emissions cuts. It contained landmark agreements on financial assistance and technology help for developing countries, pegged a 2ºC warming as the maximum the globe should risk, and made important strides on the controversial notion that countries' emissions cuts must verifiable by the world community.

But the road forward remains full of peril, Stern warned.

"We have an accord right now that's kind of lumbering down the runway," he said. "And we need to get speed to have it take off."

Job No. 1, he added, is to define and establish the various mechanisms identified in the accord - the global adaptation fund, technology transfer, forest preservation and so on.

The second, he said, is to continue work on a legally binding climate commitment.
And there, he cautioned, the UN's multi-lateral, consensus driven process might not be ideally suited for forging a strong global agreement among the major emitting nations.

"Our goal is very simply to design a regime that is going to have the capability to actually help us solve the problem," Stern said.

"One of the frustrations sometimes in dealing on the international level is that a lot of focus can be paid ... to debating whether a particular idea is consistent to this or that particular convention. A lot of attention to detail can be focused on ideas that are not really tethered to reality."

The administration believes the most effective way forward is via a smaller group of countries, akin to the Major Economies Forum established by former President George W. Bush.

"That was an enormously important group. You had conversations you just can't have in a larger multi-lateral setting," Stern said. "Going forward there will need to be some kind of analogous small-group focus."

The ability of a handful of small countries - Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador - to block the world community from formally agreeing to the Copenhagen Accord proved one of the more frustrating elements of the talks, to many delegates. In the end the United Nations could only take note of the accord before sending everyone home.

And that was perhaps another key revelation coming out of the conference, noted former Sen. Timothy Wirth, president of the UN Foundation. Global power has shifted in ways that global institutions have not yet recognized.

"We're talking about a realignment around the world of global power," Wirth said. "It looks very different from what the UN Security Council looks like today, very different from the G-8. Copenhagen was a place where a lot of that played out."

This article originally appeared at The Daily Climate, the climate change news source published by Environmental Health Sciences, a nonprofit media company.

7 Comments

1. 1. Shoshin 05:38 PM 1/14/10

   "....reining in climate change..." What the heck does this mean? Did the climate never change before people came along?
   
   Utter clap trap. Perhaps the Inter Planetary Coo-Coo Commission should work on "reining in gravity" next year. Do you know how many people die from falls each year?
   
   AASIAA+ Another Asinine Self Important Alarmist Article

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2. 2. Badari 06:20 PM 1/14/10

   Billions of people can cover the earth and change and form it's landscape with agriculture, clear cutting, cities, mining, and all the other strange and wonderful things we do, but we can't alter the climate in a way that is inconsistent with the planet's natural cycle?
   
   It is your ignorance that is the clap trap, Shoshin.

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3. 3. rougarou 07:04 PM 1/14/10

   An utter boondoggle from the word go, a free vacation at taxpayer expense so left wingers can brag on how they are destroying America. Zero accomplished, nothing, zilch, nada. The clearing of the rainforest emits mor CO2 than all the vehicles in America yet not a word about that. A super con job spurned by Al Gore has run its course, the gig is up.

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4. 4. Soccerdad 11:47 AM 1/15/10

   When one has no real progress, the progress report typically is cloaked in metaphors:
   
   "... a very important step forward ..."
   
   "... the accord pierced the firewall ..."
   
   "... and made important strides ..."
   
   "We have an accord right now that's kind of lumbering down the runway ..."
   
   "... we need to get speed to have it take off"
   
   Meaningless drivel.
   
   

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5. 5. seeker 03:59 PM 1/15/10

   This is just repeating propaganda. NOBODY was happy with the Copenhagen agreement. It either did too much or too little.

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6. 6. Shoshin 10:19 AM 1/17/10

   Badari:
   
   Not all of man's activities have equal impacts. In this case Co2's impact is zero compared to the ones you mention. Explain to me why a thin dime let alone $trillions should be wasted on something that is of no import.
   
   It's like trying to justify a massive research effort to increase the environmental friendliness of the automobile by developing the most aerodynamic car wax while ignoring that the vehicle in question has the front profile of a barn door.
   
   There are many, many far more urgent and real problems on the planet to deal with. AGW is a delusion, albeit a very convenient one for democracy hating dictators and their pawns such as Al Gore, IPCC head Pachauri, and NGOs like GreedPiece to line their own pockets and further their narrow self serving agendas.
   
   This article is merely a last ditch attempt by a bunch of bureaucrats to save their own jobs.

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7. 7. Tan Boon Tee 08:03 PM 1/19/10

   The beauty of science lies in its perpetual subject to refutation and falsification. Theories are tentative, they only become laws or principles after proven backing of solid evidence that can be replicated.
   
   Climatology has always been a fluid science of high complexity, making any accurate prediction virtually impossible. In that respect, mistakes would be expected.
   
   Copenhagen aside, the UN did the right thing to admit the mistake about Himalayan glaciers.
   (vzc43)

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