3+-+Compulsory+Resources

=Compulsory Resources=

Displayed below are **__four articles__** and **__two videos__** that will serve to explain the events at and outcome of the Copenhagen Summit. There are also **__three articles__** for additional reading under "** Enrichment **" for those who are interested in additional information.

=Copenhagen Climate Summit negotiations 'suspended'= Richard Black


 * Negotiations at the UN climate summit have been suspended after developing countries withdrew their co-operation.**

Delegations were angry at what they saw as moves by the Danish host government to sideline talks on more emission cuts under the Kyoto Protocol.

As news spread around the conference centre, activists chanted "We stand with Africa - Kyoto targets now".

But talks between the parties were expected to resume in the afternoon and informal discussions continue.

The countries that have suspended co-operation are those which make up the G77-China bloc of 130 nations. These range from wealthy countries such as South Korea, to some of the poorest states in the world.

The G77-China bloc speaks for developing countries in the climate change negotiation process.

Blocs representing poor countries vulnerable to climate change have been adamant that rich nations must commit to emission cuts beyond 2012 under the Kyoto Protocol.

But the EU and the developed world in general has promoted the idea of an entirely new agreement, replacing the protocol.

Developing countries fear they would lose many of the gains they made when the Kyoto agreement was signed in 1997.

They point out that the Kyoto Protocol is the only international legally binding instrument that has curbed carbon emissions, and also that it contains functioning mechanisms for bringing development benefits to poor countries such as money for investment in clean energy projects.

Previously during this meeting - formally called the Conference of the Parties (COP) 15 - developing countries have accused the Danish chairs of ignoring their concerns.

"It has become clear that the Danish presidency - in the most undemocratic fashion - is advancing the interests of the developed countries at the expense of the balance of obligations between developed and developing countries," he told BBC Radio 4's The World at One programme.

"The mistake they are doing now has reached levels that cannot be acceptable from a president who is supposed to be acting and shepherding the process on behalf of all parties."

Last week, the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu forced a suspension after insisting that proposals to amend the UN climate convention and Kyoto Protocol be debated in full.

At a news conference earlier in the day, UK Climate Secretary Ed Miliband said that for the developed world to commit to further cuts under the Kyoto Protocol would be "irresponsible for the climate".

He said it would leave some of the world's biggest emitters without targets for cutting emissions.

Many developing countries have been arguing for a "twin track" approach, whereby countries with existing targets under the Kyoto Protocol (all developed nations except the US) stay under that umbrella, with the US and major developing economies making their carbon pledges under a new protocol.

Kim Carstensen, director of the global climate initiative with environment group WWF, said that much more movement was needed on the Kyoto Protocol negotiations here.

"The point is being made very loudly that African countries and the wider G77 bloc will not accept non-action on the Kyoto Protocol, and they're really afraid that a deal has been stitched up behind their backs," he told BBC News.

While understanding the G77 position, he said the suspension could affect progress towards a deal.

"We're losing time, and that's a serious matter; because for every minute we lose on one issue, the chances of getting to the bottom of the next issue diminish."

The Danish government has yet to make any formal response; but Australian Climate Minister Penny Wong described the suspension as "regrettable".

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN climate change convention, predicted that the negotiations would get back on track in the early afternoon.

"The vast majority of countries here want to see the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol," he said.

"I'm not aware that any countries are trying to block anything."

An African bloc walkout during prepatory talks in Barcelona in November proved unpopular with other developing countries, in particular some small island nations.

=Looking for a Silver Lining in the Post-Summit Landscape= Fred Pearce


 * Much was left undone in Copenhagen, and the many loopholes in the climate accord could lead to rising emissions. But the conference averted disaster by keeping the UN climate negotiations alive, and some expressed hope that the growth of renewable energy technology may ultimately save the day.**

Did British climate secretary Ed Miliband save the planet early on the final Saturday of the Copenhagen conference? It sounds like a risible claim, especially coming from a British journalist like myself. But hear me out.

At 7 a.m. on Saturday, with the conference 14 hours into overtime, the visibly exhausted and procedurally confused chairman of the summit, Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, cast a weary eye over the surviving delegates from an all-night session. After listening to more than 40 speeches from the floor and with dozens more delegates waiting to be heard, Rasmussen said there was no consensus on adopting the draft agreement produced by U.S. President Obama and 25 other heads of state the previous day. “Therefore I propose that we...” Almost certainly his next words would have been a recommendation to drop or delete the text.

The rejection of what was already known as the Copenhagen Accord would have been a catastrophic failure for both climate diplomacy and the climate. The United Nations process to fight climate change, set in train at the Earth Summit in Rio 17 years before, would have lain in tatters. The climate equivalent of the collapse of the world trade talks — the “Doha-isation of climate,” as one journalist quipped — would have reverberated for years, unleashing accelerating emissions of greenhouse gases and who knows what climatic tipping points in future years.

Then up spoke Ed Miliband, younger brother of the more famous British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband. “Point of order,” he called from the floor, and asked for an adjournment of the meeting. Rasmussen looked like a drowning man saved.

When the meeting resumed three hours later, with Rasmussen safely tucked in bed and diagnosed as “exhausted” by UN Secretary-General Ban

Ki-moon, a procedural formula had been devised. A new chairman moved that the meeting “take note of the Copenhagen Accord,” with those agreeing to it able to add their names to its title and make pledges to stem their rising carbon dioxide emissions. The many critics of the leaders’ draft agreement, mostly in Latin America and Africa, were assuaged. The gavel fell. The accord was saved. Wild applause broke out.

The deadline for signing up to the Copenhagen Accord is February 1. Developing nations among the signatories will then also be able to dip into a “climate fund” created by the U.S. and other rich nations as part of the accord. The fund will begin with $10 billion a year and, if all goes according to their promises, will contain $100 billion a year by 2020.

It may seem a bizarre way to conduct business. But had Miliband not prevented Rasmussen from finishing his sentence, the accord would have had no UN status, countries would not have been asked to commit to emissions cuts, and the climate fund would have been stillborn. Other ways may have been found to achieve some of the same ends. Money usually talks. But the legitimacy of the UN process — the only basis on which most nations agree to participate in action on climate change — would have been lost.

The “noting” of the accord was a victory for climate diplomacy. And a relief to the galaxy of world leaders — Barack Obama, Britain’s Gordon Brown, Germany’s Angela Merkel, Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev, and Brazil’s President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, among them — who, hours before, had prematurely claimed their work was done when they had agreed to the draft among themselves.

Heading for the airport, they failed to realize the anger that leaders not involved would feel about their exclusion from the dealmaking. And, since the accord was merely “noted” by the conference and not adopted, they had been wrong to claim before departure that, in the words of Gordon Brown, “for the first time, 192 nations of the UN have reached agreement on preventing warming beyond two degrees.” They did not. Only a later, legally binding UN treaty — if that can be achieved in 2010 — will accomplish that.

So the accord was a flawed diplomatic triumph. The show is still on the road. But a triumph for the planet? Not so fast. Across the Bella conference center, scientists who had evaded the tight attendance restrictions on observers were crunching numbers. And the scientists were gloomy.

The accord may set a goal to limit global warming to 2 degrees C (3.6 F), but it provides no emissions targets on how that should be achieved. On the basis of the commitments so far informally made by nations — which will be appended to the accord as countries sign it — the best estimates are that it will set the world on track to warming of between 3 and 3.5 degrees C, according to Michiel Schaeffer of the consulting group, ECOFYS, and Niklas Hoehne of Climate Analytics, who provided climate analysis for many nations at the conference.

Why this gap between rhetoric and reality? The first problem is the targets themselves. High hopes that many nations would up their promises in Copenhagen came to nothing. The U.S. would not go beyond its pre-conference promise to cut emissions by 14 to 17 percent from 2005 to 2020 — which more or less wipes out its increases since 1990 — the baseline used by the European Union for its pledge to cut by 20 percent. A European offer to go to 30 percent if others were generous was not activated.

China stuck with its pre-conference pledge to cut carbon intensity — that is, emissions per dollar of gross domestic product — by 40 to 45 percent between 2005 and 2020. That sounds good, but will not be enough to halt rising Chinese emissions. And as Premier Wen Jiabao helpfully told the conference, it is actually slightly less than the 46 percent reduction achieved between 1990 and 2005. So, it is arguably no more than business as usual.

India, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, and others made similar pledges. It is the first time that developing nations have offered to make cuts in their emissions. But all insisted that the targets, while genuine, were voluntary and would not form part of any legally binding treaty. This was the central standoff throughout a conference characterized by repeated clashes on the issue between the U.S. and China. Hillary Clinton called the international verification and “transparency” of emissions promises, especially from China, a “deal breaker.” And so it proved.

But beyond the targets lies a legal morass over the precise definitions of what the target numbers mean. The text of the Copenhagen Accord contains even more loopholes than the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, say analysts.

The environment group WWF — reaching roughly the same conclusions as Climate Analytics and ECOFYS — calculates that rich-world promises to make cuts of 15 to 19 percent in their collective emissions between 1990 and 2020 could, once the loopholes are taken into account, result in an actual increase in emissions by 4 to 10 percent. Another unpublished assessment by Simon Terry of the Sustainability Council of New Zealand puts the increase at 2 to 8 percent.

The main loopholes are:

— Hot air. The Kyoto Protocol gave Russia and other Eastern European countries rights to emit far more CO2 than they needed because of the collapse of their industries post-1990. They have accumulated large numbers of excess permits — 10.7 billion tons by the time the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, according to a European Union study. Potentially these credits, often called “hot air,” can be sold to other countries. The Copenhagen Accord appears to allow the spare credits to be carried forward for sale after 2012. If the EU bought them all to offset emissions between 2013 and 2020, it could achieve even a 30 percent “cut” in emissions without making any actual domestic cuts at all.

— Carbon offsets. This is another way in which countries faced with difficult emissions reduction targets can offset them by investing in projects to cut someone else’s emissions. Done well, they allow carbon to be kept out of the atmosphere more cheaply. Done badly, they amount to carbon fraud, writing off emissions via green energy projects that were going to happen anyway. According to WWF, the European Union has already announced plans to make half a billion tons in emissions “cuts” through offsets in developing countries between 2012 and 2020. Other nations could triple that figure, it says.

— Airline and shipping fuel. A notable failure of the Copenhagen Accord is the absence of proposals to limit growing emissions from international shipping and aircraft, which do not fall under the umbrella of anyone’s national emissions. Currently that is another loophole of one to two billion tons a year.

— Forests. Copenhagen also failed to reach agreement on a plan to allow countries to claim either cash or carbon emissions credits for changes in managing forests to retain carbon. Insiders say the talks faltered because the U.S. and others refused to close a loophole that would allow countries to claim credits for improving things in one part of the country — by planting trees, for instance — while not being held to account for cutting down trees elsewhere within their borders. Unless fixed, another billion tons could slip through this loophole, says WWF.

Countries could close these loopholes before the final hoped-for legally binding agreement is signed. Then again, they might not.

So how could leaders fly out of Copenhagen, often in private jets, claiming success? More particularly why would some seasoned negotiators shrug their shoulders at the failures and insist that some progress was made?

There were two kinds of optimism on display in the final hours of the conference. The first was techno-optimism. Thus U.S. Congressman Edward Markey, co-author of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, spoke of a coming “technical revolution” in low-carbon energy systems. “It will be not unlike the telecom revolution,” he said, transforming energy technology worldwide far faster than predicted. “We will do far better than our two-degree goal,” he predicted. With several renewable technologies growing annually by 30 percent, even before the grand plans for “green jobs” in the U.S. and elsewhere, this may not be wishful thinking.

Diplomatic optimists, meanwhile, spoke of the progress they have seen in understanding of climate issues among world leaders. Standing in for his boss, Ban Ki-moon, UN assistant secretary general Robert Orr cited, with evident surprise, the leaders’ “meaningful discussion” of the respective scientific merits of adopting 2 degrees C or 1.5 degrees C as a warming limit.

“These were the most genuine negotiations I’ve ever seen leaders engaged in,” Orr said. Such deals are “usually pre-arranged, pre-cooked,” he added, but not this time.

Such optimism is not necessarily well-placed. After concluding the accord, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: “This is the first step we are taking towards a green and low-carbon future for the world. But like all first steps, the steps are difficult.” He would not have known that almost the same words were used by one of his predecessors, John Major, after the Kyoto Protocol in 1997.

Even so, having followed climate talks since the Earth Summit in 1992, I am in many ways amazed at the progress made. It would have been hard to predict back in Rio that within two decades governments would be discussing cutting emissions by 50 or even 80 percent by mid-century. After all, they are talking about dismantling carbon-based energy systems that have underpinned economies since the industrial revolution. The trouble is that the science of climate change has become scarier, too, since 1992, and the threat seems much closer.

For all the travails and disappointment of the last two weeks, it is still possible to be optimistic that the world is approaching a genuine tipping point in how we get our energy. Will it come in time to prevent tipping points in the climate system? Frankly, nobody knows the answer to that.

=How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room= Mark Lynas

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.

China's strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world's poor once again. And sure enough, the aid agencies, civil society movements and environmental groups all took the bait. The failure was "the inevitable result of rich countries refusing adequately and fairly to shoulder their overwhelming responsibility", said Christian Aid. "Rich countries have bullied developing nations," fumed Friends of the Earth International.

All very predictable, but the complete opposite of the truth. Even George Monbiot, writing in yesterday's Guardian, made the mistake of singly blaming Obama. But I saw Obama fighting desperately to salvage a deal, and the Chinese delegate saying "no", over and over again. Monbiot even approvingly quoted the Sudanese delegate Lumumba Di-Aping, who denounced the Copenhagen accord as "a suicide pact, an incineration pact, in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries".

Sudan behaves at the talks as a puppet of China; one of a number of countries that relieves the Chinese delegation of having to fight its battles in open sessions. It was a perfect stitch-up. China gutted the deal behind the scenes, and then left its proxies to savage it in public.

Here's what actually went on late last Friday night, as heads of state from two dozen countries met behind closed doors. Obama was at the table for several hours, sitting between Gordon Brown and the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi. The Danish prime minister chaired, and on his right sat Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the UN. Probably only about 50 or 60 people, including the heads of state, were in the room. I was attached to one of the delegations, whose head of state was also present for most of the time.

What I saw was profoundly shocking. The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country's foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself. The diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal, as was the practical implication: several times during the session, the world's most powerful heads of state were forced to wait around as the Chinese delegate went off to make telephone calls to his "superiors".


 * Shifting the blame**

To those who would blame Obama and rich countries in general, know this: it was China's representative who insisted that industrialised country targets, previously agreed as an 80% cut by 2050, be taken out of the deal. "Why can't we even mention our own targets?" demanded a furious Angela Merkel. Australia's prime minister, Kevin Rudd, was annoyed enough to bang his microphone. Brazil's representative too pointed out the illogicality of China's position. Why should rich countries not announce even this unilateral cut? The Chinese delegate said no, and I watched, aghast, as Merkel threw up her hands in despair and conceded the point. Now we know why – because China bet, correctly, that Obama would get the blame for the Copenhagen accord's lack of ambition.

China, backed at times by India, then proceeded to take out all the numbers that mattered. A 2020 peaking year in global emissions, essential to restrain temperatures to 2C, was removed and replaced by woolly language suggesting that emissions should peak "as soon as possible". The long-term target, of global 50% cuts by 2050, was also excised. No one else, perhaps with the exceptions of India and Saudi Arabia, wanted this to happen. I am certain that had the Chinese not been in the room, we would have left Copenhagen with a deal that had environmentalists popping champagne corks popping in every corner of the world.


 * Strong position**

So how did China manage to pull off this coup? First, it was in an extremely strong negotiating position. China didn't need a deal. As one developing country foreign minister said to me: "The Athenians had nothing to offer to the Spartans." On the other hand, western leaders in particular – but also presidents Lula of Brazil, Zuma of South Africa, Calderón of Mexico and many others – were desperate for a positive outcome. Obama needed a strong deal perhaps more than anyone. The US had confirmed the offer of $100bn to developing countries for adaptation, put serious cuts on the table for the first time (17% below 2005 levels by 2020), and was obviously prepared to up its offer.

Above all, Obama needed to be able to demonstrate to the Senate that he could deliver China in any global climate regulation framework, so conservative senators could not argue that US carbon cuts would further advantage Chinese industry. With midterm elections looming, Obama and his staff also knew that Copenhagen would be probably their only opportunity to go to climate change talks with a strong mandate. This further strengthened China's negotiating hand, as did the complete lack of civil society political pressure on either China or India. Campaign groups never blame developing countries for failure; this is an iron rule that is never broken. The Indians, in particular, have become past masters at co-opting the language of equity ("equal rights to the atmosphere") in the service of planetary suicide – and leftish campaigners and commentators are hoist with their own petard.

With the deal gutted, the heads of state session concluded with a final battle as the Chinese delegate insisted on removing the 1.5C target so beloved of the small island states and low-lying nations who have most to lose from rising seas. President Nasheed of the Maldives, supported by Brown, fought valiantly to save this crucial number. "How can you ask my country to go extinct?" demanded Nasheed. The Chinese delegate feigned great offence – and the number stayed, but surrounded by language which makes it all but meaningless. The deed was done.


 * China's game**

All this raises the question: what is China's game? Why did China, in the words of a UK-based analyst who also spent hours in heads of state meetings, "not only reject targets for itself, but also refuse to allow any other country to take on binding targets?" The analyst, who has attended climate conferences for more than 15 years, concludes that China wants to weaken the climate regulation regime now "in order to avoid the risk that it might be called on to be more ambitious in a few years' time".

This does not mean China is not serious about global warming. It is strong in both the wind and solar industries. But China's growth, and growing global political and economic dominance, is based largely on cheap coal. China knows it is becoming an uncontested superpower; indeed its newfound muscular confidence was on striking display in Copenhagen. Its coal-based economy doubles every decade, and its power increases commensurately. Its leadership will not alter this magic formula unless they absolutely have to.

Copenhagen was much worse than just another bad deal, because it illustrated a profound shift in global geopolitics. This is fast becoming China's century, yet its leadership has displayed that multilateral environmental governance is not only not a priority, but is viewed as a hindrance to the new superpower's freedom of action. I left Copenhagen more despondent than I have felt in a long time. After all the hope and all the hype, the mobilisation of thousands, a wave of optimism crashed against the rock of global power politics, fell back, and drained away.

=Copenhagen Climate Summit: If Not An Agreement, At Least a Deal= Nava Thakuria

The recently concluded global climate summit in Copenhagen created tremendous media hype around the world. But when the summit concluded with only a deal, and in no way resulted in a legally binding agreement, the same media started criticizing everyone. For the thousands of media from different parts of the globe who gathered at the Bella Center in the Danish capital in a freezing cold winter, it was like a festival.

Journalists worked overnight to spread their news, views and analysis. The outcome was a massive pileup of news stories that captured the space of the Google search engine for many days, which gave updates in an article every second during the last few days of the climate summit.

For the record, the UN global climate conference, the biggest in the history of mankind for the cause of the environment, witnessed the participation of over 130 heads of government and states from around the world. Everyone initially said the important summit that took place after two years of preparation must not fail.

But the series of negotiations and discussions proved that the division between the developed (Western) and developing (Eastern) countries remained intact. The diverse and arrogant opinions from America with some other European nations and the subsequent counter attacks by the representatives from China, India and other developing countries were in the media headlines for almost two weeks.

The rich countries, which are responsible for the greenhouse gas emission (and that way for the global warming and climate change) expressed their readiness to reduce their carbon use. But at the same time, they want to compel the developing countries like India to reduce their use of carbon to a greater extent.

The repeated opposition and adjournment of the meetings delayed the acceptance of the resolutions. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change summit, which was supposed to be concluded by December 18 night, continued until the next evening.

US President Barack Obama planned to return home soon after the agreement was signed in Copenhagen, but he had to stay for a longer period in the city to continue pursuing with different government heads. Even Prime Dr Minister Manmohan Singh was delayed because of the continued discussion during Friday midnight.

Finally Obama initiated a break though in the conference, where he convinced BASIC countries namely India, China, Brazil and South Africa to approve a kind of agreement.

An hour-long meeting with the US President, the Indian Prime Minister, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Brazilian President Lula Da Silva and South African President Jacob Zuma resulted in a US-BASIC deal, where all parties agreed to take appropriate actions to prevent the global warming exceeding the level of 2 degree Celsius.

Moreover, all the government heads of BASIC and the US ensued for $30 billion as aid to the poor and developing nations in the next three years. It has also agreed to support the US proposed global fund of $100 billion a year by 2020.

But not everyone was happy with the deal. Opposing the initiative, various other developing nations argued that they could not 'accept a text originally agreed by the United States, China, India, Brazil and South Africa as the blueprint of a wider United Nations plan' to fight climate change.

It was primarily opposed by Cuba, Sudan, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Venezuela, Tuvalu, Costa Rica etc. Even the host country showed reservation to the deal. The Danish Prime Minister and also COP15 president Lars Løkke Rasmussen said that he was not in favour of the proposal.

However Japan, Norway, African nations with the European Union nations came out in support of the proposal. The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown claimed the deal as a beginning was acceptable to him. He admitted that 'it was not an easy task' and asserted that the Copenhagen climate deal offers hope. German Chancellor Angela Merkel also agreed to the proposal but said she expected more.

The Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh expressed happiness that a good deal for the entire developing world was resolved at the Copenhagen summit.

Someway happy notes were aired by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also when he termed the exercise "an important beginning." He admitted that it was not satisfactory to a number of delegates as the deal 'may not be everything everyone had hoped for'. But he firmly commented that finally, 'We have a deal in Copenhagen, which has an immediate operational effect'.

Amazingly for some moments, the summit that started on December 7 was on the verge of collapse by the second week. Amidst many factors, the continued loggerheads between the United States and China emerged as a major cause of concern. On the other hand, the imposing attitude of the host country to formulate a declaration ignoring the poor and developed nations also put the summit in the worst phase.

Jairam Ramesh, who was camping there for many days, strongly protested against the Danish Prime Minister Rasmussen for refusing to explain a draft political declaration that was to be discussed in the meeting of environment ministers. Ramesh made it clear that various procedures were made with less trust on the developing nations like India. However, he said, India wanted to make the summit a success.

Then came the important declaration from US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, where she revealed that Washington would help to build a 100 billion dollar annual fund by 2020, to bail out the poor countries coping with the impacts of climate change. But she didn't forget to criticise China because of its rigid attempts to defy the verification of emission cuts by international agents. Washington prefers Beijing to allow a verification mechanism of China's gas emissions. Hillary Clinton claimed that an agreement in the summit might be impossible if China, which is the second biggest greenhouse gas emitter in the world (after the US), doesn't show transparency.

Later, of course, the distance between America and China was narrowed down after Washington declared initiatives of raising 100 billion dollars a year in the coming days for the benefit of poor nations. The representatives from Beijing came forward to welcome the gesture of the US government.

At the same time, the poor countries like Bangladesh, Burma which are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change are demanding some bailout packages from the developed countries.

Bangladesh came out with the campaign that the people displaced due to climate change should be recognised as refugees. Talking to media persons, Dhaka representatives argue that the world communities must think about the displaced people because of the adverse climate conditions.

"We are a densely populated country and a hundred thousand poor Bangladeshis still live on islands and coastal areas. They become innocent victims of climate change as they are no way linked to the phenomena," said Bangladesh's Environment and Forest Minister Hassan Mahmud.

The Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina made an appeal to the developed countries asking for 1.5 per cent of their annual growth for an adaptation corpus fund. Addressing the summit, Hasina stated that Bangladesh expects justice from the international communities.

"We are here with a dream to protect our mother earth and the human race," she reiterated.

Hasina even lobbied US President Obama as they talked over the phone before coming to Copenhagen. Obama had reportedly assured Hasina that Washington would stand beside Bangladesh in a time of crisis.

After his arrival in the Danish capital by an overnight flight from Washington on December 18, President Obama met a number of influential world leaders before gracing the preliminary high level event. Lots of expectations were aired with Obama's arrival as a prime mover of the summit to finalize a concrete climate deal.

But contrary to expectations, Obama disappointed the world leaders. In fact, while Obama was speaking in the main auditorium of Bella Center, everyone was expecting some significant declarations from him.

Obama, while urging all the participating countries to compromise on key demands in order to seal an international accord in Copenhagen, didn't commit any further actions beyond Hillary Clinton's 100 billion dollar global fund. He only said, America had charted their course and they have made commitments. "We will do what we say," Obama asserted.

Soon after Obama, Manmohan Singh addressed the gathering, but serious differences were observed in their point of views. Unlike Obama, Dr Singh appealed to the developed countries to deliver with the guidelines of Kyoto Protocol. He insisted in continuing the protocol and argued that 'any new global accord announced at Copenhagen would go against international opinion if it dilutes the Kyoto Protocol'. He advocated for continued negotiations until 2010 for a globally acceptable climate agreement.

Dr Singh also disclosed that India would deliver on its voluntary target to reduce the emission intensity of GDP growth by around 20 per cent by 2020 as compared to 2005. Moreover, initiatives would be taken to curb the gas emission irrespective of a deal in Copenhagen, he said. The Prime Minister also informed world leaders that New Delhi had planned to generate 20,000 MW of solar power by 2022 and will also improve forest cover in the next few years.

The African nations also advocated for the extension of Kyoto Protocol, which is expiring in the next two years. Addressing the summit, the Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win also supported the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol. He claimed that Burma was one of the most climate affected countries in the globe. Cyclone Nargis that hit southern Burma in May 2008 killed over 85,000 people and left nearly 54,000 people missing.

The high level segment of the conference, which was inaugurated on December 15, witnessed the participation of high profile personalities like the Prince of Wales. UN Secretary General Ban-ki-Moon addressed the gathering and appealed to all the country heads and representatives to go for a comprehensive, ambitious and effective international climate change deal.

The UN chief, while urging the environment ministers from different countries to compromise in the final days of discussions as various factors indicated a failed summit, concluded his remarks with the positive note, "Our future begins today here in Copenhagen."

Prince Charles of Britain, in his brief speech advocated for a safer planet to our next generation and hence emphasised an accepted and sustainable approach by all concerned. The Prince termed the summit as historic.

"I can only appeal to you to listen to the cries of those who are already suffering from the impact of climate change. The eyes of the world are upon you and it is no understatement to say that, with your signatures, you can write our future," Prince Charles added.

The distinguished gathering was also addressed by the host Prime Minister Rasmussen, who pointed out that the effect of climate change knows no boundaries and it doesn't discriminate one from another. "The magnitude of the challenge before us is to translate this political will into a strong political approach," he concluded.

In fact, the continued hectic discussion among the climate negotiators from different countries, never ending protest and demonstrations carried out by various activists and unbelievable busyness of the environment non-government organisation workers inside and outside the historic Bella Center, the main venue of the summit remained important media highlights for many days.

The Danish government expected around 15,000 delegates for the summit, but to their utter amazement, over 40,000 delegates including a huge number of journalists from both the print and visual media (also web) gathered here. Though it was a difficult and painful task for the organisers to get them registered promptly, they however, provided thousands of laptops with high speed internet connections in the media centre.

Earlier a media training workshop and follow-up CoP 15 coverage was organized at Copenhagen by the World Water Forum of Journalists and the Asia-Pacific Forum of Environmental Journalists with the support from UNEP, Action Aid and Government of Denmark. It was facilitated by Alex Kirby, former environment editor of BBC and Quamrul Chowdhury, a lead negotiator of G 77 and LDCs. The participant journalists covered the press conferences of delegations like USA, EU, G 77 and LDCs during the CoP 15.

The conference as usual witnessed a series of protests outside the venue. Hundreds of protesters braved the cold weather to demonstrate in front of Bella Center demanding the responsible leaders to go for an accord in Copenhagen. The Danish police used batons to tear gas to disperse the protesters and maintained normalcy during the important summit.

media type="youtube" key="W5JP3VHYD0Y" height="344" width="425"

Barack Obama, President of the United States, promises action on the United State's part and urges countries to move forward together.

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Mohamed Nasheed, President of the Maldives, pleads for a successful climate conference at Copenhagen in order to save his country and its people.