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合国气候峰会上周六在代表们的彻夜激辩后结束；会议最终在中国和美国斡旋下通过了一份不具法律约束力的协议，其关键细节模糊不清。由于美国、中国、欧洲以及内部尚存分歧的发展中国家阵营对如何正确应对气候变化存在根本分歧，此次为期两周、有将200个国家代表出席的会议几乎以彻底失败而收场。在会议临近尾声时美国总统奥巴马(Obama)和中国总理温家宝牵头匆忙进行了一番讨价还价，大会终于在周六早间大会的最后时刻达成了这一非约束性协议；而它仅得到了与会代表们温吞水般的支持，此时彻夜激烈交锋的外交官们已是集沮丧、愤怒与疲惫于一身，而且他们当中有许多人都抱怨没能参与最后协议的制定。
Reuters
经过一场通宵会议后，一位代表打起了瞌睡。
这份《哥本哈根协议》(Copenhagen Accord)的确促成发达国家承诺，将为帮助发展中国家应对气候变化、采用低碳技术提供数百亿美元资金。工业化国家表示，将在未来三年中提供将近300亿美元，并承诺在2020年前每年凑集近1,000亿美元。
然而在当前全球经济衰退的背景下，没有人具体说明钱从何来。一些追踪近年来国际气候问题对话的分析人士指出，300亿美元的资金承诺基本上是照搬富裕国家此前的承诺。至于2020年前每年所需的1,000亿美元资金，美方官员说这将主要来自于私人领域，尤其是通过买卖碳额度来实现，政府并不会为此自掏腰包。
谈判代表希望将这份《哥本哈根协议》以最佳面貌示人，他们说这只是第一步，明年将据此跟进推出一份更具体、更具可执行性的国际气候协议。然而，鉴于峰会结束时与会代表在一份更强硬的气候协议将如何影响自己国家竞争力的问题上仍各执一词、分歧未减，他们说自己也不知道后续进程将怎样展开。
哥本哈根混乱的会议进程和含糊的讨论结果让很多人质疑，在联合国框架下到底能不能产生一个大幅削减温室气体排放的协议。联合国框架保证所有国家都要有发言权，结果让谈判停滞不前，10多天的时间里都在争论程序上的问题，互不信任，直到各国政府领导人在上周临近周末时抵达，才敲定了这份两页半的表明决心的声明。
现在，联合国气候进程将化分为将来的一系列会议。联合国秘书长潘基文(Ban ki-Moon)和其他很多谈判代表上周六表示，他们希望在下一次联合国年度气候峰会（明年年底于墨西哥召开）以前敲定具体问题。
潘基文说，我们本应达成一项具有法律约束力的条约；这样一种谈判进程非常复杂。他提到，两天里他只睡了两个小时，自周五用过午餐后就没再吃过一顿饭。
如果在二氧化碳排放方面制定出有约束力的限制措施，钢铁、发电、石油和化工等许多行业将受到影响。无约束力的《哥本哈根协议》无法明确对这些行业在碳排放方面的监管政策。如果能明确这些监管政策，私人投资就有可能涌入各种低碳技术领域，从事能效更高的火力发电站设备、电动汽车和太阳能电池板等产品的开发。
国际商会(International Chamber of Commerce)能源与环境委员会主席科比尔(Laurent Corbier)周末发表声明说，商界在寻求可预测性，以利于未来全球投资计划的制定。
由于哥本哈根的声明没有约束力，它不需要充当未来谈判的基础。
周六，在《哥本哈根协议》达成后，当正式会议行将结束时，中国的一位谈判代表提醒其他与会者说，这不是一份条约，不需要被签署或同意。
潘基文提醒注意，协议要求各国在明年1月31日以前在附录中自愿列入其限制排放的自愿承诺。哥本哈根会议召开前，美国、中国、欧盟和巴西等主要经济体已经做出了这种自愿承诺。而在许多科学家及一些国家的政府看来，要想避免气候变化导致的危险后果，2050年前的温室气体减排量必须超过这些自愿承诺的数量。
Jeffrey Ball
（更新完成）
The United Nations summit on climate change ended Saturday with a fractious all-night debate over an agreement brokered by China and the U.S. that has no legal force, and is vague on crucial details.
The fundamental disagreements over the appropriate response to climate change among the U.S., China, Europe and a divided group of developing nations led to a near total breakdown of talks during the two-week summit attended by representatives of nearly 200 nations. The non-binding final statement, produced in a flurry of last-minute bargaining led by U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, received a tepid endorsement Saturday morning after hours of angry exchanges among frustrated, hungry and tired diplomats, many of whom complained that the final agreement was made without their participation.
The statement said countries would 'enhance our long-term cooperative action to combat climate change,' but it didn't obligate any country to meet a specific emission-reduction target.
The Copenhagen Accord did produce a pledge by rich countries to send billions of dollars to the developing world to help it cope with the effects of climate change and to implement lower-carbon technologies. Industrialized countries said they would provide a pot of money 'approaching' $30 billion over the next three years and to 'commit to a goal of mobilizing' $100 billion annually by 2020.
Yet amid the global recession, no one offered details on where that money might come from. Some analysts who have followed international climate talks for years said the $30 billion pledged appeared mainly to restate previous offers from rich countries. As for the $100 billion a year by 2020, U.S. officials said the vast majority of it would come from the private sector, in particular through the buying and selling of 'carbon credits,' and not from government coffers.
Negotiators sought to put the best face possible on what they dubbed the Copenhagen Accord, calling it a first step that they hoped to follow up with a more-detailed, and more-enforceable, international climate pact sometime over the next year. But given that negotiators left Copenhagen as divided as ever over how a tougher agreement might affect each of their countries' economic competitiveness, they said they couldn't predict how the process might unfold.
Copenhagen's messy process and vague outcome led many to question whether a U.N. process will ever produce an agreement to seriously slash greenhouse-gas emissions. The process's guarantee that all nations will have a say led the talks to bog down for more than 10 days of procedural wrangling and mutual distrust before their heads of government swooped in late last week and hammered out the 2 1/2-page statement of resolve.
The U.N. climate process will tumble now into a series of future meetings. U.N. Secretary General Ban ki-Moon and many other negotiators said Saturday they hoped to hash out the specifics by the next big annual U.N. climate summit, scheduled for late next year in Mexico.
'Ideally speaking, we should have a legally binding treaty,' said Mr. Ban, noting that he had slept two hours in two days and hadn't eaten a meal since Friday lunch. 'This kind of negotiation process is very complex.'
For industries that would be affected by binding limits on carbon-dioxide emissions -- steelmakers, power generators, oil companies and chemical manufacturers among many -- the non-binding Copenhagen Accord failed to provide the regulatory certainty that could unleash private investment in lower-carbon technologies, from more-efficient coal-fired power-plant machinery to electric cars to solar panels.
'Business is seeking predictability to help plan its future global investments,' Laurent Corbier, chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce's energy-and-environment commission, said in a statement over the weekend.
Because the Copenhagen statement isn't binding, it needn't form the basis of any future negotiations.
'It's not a treaty,' one Chinese negotiator reminded his colleagues as the official session was winding up Saturday, following agreement on the Copenhagen Accord. 'It's not going to be signed or agreed to.'
Mr. Ban noted that the pact gives countries until Jan. 31 to voluntarily list, in an annex to the accord, voluntary pledges to curb their emissions.Major economies -- including the U.S., China, the European Union and Brazil -- made such pledges in the lead-up to Copenhagen. Those pledges fall short of the severe cuts that many scientists, and some governments, have said are necessary by midcentury to avoid potentially dangerous consequences from climate change.
Jeffrey Ball
The fundamental disagreements over the appropriate response to climate change among the U.S., China, Europe and a divided group of developing nations led to a near total breakdown of talks during the two-week summit attended by representatives of nearly 200 nations. The non-binding final statement, produced in a flurry of last-minute bargaining led by U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, received a tepid endorsement Saturday morning after hours of angry exchanges among frustrated, hungry and tired diplomats, many of whom complained that the final agreement was made without their participation.
The statement said countries would 'enhance our long-term cooperative action to combat climate change,' but it didn't obligate any country to meet a specific emission-reduction target.
The Copenhagen Accord did produce a pledge by rich countries to send billions of dollars to the developing world to help it cope with the effects of climate change and to implement lower-carbon technologies. Industrialized countries said they would provide a pot of money 'approaching' $30 billion over the next three years and to 'commit to a goal of mobilizing' $100 billion annually by 2020.
Yet amid the global recession, no one offered details on where that money might come from. Some analysts who have followed international climate talks for years said the $30 billion pledged appeared mainly to restate previous offers from rich countries. As for the $100 billion a year by 2020, U.S. officials said the vast majority of it would come from the private sector, in particular through the buying and selling of 'carbon credits,' and not from government coffers.
Negotiators sought to put the best face possible on what they dubbed the Copenhagen Accord, calling it a first step that they hoped to follow up with a more-detailed, and more-enforceable, international climate pact sometime over the next year. But given that negotiators left Copenhagen as divided as ever over how a tougher agreement might affect each of their countries' economic competitiveness, they said they couldn't predict how the process might unfold.
Copenhagen's messy process and vague outcome led many to question whether a U.N. process will ever produce an agreement to seriously slash greenhouse-gas emissions. The process's guarantee that all nations will have a say led the talks to bog down for more than 10 days of procedural wrangling and mutual distrust before their heads of government swooped in late last week and hammered out the 2 1/2-page statement of resolve.
The U.N. climate process will tumble now into a series of future meetings. U.N. Secretary General Ban ki-Moon and many other negotiators said Saturday they hoped to hash out the specifics by the next big annual U.N. climate summit, scheduled for late next year in Mexico.
'Ideally speaking, we should have a legally binding treaty,' said Mr. Ban, noting that he had slept two hours in two days and hadn't eaten a meal since Friday lunch. 'This kind of negotiation process is very complex.'
For industries that would be affected by binding limits on carbon-dioxide emissions -- steelmakers, power generators, oil companies and chemical manufacturers among many -- the non-binding Copenhagen Accord failed to provide the regulatory certainty that could unleash private investment in lower-carbon technologies, from more-efficient coal-fired power-plant machinery to electric cars to solar panels.
'Business is seeking predictability to help plan its future global investments,' Laurent Corbier, chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce's energy-and-environment commission, said in a statement over the weekend.
Because the Copenhagen statement isn't binding, it needn't form the basis of any future negotiations.
'It's not a treaty,' one Chinese negotiator reminded his colleagues as the official session was winding up Saturday, following agreement on the Copenhagen Accord. 'It's not going to be signed or agreed to.'
Mr. Ban noted that the pact gives countries until Jan. 31 to voluntarily list, in an annex to the accord, voluntary pledges to curb their emissions.Major economies -- including the U.S., China, the European Union and Brazil -- made such pledges in the lead-up to Copenhagen. Those pledges fall short of the severe cuts that many scientists, and some governments, have said are necessary by midcentury to avoid potentially dangerous consequences from climate change.
Jeffrey Ball
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