Update: UN shows circumspection over ability of Copenhagen to deliver

The reports had been fueled by a press conference given by Janos Pasztor, director of the Secretary-General’s climate change support team, on Monday, at which he told journalists that it was difficult to say how far the Copenhagen conference would go – though it was important to push for the most ambitious mitigation and financial commitments.

He said that it had always been known that climate change was not going to be fully resolved within the next few weeks, adding that it was “a long-term problem that would be with us for many years, if not decades, to come”.

However, he added that Copenhagen must be a “milestone” and that the political support seen from 101 heads of state and government at the Climate Change Summit in New York last month showed that governments wanted something ambitious out of Copenhagen.

Reports from Reuters suggest Pasztor’s cautious circumspection has been echoed more forcefully in private by other UN officials and diplomats, who have suggested that the most that can be expected from the Copenhagen talks is a non-binding political declaration.

One of the reasons for the UN’s apparent pessimism is the situation in the US, where a recent poll suggested support for action on climate change might be declining. 

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has previously made it clear that a meaningful deal cannot be made without the US and that “we cannot afford another period where the US stands on the sidelines.” 

The concern at the UN is that draft US legislation on climate change is still not ready for approval and that this may turn out to be a prerequisite for any global deal on fighting global warming.  

Responding to a question, Pasztor said US negotiators must be empowered in Copenhagen and that this could only happen if there was movement on the domestic legislation. At the very least, US negotiators needed to know what was likely to come before the President, he said.

Not that the UN has officially given up on the idea of securing a deal next month. 

The Secretary-General is said to have been encouraged by the “spirit of compromise” shown in last week’s bipartisan initiative from John Kerry and Lindsey Graham in which the two US senators – from opposing ends of the political divide – co-wrote in an opinion piece in The New York Times.

In it they said: "We refuse to accept the argument that the United States cannot lead the world in addressing global climate change.

"We are also convinced that we have found both a framework for climate legislation to pass Congress and the blueprint for a clean-energy future."

Asked in a Channel 4 News interview yesterday, what the next step would be for the UK if the Copenhagen talks failed to deliver a deal, Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband reiterated the line that there is no ‘Plan B’.

“And actually not having a plan B is quite important because it's meant that China has said it will take action, India has moved, Japan has moved,” he said.

“I think there's a sense that [...] we're in danger of giving people a sense of defeatism here. Actually, a lot is happening as a result of Copenhagen and the deadline. And it has to be a real deadline, because if we let people off then we certainly won’t get an ambitious deal.”

Speaking at Monday’s press conference, Pasztor said in the six weeks remaining before Copenhagen, the Secretary-General would continue to serve as a neutral broker for all 192 member states and to advocate for an ambitious multilateral agreement that would keep global temperature rises at safe levels.

Next week, negotiators will be in Barcelona for the final five days of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) negotiations before Copenhagen. Building on progress made in Bangkok, the Secretary-General has said that further progress could and should be made urgently.