What do you get when the leaders of the United States, China, India, Brazil and South Africa spend the better part of a day together in the same room?
The Danes hoped that this unprecedented gathering of world leaders at a climate conference would put a stamp of approval on new international agreement to combat climate change.
Instead, when the leaders began to arrive near the close of the two-weeks of negotiations, this most chaotic and contentious conference was on the brink of failure amidst angry accusations of back-door deals, disagreements between the US and EU, bitter divisions between developed and developing countries, a rift among the usually unified group of developing countries, and a very public spat between the China and US, which rank first and second, respectively, in global emissions of greenhouse gases.
The chaos and confusion extended well beyond the actual negotiating sessions. The UN had accredited 36,000 participants, including country delegations, members of non-governmental organizations, observers and the media for a venue with a maximum capacity of 15,000.
On the Monday of the second week of the meeting, thousands of people congregated outside the venue waiting to pick up their credentials -- and waited, and waited and waited for up to ten hours in the cold of a Northern European winter without food or bathroom facilities or much sympathy from UN officials -- and never got in, because of general disorganization and a reported breakdown in the accreditation process.
By the next morning, the UN apparently figured it out and the wait was only about 20 minutes. But many in the crowd on Monday will neither forget nor forgive.
The five countries that hammered out the basic outline of the Copenhagen Accord represented only a tiny fraction of the 193 countries at the conference. But in terms of current and future emissions, the US and the big emerging countries are critical players, particularly China and the US, and had to be at the center of the negotiations. In any case, five is a much more manageable number than 193.
The process and the resulting agreement were bitterly attacked in the final plenary by several countries who were not in the room when the accord was negotiated and charged that the procedure was neither transparent nor democratic. Venezuela called the agreement a "coup d'état" against the United Nations.
Hyperbole aside, the episode "left many privately questioning the prospects for significant further progress within a fully globally, procedurally bound UN process," according to a summary report fom the Pew Center on Global Climate Change."
Denmark's invitation to heads of state opened the door to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who in characteristic fashion indulged in a virulent attack on the US and Obama (it used to be Bush, of course). He also blamed global warming on capitalism, conveniently ignoring the fact that Venezuela's economic health is based on the sale millions of barrels of crude oil and gasoline to capitalists.
Because Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua and the Sudan blocked efforts to adopt the Copenhagen Accord by consensus, the conference "took note," of the accord, which UN officials said is the legal equivalent of a formal acceptance. The conference established a procedure for countries to register their support for the accord -- and most are expected to do so -- or to register their disapproval.
The accord is a "letter of intent," an indication of willingness to move forward," said Yvo de Boer, the top UN climate official.
