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[Environment > Copenhagen climate change conference 2009]
Copenhagen negotiating text: 200 pages to save the world?
Draft agreement being discussed ahead of December's crucial Copenhagen summit is long, confusing and contradictory
Interactive: Beginner's guide to the negotiating text
Help us interpret the document
David Adam, environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 September 2009 16.37 BST Article history

It is a blueprint to save the world. And yet it is long, confusing and contradictory. Negotiators have released a draft version of a new global agreement on climate change, which is widely billed as the last chance to save the planet from the ravages of global warming.

Running to some 200 pages, the draft agreement is being discussed for the first time this week as officials from 190 countries gather in Bangkok for the latest round of UN talks. There is only one short meeting after this before they meet in Copenhagen aiming to hammer out a final version.

The draft text consolidates and reorders hundreds of changes demanded by countries to the previous version, which saw it balloon to an unmanageable 300 pages. It has no official status yet, and must be formally approved before negotiators can start to whittle it down. Here, we present key, edited sections from the text and attempt to decipher what the words mean.

The text includes sections on the traditional sticking points that have delayed progress on climate change for a decade or longer.

• How much are rich countries willing to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, and by when?

• Will large developing nations such as China make an effort to put at least a dent in their soaring levels of pollution?

• How much money must flow from the developed world to developing countries to grease the wheels and secure their approval? How much to compensate for the impact of past emissions, and how much to help prevent future emissions?

According to the UN rules, for a new treaty to be agreed, every country must sign up – a challenging requirement. The new treaty is designed to follow the Kyoto protocol, the world's existing treaty to regulate greenhouse gases, the first phase of which expires in 2012. Because the US did not ratify Kyoto, the climate talks have been forced on to awkward parallel tracks, with one set of negotiations, from which the US is excluded, debating how the treaty could be extended past 2012. This new text comes from the second track, which lays out a plan to include all countries in long-term co-operative action.

Behind the scenes, pessimism about the Copenhagen talks is rising. Despite references in the text to a global goal and collective emission cuts of 25-40% by 2020 for rich countries, many observers believe there is little chance such an approach will succeed.

Stuart Eizenstat, who negotiated Kyoto for the US, said: "Copenhagen is more likely to be a way station to a final agreement, where each country posts the best that it can do... The key thing is let's not go into Copenhagen with all the same kind of guns blazing like we did in Kyoto."

A top European official told the Guardian: "We've moved on from the idea that we can negotiate on targets. That's naive and just not the way the deal will be done. The best we can get is that countries will put in what they want to commit to."

Once all the carbon offsets – buying pollution credits instead of cutting emissions – and "fudges" are taken into account, the outcome is likely to be that emissions in 2020 from rich countries will be broadly similar to those in 1990, he said. "That's really scary stuff."


[Business > Airline industry]
British Airways launches luxury service to New York
Twice daily flights on Airbus A318s has come under fire from environmental groups Plane Stupid and Greenpeace
David Teather
guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 September 2009 19.10 BST Article history

British Airways was accused of hypocrisy as the airline prepared to launch a luxury all-business service between London and New York, with just 32 seats on an aircraft normally fitted for 100 people, days after chief executive Willie Walsh pledged a drastic cut in emissions.

Environmental group Plane Stupid will stage a protest at London City Airport tomorrow to coincide with the maiden flight at 12.50pm, with Walsh on board.

The twice daily service on customised Airbus A318s features flat beds and latest technology allowing passengers to send emails and text and use the internet while on board. Return fares will start at £1,901 but go up to £5,000 for more flexible tickets. The airport in London's Docklands, close to the financial districts in Canary Wharf and the City, means the service is likely to appeal to bankers.

Flights leaving from London though will be forced to make a brief refuelling stop at Shannon airport in the west of Ireland because City airport's runway is too short to handle an A318 aircraft with a full fuel load. BA is arranging for passengers to use the Shannon stop to clear US customs and immigration

Greenpeace aviation campaigner, Vicky Wyatt, said the service was "another example of BA saying one thing, and doing another. Only last week, Willie Walsh announced that the industry is committed to playing its part in the fight against climate change. But it is blindingly obvious that the aviation industry doesn't intend to cut emissions at all. Rather airlines, like BA, want to pay other countries and sectors to make those cuts so that the industry can carry on with business as usual."

Friends of the Earth campaigner Richard Dyer said the spacious layout of the aircraft meant that each passenger is responsible for around three times the emissions from regular flights.

"Aviation causes harmful emissions that contribute to climate change – we should be curbing the growth in flying, not laying on new flights," he said.

Walsh appeared before the United Nations forum on climate change in New York last week, to unveil an agreement between airlines, airports and aircraft companies to cut emissions to 50% below 2005 levels by 2050. The plan was viewed as a bid to seize the initiative on the issue, to ensure that the industry would not be ambushed with more punishing strictures at the global warming summit in Copenhagen in December. Aviation accounts for 1.6% of global greenhouse gas emissions currently, but that figure is set to grow significantly if left unchecked.

A BA spokesman said the airline remained committed to reducing its emissions. He said the A318 was the smallest commercial aircraft on the route and produced only 25% of the carbon of a typical Boeing 747.

"Of the hundreds of commercial aircraft crossing the Atlantic every day between the UK and US, these two purpose built new A318s will produce the least amount of carbon dioxide. Even with this extra service we have reduced our flying schedule between the UK and New York by almost 20% over the past two years."

The timing of the all-business class launch, with the economy still stuck in the doldrums, has also raised eyebrows. Silverjet, Maxjet and Eos, three short-lived airlines which competed in the business-only market, all collapsed last year, the last survivor, Silverjet, going under in June.

But Douglas McNeill, an aviation analyst at Blue Oar Securities, said BA had a reasonable chance of success. "In some ways the timing does look odd, I would be curious to know when they gave this the greenlight," he said. "That said, there is grounds for quite a lot of optimism. The pioneers such as Silverjet showed there is a market. They did many things right and offered high quality services but they were ultimately overwhelmed by the oil price.

"In March 2008, Silverjet and Eos carried 10,000 passengers a month, BA will have capacity for 3,000 a month, so there is reason to believe there will be more than enough demand for BA to fill the requisite number of seats," McNeill added. "The premium market has shrunk about 20% since then, but even then there should be plenty of demand. The pioneer airlines blazed the trail but it may be that those that come later and are better capitalised that make it work."

BA also has the advantage of City airport – Silverjet flew from Luton and Eos and Maxjet from Stansted. But BA is charging a premium. Silverjet charged about £999 return, Maxjet started at £840 and Eos at £1,765.

BA will be under pressure to show investors that the premium airline can be a success. The carrier lost £148m in the three months to the end of June, amid warnings of a prolonged downturn. The airline said it intended to ground 22 planes, 9% of its fleet, over the winter.

The figures showed that yields – the revenue per passenger – had fallen by nearly 10%, owing to the downward pressure on prices and the number of passengers trading down from premium seats, BA's main source of profits,