TRANSCRIPT

BBC Radio 4 World at One

Monday 16th November 2009

Climate change – Connie Hedegaard, John Prescott

 

Edward Stourton, presenter: There will be no legally binding climate change treaty signed at Copenhagen. The Danish government, which will host the conference next month, has accepted that a deal in the time available simply isn’t realistic and it has instead proposed a two-stage approach: a statement of political intent in Copenhagen, followed by a treaty later. American support for that was agreed at a meeting in Singapore – President Obama is of course in the middle of his tour of Asia at the moment – and the news came through as environment ministers were negotiating in Denmark. The Danish environment minister, Connie Hedegaard, talked to us during a break during those talks.

 

Connie Hedegaard, Minister for Climate and Energy, Denmark: As president, Denmark can only deliver what the countries want to deliver, and we assess that at this stage it's very difficult to see how we can have that final, legally binding treaty. In Kyoto you also saw that it took two or three years from you had the political agreement in Kyoto until you had, sort of, what we call the Marrakech Accord, until all the legally binding details were set. So that is why we’re saying maybe this will not be possible, but then what is very important in Copenhagen is that politicians say, 'this is exactly how we have… how we want to have the new climate regime running; this will be the principles, this is how we do it, this is the framework for adaptation, for technology and things like that', and there we will take the binding decisions – 'this is how we're going to do it' – and then there will be experts that will have to translate it into the legally binding agreement; and I very much hope that also in Copenhagen we can agree on a set deadline as to when this part of the agreement will have to finish.

 

ES: You are at a meeting, I know, this morning, of other environment ministers – how has this deal gone down with other nations involved?

 

CH: You know, some nations would definitely still like to see a legally binding deal. On the other hand, I believe that environment ministers, better than most others, know the difficulties in landing a legally binding thing in only a few weeks from now. There is this feeling that negotiations have been progressing too slow, but then, on the other hand, I believe that, broadly speaking, people realise that we try to achieve an ambitious agreement in Copenhagen, whereas if we did not come forward with this kind of thinking at this stage, we would risk that Copenhagen could not deliver on all the building blocks from Bali, and that is of course the top priority for the group of ministers I have here.

 

ES: If you have reached agreement on the political side of this, and you've accepted that you're not going to have a legally binding treaty signed at Copenhagen, do you need the Copenhagen meeting at all? Might it best… be best just to accept where you’ve got to and leave it at that?

 

CH: You have to be a journalist [as heard] to believe that it's a very easy thing just to make people agree on all the major elements, to agree politically. There are still very, very many disagreements and obstacles also on the key issues, and to achieve that, that would be a tremendous task in Copenhagen, and I believe that if we manage to do so, then we will set the world on a new track so that action can follow immediately after Copenhagen, and then I think that most people in the world would agree that as long as we have set a deadline for when this has to be turned into legally binding text then it would be a major achievement: to get things done; to know what the commitments are; to make developed countries come up with their specific contributions – yes, specific targets when it comes to reduction, as well as their specific targets when it comes to finance. That is the deal that we foresee for Copenhagen and that we work very hard to get.

 

ES: Can I, finally, just ask you how important you think it is that President Obama himself should attend the talks in Copenhagen?

 

CH: The most important thing to the whole negotiation picture at this stage is that the United States commit to bring figures to Copenhagen, specific numbers for reductions as well as specific numbers for finance. That is what matters and that matters to the whole world.

 

ES: Well, John Prescott, formerly deputy prime minister, is the Council of Europe's rapporteur on climate change; as environment secretary, he attended the Kyoto summit. He is in our Westminster studio. John Prescott, Connie Hedegaard tried to put a brave face on things there, but the fact is that it was always the intention to try and get a treaty agreed at Copenhagen; that clearly is not now going to happen. Are you disappointed about that?

 

John Prescott, Climate Change Rapporteur for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe: No, I think she's absolutely right.  I was in that position at Kyoto, I was the European representative dealing with the environment ministers, and there we knew that it was the principles we would establish at Kyoto and then the roadmap to achieve that would come a couple of years later; that’s exactly what the minister said. And I've been concerned that, really, this management of expectations – and I can say, I've been discussing with Obama's people in America in the last six months, in the Abu Dhabi last week, talking to the Arab oil people, and indeed going back to China today to talk to them and Premier Wen about their position – and frankly it has always been that you could agree the principles at Copenhagen; you wouldn't be able to dot the Is and cross the Ts. But there are important principles to be agreed, and that's what Copenhagen has to do.

 

ES: I suppose one lesson to be drawn from the Kyoto experience, when the Americans agreed to something that then couldn’t be ratified back in Washington, is that there's no point in forcing people to agree things that they can’t sell politically at home.

 

JP: No, that wasn't quite right, Ed. I mean, the man who was negotiating then – and I worked closely with him – was Al Gore and his representative, and they had hoped to try and persuade the Congress eventually of that, but they lost power. It was Mr Bush who came in and said 'I don’t believe in the science'; thank god we've got a president who now does. And they have to get an agreement which has to go through their Congress. They have a different procedure for ratification under their constitution, which is one reason why they couldn't come to Kyoto, though I think President Obama should come to Copenhagen, but it’s the one reason they would have had difficulty ratifying something or agreeing at Copenhagen when the Congress hasn't seen the deal.

 

ES: But the fact that this latest agreement has been reached – not to push for a full treaty at Copenhagen – is surely a recognition of the fact that the politics of climate change, though they have, of course, moved on, are still very, very difficult in the United States?

 

JP: Oh, the politics are difficult in most countries, quite frankly; it's not just limited to the United States. The difference in the United States, they're constitutional and they have to put it before Congress, and it's not possible, in their timetable, to have done that before Copenhagen. That was clear a few months ago, that's why I kept warning people: 'Look, we're not going to dot the Is and cross the Ts at Copenhagen, but we must get the principles right.' And I do think the European deal, which I call Plan A, wasn't good enough. It didn't recognise the real formula of gigatonnes of pollution instead of this emissions by percentages. It also needs to provide an awful lot more money in the agreement. Now, I think in China, we've… at the moment we've got President Obama meeting with the Chinese and discussing it; there will be, in a week's time, a meeting between EU and China. I'll be attending an international conference next Thursday, trying to make this point that the European Union and China are in a powerful position to make sure we get the principles agreed at Copenhagen, and then have the roadmap, as we did at Kyoto, as indeed the Danish minister has said, to agree the final agreement.

 

ES: Is there a danger that when you remove a deadline for agreeing a treaty, you actually let things slide, that people will say, 'OK, we've agreed the principles; it can all ride now'?

 

JP: Well, that's a fair point, Ed, but you've got to remember, this is Kyoto II. We talk of Copenhagen, but Kyoto II here, where most nations have signed up to, and they set the timetable for the establishment of the new agreement to start from 2012. Well, I'm… when we did the Kyoto one it was hoped it might not take three years, but it does take that time. The essential point is that we need to get a much more complex agreement this time, involving over 190 nations, not just the 47 rich nations, and it's got to recognise that this world is divided by the north and south and its wealth, the richer minority at the expense of the poor, and they’ve got to have a fair share.

 

ES: John Prescott…

 

JP: And that's why that principle of common… differentiated responsibilities needs to dominate our agreement. So let's be realistic about it.

 

ES: We must leave it there. John Prescott, many thanks.

 

Ends