Yvo de Boer, UNFCCC Executive Secretary at the opening ceremony of COP15. Photo: http://www.iisd.ca/

1- What is being discussed in Copenhagen?

The Copenhagen summit is called COP15 because it’s the fifteenth of its kind since the Rio Summit in 1992 which inaugurated the first United Nations Framework-Convention on Climate Change.
Global warming due to human activities dates from the 70s and public awareness on that phenomenon from the late '80s, with the creation of the International Panel on Climate Change. Current negotiations are all based on the reports of this IPCC, with the latest one issued in 2007 that predicts that by the end of the century, Earth won’t be able to bear a rise in global temperature exceeding 2° Celsius.

The 192 countries meeting in Copenhagen must negotiate a new framework agreement, since the objectives set at the previous one held in Kyoto in 1997 will end by the year 2012.

The Kyoto Protocol is often considered to be as a negative example, because of the non-ratification by the U.S. Senate that had nullified almost all other commitments, so everyone can say "since the primary signer is ducking out, so can I ...”
Another deficiency, this time in the text itself: emerging countries like China, India and Brazil did not commit to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Twelve years later, these countries whose emissions skyrocketed, are at the center of the Copenhagen negotiations.

2 - Why do rich countries have a special responsibility in this issue? 

The problem with atmosphere is that there's only one of it. So when an American family is driving an SUV and has five TVs, the Burkinabe farmer could be paying for it... so climate is what economists call a "global public good" over which we all share responsibility. Except that for the current warming, from which the poorest people suffer the most, we are not all equally responsible.
Since greenhouses gases (summarized as an "equivalent of tons of CO2”) persist for hundreds of years in the atmosphere, developed countries responsible for 77% of cumulative emissions also have a "historical responsibility" towards developing countries that shouldn’t be forced to immediately switch for a more expensive green growth or by inhibiting their growth because of lack of access to energy. But if we let developing countries grow at their current paces, their greenhouses gas emissions could grow by 84% in fifteen years, according to predictions of the International Energy Agency. Unbearable.

To "make room" in the atmosphere for newcomers, it is therefore essential that developed countries tighten their belts more than others. China now emits just a little more CO2 than the United States ... but for four times the population. Earth cannot afford all Chinese behaving like Americans.

3 - How will the negotiations take place?

During these twelve days of negotiations, we might witness funny game, where bluff will be playing its part. As explained by Eloi Laurent and Jacques Le Cacheux in the letter of the OFCE, economy research center within the French Institute of Political Sciences:
"In the middle of the game, the three biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, China, the United States, Europe, represent respectively 21-20-14% of global discharges in 2007. If one of these three powers stood aside a possible agreement in Copenhagen, this agreement would be deprived of any real significance.

In this triangular game, only one player will have the advantage to play its cards at the end: China. The ideal sequence of negotiations is the following: the United States and the European Union set an example of ambitious policies to pave the way for a near agreement of scientific consensus, federate developed countries around this Agreement to finally convince China and the emerging countries to accept a sustainable form of economic development secured through binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

Here the United States and the EU are tempted to bluff (...) and push their advantage, each at the expense of the other. Each one has convincing arguments: the EU can take advantage of its position as world leader against climate change (it committed in late 2008 to reduce its emissions by 20% in 2020 compared to 1990) to relax its efforts. On the other hand, the Obama administration can try to break with the blind obscurantist of the Bush administration and reclaim the European leniency in a domestic political context weakened by partisan clashes and the many reforms under implementation”.

4 - How to leave the time for the poorest countries to adapt?

Proof of their good will, emerging powers have spontaneously announced voluntary commitments of carbon dioxide reductions:
- Brazil suggests less than 36 to 39% compared to its previsions for 2020
- India suggests for 2020 less than 20% to 25% compared to 2005
- China puts forward a reduction of 40% to 45% over the same period.
But to achieve this, these countries will require financial and technological assistance that can involve:
-An adaptation fund as announced in Kyoto: a 2% tax on projects to lower emissions in developing countries
-A technology transfer, particularly through the support of renewable energy installations.
-A global carbon tax. When we see that Europe has failed to establish this on a smaller scale, we can have doubts concerning the global feasibility...
-A market of rights to pollute such as the one that exists at a European level. Others are being created in the United States, Australia and Mexico. The idea is that each country depending on the emission allowances allocated to it by the regulatory authority receives pollution rights: the biggest emitter will need to get rights to pollute from those who are more virtuous. The problem is that the price per equivalent ton of CO2 is determined by the market, it may be too low to be incentive, as it’s the case since the beginning of the economic crisis: in Europe, the price per ton changed from 20 to 15 Euros.

5 – What would be the consequences of a failure? 

Some even wish to see the negotiations fail, like James Hansen, NASA climatologist, who considers that “you cannot make compromises with this kind of problems”. Basically, he thinks that in the absence of binding mechanisms, a political agreement featuring emission figures on the long term is not up to the level of the problem. 

Because there will probably be a "politically binding", agreement but as noted by the Climate Action Network,"legally, this term does not exist". For them, better to have a legally binding treaty accompanied by financial penalties in case of breaches. A radical opinion that Pierre Radanne, former President of ADEME, doesn’t share in a note to the Terra Nova Institute:

"A good deal in Copenhagen is a universal agreement, featuring the highest level of commitments, even to make concessions on the legal nature, and whose credibility will be based on the quality of development, financing and monitoring of implemented national action plans.
In any case, an agreement at all cost in Copenhagen, would not serve the public interest: they would sacrifice the future of the planet against the ephemeral political gain of a false diplomatic success”.
Cautious, quite a few observers believe that Copenhagen may be a first step; the negotiations may lead to Mexico in 2010. For Arnaud Gossement, spokesman for France Nature Environnement, maybe it’s the format of this type of conference that must be questionned:

"The issue is probably not about agreeing on commitments that will be as little respected as those of Kyoto. The first issue may be to define a new institutional framework that could be a World Environment Organization: all depends of course on the content of this idea that is not new!

We should probably think about the emergence of a global ecological democracy that should be continuous (not affected by spasms), that should be a forum not only for national executives but also for intermediary organs which are now largely excluded from negotiations".