Follow daily updates from the second week of the COP15 climate change summit in Copenhagen right here.

Monday
Poor countries ended a temporary boycott of the UN climate talks after receiving assurances that rich nations were not conspiring to reduce their commitments to cutting greenhouse gases, according to European officials. Informal talks resolved the impasse, which was started by African countries and backed by 135 developing countries including China and India.

The developing countries want to extend the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which imposed penalties on rich nations if they did not comply with its strict emissions limits but made no such binding demands on developing nations.

Clean tech funding
The White House announced a new program drawing funds from international partners to spend 350 million US dollars over five years to supply developing nations with clean energy technology, according to a report from Associated Press.

The program will contribute to distribution of solar power alternatives for homes, including sun-powered lanterns, supply of cleaner equipment and appliances and a push to fund and put in place renewable energy systems in the world's poorer nations.

The funding plan grew out of the Major Economies Forum (MEF) established among the world's top economies earlier this year.

The US share of the program will amount to 85 million US dollars with the remainder coming from Australia, Britain, Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland, the White House said in a statement by spokesman Robert Gibbs.

For more on this story, click here.

Tuesday
China is accusing developed countries of not meeting what it considers their obligations to fight climate change.

Foreign Ministry spokewoman Jiang Yu said Tuesday there had been "some regression" on the part of developed countries, who had "put forward a plethora" of demands on developing countries.

She said it "will hamper the Copenhagen conference."

Beijing's view is that developed countries have a greater responsibility than developing countries to cut emissions, and any climate deal should take into account a country's status as either a developed or developing country.

For the full story, click here.

Long-term aid concerns
The EU and Japan may not sign on to an agreement on climate aid funding that combines short-term and long-term aid numbers without the US being clear it can do its share.

The US is unlikely to improve its reduction target at the summit, nor will it disclose how much it is willing to give poorer countries to help cope with global warming beyond 2012, an official close to the talks says, according to Bloomberg.

While negotiators are well on their way to a short-term finance package, the long–term package causes problems.

For the full story, click here.

Japan pledge to poorer countries
When Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama lands in Copenhagen for the UN climate summit, he will bring along an offer of 10 billion US dollars to help developing countries fight global warming, the Tokyo Shimbun daily reports, according to Reuters.

The pledge of 10 billion dollars would be spread over three years, and would include steps to protect biodiversity. It is more than previously announced.

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Forest protection hangs in balance
Leaked text shows that proposals would make 'Redd' scheme 'toothless and nothing but fancy window dressing,' says a Guardian report.

Plans at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen for a revolutionary agreement to end deforestation and pay poor countries to protect their forests are hanging in the balance after leaked papers showed that a new proposed text has removed many of the scheme's safeguards.

The negotiating text leaked to NGOs late last night showed that the language meant to cut the approximately 20% of global greenhouse gases from deforestation in developing countries — the so-called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation scheme (Redd) — has now removed all targets for ending deforestation and significantly weakened other areas.

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Wednesday
The negotiating process at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen was subject to an “unexpected stop” on Wednesday, according to Yvo de Boer, the UN's top climate official.

“The cable car has made an unexpected stop,” he said at a press briefing Wednesday evening, referring to a statement he made on Monday. By then the conference was about half way up the mountain, everybody was queuing up for the cable car, and “the rest of the ride is going to be fast, smooth and relaxing”.

The unexpected stop happened – according to several news media – as delegates needed time to discuss the basis of further talks.

It was expected all Wednesday that the Danish conference presidency would present a text designed to establish consensus. However, that did not happen.

Money on the table to fight deforestation
The US, Australia, France, Japan, Norway and Britain will make 3.5 billion US dollars available for developing countries that produce ambitious plans to slow and eventually reverse deforestation, according to an Associated Press report.

US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says the United States and five other countries have pledged 3.5 billion US dollars over the next three years to a program aimed at protecting rainforests.

The other countries are Australia, France, Japan, Norway and Britain. The US portion is one billion dollars.

Thursday
According to the official COP15 website, at Thursday noon, the delegates at the UN climate conference decided to continue the climate talks in two tracks, one on the Kyoto Protocol, another on the Climate Change Convention.

"The decision came after the Danish Presidency of the conference had consultations on procedure with the delegates, starting Wednesday afternoon," the site explains.

The developing countries, represented by Group of 77, have been concerned that the developed countries would “kill the Kyoto Protocol” in Copenhagen. 

For the full story, click here.

China still hopeful
China's climate change ambassador said on Thursday he had not given up hope of a strong climate deal at Copenhagen talks, and rejected a suggestion from other delegates that China had, according to a report from Reuters.

Yu Qingtai said Beijing wants a deal that would capture all progress achieved over two years of UN-led negotiations and leave room for swift progress on unresolved areas next year, given that time at the Dec 7-18 summit is rapidly running out.

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Friday / Saturday
An agreement dubbed the Copenhagen Accord was drawn up by a limited group of countries late on Friday December 18th. It was formally accepted by the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP15) during a closing session on Saturday morning. The climate change talks in Copenhagen were rife with disputes between rich and poor countries, and between the world’s biggest carbon polluters — China and the United States. Some might consider the Accord a failure, but it included at least one critical outcome that hadn’t been managed before the talks began.

Leaders from the United States, China, Brazil, India and South Africa sat down together Friday night and drafted the Copenhagen Accord. On Saturday, what they came up with became the outcome of the UN conference on climate change. This marked a change in the normal procedures of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which generally requires that all parties to the convention hammer out an agreement together.

Importantly, for the first time, leading developing countries — China, India and Brazil — have agreed to rein in emissions as part of an international agreement aimed at battling climate change. This is a big step for the United States and Canada. Canada’s federal government was demanding that such a commitment be made. In the United States, the fact that President Barack Obama was able to sit down and establish this arrangement may give him the necessary ammunition to push a climate change bill through the U.S. Senate — that is an essential in 2010 if businesses in North America wish to see certainty on the issue of a North American cap-and-trade system.

The Copenhagen Accord requires industrial countries to list their individual targets and developing countries to list the actions they will take to cut global warming pollution by specific amounts. Obama called that an "unprecedented breakthrough."

The accord also includes a method for verifying reductions of heat-trapping gases — a key demand for Washington, because China has resisted international efforts to monitor its progress of acting on climate change.

The Accord promises 30 billion dollars in emergency aid in the next three years and a goal of channeling 100 billion dollars a year by 2020 to developing countries with no guarantees.

A draft agreement had leaders committed to a path that would reduce global emissions to half of 1990 levels by 2050, with an 80-per-cent reduction from the developed world. That has been scuttled, but what has been created is a clear understanding that developed and developing countries are willing to create carbon reduction goals together, which may in turn lead to more legislative certainty here in North America. One victim of the Copenhagen summit may be the UN process itself. It was not possible for the 193 countries present to achieve the kind of consensus required. Will it be necessary to draft a similar statement of intent among a handful of countries prior to the next UN meeting so that we are able to make more progress next time? Maybe it’s time for a different approach.

Watch the Green Business website for more discussion of this topic in the coming weeks.

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