Almost two months ago I predicted that it is very likely that the negotiations in Copenhagen will fail. By “failure”, though, I meant the lack of any legally binding agreement. I thought that the negotiating parties will be able to forge some “political agreement” – whatever that means. This could then be called a SMALL failure.

Instead what we got was a BIG failure indeed. The parties failed to reach ANY agreement on the conference. The crippled document (pdf) that was produced is NOT a conference document and is supported by only a handful of countries (although important ones).

So let’s dissect the failure, shall we?

Why did Copenhagen fail? Well, for many reasons.

1. The approach to the negotiations

One reason was that in classical intergovernmental negotiations it is very difficult to reach consensus on really thorny issues. That is why we invented the European Union in the first place. Jean Quatremer says exactly that – the failure in Copenhagen is a failure of the UN approach to intergovernmental negotiations. I will go one step further and say that my sources criticize the naivety and clumsiness of the Danish approach to this insurmountable challenge.

2. The developed countries

The developed countries have a problem. They simply cannot convince their own public opinion of the gravity of the climate change impact. That is why they cannot commit sufficient financial funds to climate change. In the case of the US, Canada and Australia – they cannot commit to serious emission reductions either.

Unless and until we convince the general public in the developed countries that climate change action is cheaper than climate change impact, we will stall. I already wrote a post about possible ways to move the public debate forward, especially in developed countries.

The Russian position is particularly interesting. Obviously the Russian officials have calculated the impossibility of a world carbon regime and are already including climate change adaptation in their development plans.

3. The developing countries

The positions of developing countries are quite diverging. This is understandable. The countries most vulnerable to climate change are already damaged by it. Another group of developing countries still believes that economic growth is times more important than climate change.

China is a really peculiar example. Economic growth remains Beijing’s overriding priority because it guarantees regime stability. Period. Whatever the Chinese may say, they will not risk their economic development for the sake of the environment (see pdf). Additionally, China believes developed economies have an obligation to provide developing nations – including China – with financial assistance and technology transfers to help them reduce carbon emissions. The only problem with this worldview is that China will suffer disproportionately – especially in agriculture (see pdf).

India is another, even starker example of internal struggle of priorities. It is less developed economically and will probably suffer more from climate change impacts. India also says that rich nations are historically responsible for global warming and should pay for reduction efforts in developing countries.

A whole group of countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa should also be kept in mind – the so-called Arab World. This group of countries may be really damaged by climate change impact. At the same time some of these countries (but not all) depend for their current survival on oil income. The unpronounced leader of this group is Saudi Arabia, and it perceives climate change mitigations as a threat to its fossil-fuelled economy. However divisions within that group may grow larger in the future.

The most disenfranchised group is that of Sub-Saharan Africa and some island states. One may ask why so many developing countries chose to align their positions with China in the G-77 format, when their predicament is significantly different. There are many reasons, but it is now known that China is working well with the political regimes in these countries to provide raw materials for its industry.

4. The possible consensus

Copenhagen showed us one thing – the world is not ready for a consensus on climate change yet. It will unfortunately remain in this limbo for quite a while. Climate skeptics will rejoice, and business will go as usual, with insignificant displays of good will. The European Union will be left alone in its legally binding decision to curb greenhouse emissions by 20% until 2020.

What can change the course then? Again, it must be the public opinion. Unless we have a meaningful debate on climate change in ALL countries, we will not know the pain threshold for ANY meaningful global climate change mitigation effort.

Backroom politics has failed. We should go back to our constituencies and explain all the odds of climate change. This is the only healthy foundation for a global agreement.

In the mean time we will continue to witness the outcome of the human inability to perceive complex agenda.