Copenhagen Accord

The Copenhagen Accord is a document which delegates at the 15th session of the Conference of Parties (COP 15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed to "take note of" at the final plenary on 18 December 2009.
The Accord, drafted by, on the one hand, the United States and on the other, in a united position as the BASIC countries (China, India, South Africa, and Brazil), is not legally binding and does not commit countries to agree to a binding successor to the Kyoto Protocol, whose round ended in 2012.
Summary.
The Accord:
Emissions pledges.
To date, countries representing over 80% of global emissions have engaged with the Copenhagen Accord. 31 January 2010 was an initial deadline set under the Accord for countries to submit emissions reduction targets, however UNFCCC Secretary Yvo De Boer later clarified that this was a "soft deadline". Countries continue to submit pledges past this deadline. A selection of reduction targets is shown below. All are for the year 2020.
Compared to 1990:
Compared to 2000:
Compared to 2005:
Compared to business as usual:
Carbon intensity compared to 2005:
China also promised to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 15% by 2020, and increase forest coverage by 40 million hectares and forest stock volume by 1.3 billion cubic meters by 2020 from the 2005 levels.
Analysis.
US Embassy dispatches released by whistleblowing site WikiLeaks showed how the US 'used spying, threats and promises of aid' to gain support for the Copenhagen Accord. The emergent US emissions pledge was the lowest by any leading nation.
The BBC immediately reported that the status and legal implications of the Copenhagen Accord were unclear. Tony Tujan of the IBON Foundation suggests the failure of Copenhagen may prove useful, if it allows us to unravel some of the underlying misconceptions and work towards a new, more holistic view of things. This could help gain the support of developing countries. Lumumba Stansilaus Di-Aping, UN Ambassador from Sudan, has indicated that, in its current form, the Accord "is not sufficient to move forward on", and that a new architecture is needed which is just and equitable.
Effect on emissions.
In February 2010, a panel discussion was held at MIT, where Henry Jacoby presented the results of an analysis of the pledges made in the Accord.
According to his analysis, assuming that the pledges submitted in response to the Accord (as of February 2010) are fulfilled, global emissions would peak around 2020. The resultant stock of emissions was projected to exceed the level required to have a roughly 50% chance of meeting the 2 °C target that is specified in the Accord. Jacoby measured the 2 °C target against pre-industrial temperature levels. According to Jacoby, even emission reductions below that needed to reach the 2 °C target still had the benefit of reducing the risk of large magnitudes of future climate change.
In March 2010, Nicholas Stern gave a talk at the London School of Economics on the outcome of Copenhagen conference.
Stern said that he was disappointed with the outcome of the conference, but saw the Accord as a possible improvement on "business-as-usual" greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In his assessment, to have a reasonable chance of meeting the 2 °C target, the preferred emissions level in 2020 would be around 44 gigatons. The voluntary pledges made in the Accord (at that date) would, according to his projection, be above this, nearer to 50 gigatons. In this projection, Stern assumed that countries would fulfil the commitments they had made. Stern compared this projection to a "business-as-usual" emissions path (i.e., the emissions that might have occurred without the Accord). His estimate of "business-as-usual" suggested that without the Accord, emissions might have been above 50 gigatons in 2020.
A study published in the journal "Environmental Research Letters" found that the Accord's voluntary commitments would probably result in a dangerous increase in the global average temperature of 4.2 °C over the next century.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) publication, "World Energy Outlook 2010," contains a scenario based on the voluntary pledges made in the Copenhagen Accord.
In the IEA scenario, it is assumed that these pledges are acted on cautiously, reflecting their non-binding nature. In this scenario, GHG emission trends follow a path which is consistent with a stabilization of GHGs at 650 parts per million (ppm) CO2-equivalent in the atmosphere. In the long-term, a 650 ppm concentration could lead to global warming of 3.5 °C above the pre-industrial global average temperature level.
"World Energy Outlook 2010" suggests another scenario consistent with having a reasonable chance of limiting global warming to 2 °C above the pre-industrial level. In the IEA's scenario, GHG emissions are reduced so as to stabilize the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere at 450 ppm CO2-eq. This scenario sees countries making vigorous efforts to cut their GHG emissions up to the year 2020, with even stronger action taken thereafter.
A preliminary assessment published in November 2010 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) suggests a possible "emissions gap" between the voluntary pledges made in the Accord and the emissions cuts necessary to have a "likely" (greater than 66% probability) chance of meeting the 2 °C objective.
The UNEP assessment takes the 2 °C objective as being measured against the pre-industrial global mean temperature level. To having a likely chance of meeting the 2 °C objective, assessed studies generally indicated the need for global emissions to peak before 2020, with substantial declines in emissions thereafter.
Criticism.
Concerns over the Accord exist; some of the key criticisms include: