Copenhagen Climate Summit Research Articles

Parallel routes from Copenhagen to Paris: climate discourse in climate sceptic and climate activist blogs

ABSTRACT The Copenhagen climate summit in 2009 was a watershed moment in the international climate change discourse, reinforcing controversy and polarization between climate sceptics and climate activists. Simultaneously, the blogosphere, known as a place for polarized mobilization, became a proliferating forum for both camps. Building on Dryzek’s and Carvalho’s conceptualization of environmental discourse, this paper analyses how ideological polarization is grounded in climate sceptics’ and climate activists’ blogs between COP15 and COP21. We investigated ten climate sceptic and climate activist blogs accessible in the UK. Qualitative-quantitative analysis of 357 blog posts revealed contrasting ontological and epistemological worlds in the climate change controversy. Four storylines were identified in the climate sceptical discourse – ‘hoax’, ‘no scientific evidence’, ‘climate sceptical science’, and ‘injustice’ – and five storylines in the climate activist discourse – ‘action’, ‘social justice’, ‘disaster strikes’, ‘potential catastrophe’, and ‘opportunity’. Implications for policy, practice and future research are provided.

Innovative information and communication technology (ICT) system for energy management of public utilities in a post-disaster region: Case study of a wastewater treatment plant in Fukushima

On March 11, 2011, the Tohoku earthquake caused major damage to almost all public infrastructures including energy and water facilities in Fukushima Prefecture. Following the nuclear disaster, which lead to a shortage of energy, the government of Japan enacted new policy measures to redefine its energy-mix after its earlier commitment to the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009 to reduce greenhouse gas emission by 25% from 1990 levels by 2020. In 2015, Japan ratified the Paris Accord and set a national greenhouse gas reduction goal - 26% below 2013 levels by 2030. To meet this requirement, Japan needs to restructure its current electricity consumption by identifying the optimal demand of electricity by households, commercial buildings, and public utilities. This calls for public infrastructures to manage their electricity consumption efficiently by adopting appropriate electricity conservation methods using precision monitoring systems. To support the policy of the government of Japan toward conservation of energy, in this paper, we outline the energy demand of a public utility system, namely a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, and based on the data obtained using an innovative information and communication technology (ICT) tool. Using the monitored data, we further predict the electricity demand for each process of the WWTP using a Markov switching model. These models have high repeatability of monitoring results for each process according to various indices. In our results, all R2 values were more than 0.8; mean absolute percentage error values were under 10% for total electricity consumption and the water treatment process, and the relative root mean square error rate of each process was under 20%. Based on the results, we developed a future electricity consumption prediction model for WWTP total electricity consumption and the consumption of each process. The study emphasizes the need for an innovative ICT and advanced analysis system for supporting the governance of public facilities.

What did the Turkish climate movement learn from a global policy failure? Frame shift after the Copenhagen Climate Summit

ABSTRACTNumerous scales in climate change politics might create problems for activists, as it is not always easy to locate the appropriate level(s) according to which they develop collective action frames. Therefore, activists might address various scales while identifying the problem and building strategies accordingly. The Turkish climate movement has been active through protest cycles largely influenced by global climate negotiations. Following the failure of the Copenhagen Climate Summit (2009) in delivering a binding climate deal, the movement shifted its strategy. Using the protest event analysis method and the movement’s archives, this paper attempts to shed light on how the Turkish climate movement learned from this global policy failure and why it switched from the global diagnostic and prognostic framing to a national/local one. Following this, the extent the European and transnational actors contribute to this frame shift will be discussed.

The climate justice movement, trade unions and the working class

22 | International Union Rights | 26/4 FOCUS | CLIMATE CHANGE & TRADE UNIONS Climate change is a public health issue and workers’ rights issue The past three decades are characterised by an unprecedented rise in CO2 emissions as well as the gradual development of a global movement against climate change, which routinely surfaces in the runup to the ‘COP’ conferences.1 As the global community is still far off fulfilling the targets of the 2016 Paris Agreement, new kinds of environmental and climate movements, such as Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion, have emerged, using the slogan of ‘climate justice’. Recent school student strikes and large-scale climate change demonstrations are an expression of a deep feeling that large numbers of people in the Global North want to do something about climate change. Many of them are engaging in political action for the first time and understandably look towards the existing structures of climate activism in order to articulate their hopes. Yet, the there are numerous issues that limit the ability of the climate movement to involve a broader spectrum of workers and trade unionists in their movement. Many of these are related to the organising tactics but there are also wider politics at play… The ‘NGO-ization’ of climate politics Since the late 1990s mainstream NGOs have been mobilising their members and subscribers onto the streets before major summits of the G8, World Trade Organisation and the COP talks. At the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, NGOs took the global stage with a massive presence. Since the mid-1990s, many multinational companies also run their own company-internal environmental campaigns and set their own environmental goals. It has become attractive to sign up to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, as environmental and social governance features higher on the agendas of institutional investors. From the Rio Earth Summit onwards, larger NGOs have suceeded in getting a ‘seat at the table’ on policy processes concerning the environment and climate change. Unlike trade unions that are financed by their membership dues, many NGOs are however structured like private business enterprises without any democratic leadership and are dependent either on government funding or large private donations (or both). Thus, they must always be able to showcase their successes and keep their donors satisfied. That offers one possible explanation as to why some NGOs have keenly promoted market-based mechanisms and technological ‘fixes’ currently being promoted by transnational corporations. Such NGOs may argue that without their involvement the climate would be in a far worse situation, but in doing so, they also seek to legitimise their participation in a highly ecologically ineffectual process. A group of critical NGOs formed a loose network under the banner of ‘Climate Justice Now’ when the COP13 in Bali failed in 2007. This network laid the basis for global justice activists and radical environmentalists to come together at the 2009 World Social Forum in Bélém to draft the Declaration for Climate Justice. This enabled various wings of the climate movement to mobilise huge numbers of people into campaigning, protesting, and letter writing. The subsequent 2009 Copenhagen climate summit was a turning point: it did succeed in building a strong foundation for a broad movement with a minimal consensus around the ubiquitous slogan of ‘climate justice’, which continues to inspire today’s school strikers. Nonetheless, the COP15 ended with no binding targets. The breakdown of the COP15 talks made it clear that lobbying and expert work had become obsolete. NGOs were no longer exerting the same influence as they had done for the previous fifteen years. Meanwhile, the radical wing of the climate movement spearheaded by ‘Reclaim Power’ was not able to delegitimise the UNFCCC process as they had hoped for. One possible explanation for this was the absence of trade unions and organised labour from their mobilisations. Indeed, trade unions have not yet realised their potential in exposing companies’ green-washing strategies and regulating capital through their collective agreements from below. Such approaches are more necessary than ever, as it is unlikely that the climate crisis will be solved through the free market. Even to this day policymakers and world leaders are hesitant to use the state to drive through...

Responsibility, capacity, greenness or vulnerability? What explains the levels of climate aid provided by bilateral donors?

ABSTRACTAt the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit, donors pledged to ‘jointly mobilize’ $100 billion/year for climate finance by 2020. The Copenhagen Accord and other agreements do not specify who should provide how much of this collective target beyond the general principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR&RC), according to which the more responsible a country is for climate change and/or the more capable of paying, the more climate finance it should provide. Two additional burden-sharing mechanisms may explain how much climate finance donors provide: willingness to pay or ‘greenness’ and self-interest. These mechanisms are tested to determine which best explains current patterns in climate finance commitments by analysing bilateral climate aid. There is evidence for capability—richer countries provide more climate aid. In contrast, responsibility, greenness or self-interest do not induce more climate aid commitments. Better understanding the drivers of climate aid helps to mobilize more climate finance, and advances understanding of (sectoral) aid allocation.

Climate Change Policy in Chinese Online Media Discourse: The Case of the Debate on the Copenhagen Climate Summit 2009

Abstract This paper discusses the debate in Chinese online media on both climate change policy and the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP15). Based on the results of a discourse analysis of Chinese language weblogs, the paper argues that at the time of COP15 there was a dominant single discourse coalition, while also identifying alternative discourse formations. The main reasons for this discursive structure seem to be the ways in which actors are participating in the political process, the sensitivity of the topic of climate change in the Chinese discussion, and the influence of foreign debates.

Bound to lead? Rethinking China’s role after Paris in UNFCCC negotiations

As the biggest global emitter of greenhouse gases, China is an extremely important actor in international climate negotiations. During the climate summit in Copenhagen, China was blamed for its unc...

How Does Climate Change Transnationalise Environmental Movement Organisations? The Case of Denmark

Environmental movements have always dealt with intrinsically transnational issues. At the same time, many issues and strategies among environmental movement actors have been articulated as nation-based. An increased emphasis on the issue of climate change and preparations before the UN Climate Summit in 2009, held in Copenhagen, fuelled the mobilisation of both new and established environmental movement actors in Denmark. The 2009 Climate Summit in Copenhagen has been described as a failure, with claims that it led to a lost belief in international negotiations and a strategy among environmental movement actors to “go back to the national”. This article explores various forms of transnationalisation in connection to the environmental movement and the issue of climate change. We analyse the transnationalisation of the environmental movement within a particular domestic context—Denmark. Our study draws on semi-structured interviews with representatives of, and documentation from, eight environmental movement organisations in Denmark, as well as observation field notes and informal interviews with Danish movement participants and other key actors during the UN Climate Summit 2013, in Warsaw, Poland; 2014, in Lima, Peru; and 2015, in Paris, France. We conclude that climate change as an overall national and transnational agenda for established Danish environmental movement organisations can be understood through various forms of transnational processes that exist simultaneously and that link the domestic and the transnational in multiple ways.

Paris Accord and China’s Climate Change Strategy: Drivers and Outcomes

From the UNFCCC Copenhagen Climate Summit to the Paris Climate Summit, China has changed its position in global climate change talks in a substantive manner. There are three distinct drivers behind this change of strategy: domestic challenges of pollution, China’s search for an international leadership position on emerging issues and the US–China climate cooperation. This article looks at these three issues in detail.

The European Union and the Paris Agreement: leader, mediator, or bystander?

After its defeat at the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009, the EU can be considered to have scored a relative success with the Paris Agreement adopted in December 2015. With the mitigation ambition of the agreement exceeding expectations, the EU realized its policy objectives to a greater extent than it may have anticipated itself. This success was made possible by a moderation of the EU’s policy objectives pursued proactively through an EU bridge‐building and coalition‐building strategy. It was enabled and facilitated by the great‐power politics between China and the US as well as the French Presidency of the Paris conference. With Paris, the EU thus appears to have consolidated its role as a ‘leadiator’ in international climate policy, which it took on after the failure of the Copenhagen conference and road‐tested for the first time in Durban in 2011. In a multipolar climate world, this new role model should remain relevant for the years to come. However, the unpredictability of the underlying internal and external political, economic, and technological dynamics suggests the wisdom of a regular review and adjustment of strategy. WIREs Clim Change 2017, 8:e445. doi: 10.1002/wcc.445This article is categorized under: Policy and Governance > International Policy Framework

Where to go from Paris? The European Union in climate geopolitics

The EU’s strategic re-orientation to coalition and bridge building after the failed Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009 paved the way for its success in securing the Paris Agreement on climate change in December 2015. This orientation will largely remain relevant in climate geopolitics characterized by multipolarity and a diversification of interests away from a North–South divide, both headed towards growing support for decarbonization. Various fora beyond the multilateral UN negotiations deserve systematic attention as climate governance has become “polycentric”, requiring careful prioritization as well as further enhanced coordination of climate diplomacy across the EU. The EU’s position in climate geopolitics will not least depend on the development of its internal climate and energy policy framework for 2030 and beyond. Advancing decarbonization and fostering low-carbon innovation towards the new climate economy in the EU will help enhance the EU’s power base and role in future climate geopolitics.

Coercion with kid gloves? The European Union's role in shaping a global regulatory framework for aviation emissions

ABSTRACTThe European Union (EU) is widely assumed to be a global environmental leader, especially in addressing climate change, though this reputation suffered greatly when European leaders were sidelined during the 2009 United Nations Climate Summit in Copenhagen. Subsequently, however, the EU has made significant progress in extending its Emission Trading System to the aviation sector, one of the fastest-growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions, and did so not only regionally, but also managed to get it onto the global policy agenda. This contribution investigates the EU's role in shaping the 2013 International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) resolution committing 191 government signatories to developing a global market-based measure to cap international aviation's carbon pollution. While not exactly setting new environmental standards or achieving definitive regulatory success, the case illustrates the agenda-setting capacity of the EU through leveraging its market power and adopting an explicitly extra-territorial rule to induce potential regulatory co-operation.

The Changing Role of International Negotiations in EU Climate Policy

For many years, the EU pursued the strategy of ‘leading by example’ in international climate negotiations. Climate policy has generally been seen as one of the few policy fields in which the EU is able to develop coherent positions and speak with a single voice. Since the Copenhagen climate summit, however, frictions inside the EU and a paradigm shift have become increasingly evident. With the October 2014 compromise in the European Council on a new framework for 2030, the international climate negotiations have become less important and a more incremental domestic approach has prevailed.

Biased or balanced? ----A study of British and Chinese newspaper coverage of climate change in the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference

Nowadays, climate science communication is an issue not only discussed within a country but more like a global urgent task that needs wide perspective. This study investigated the prevalence of news frames in Climate change news coverage from the Guardian and China Daily during the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Five news frames, attribution of responsibility, human interest, economic consequences, morality and conflict were applied to 59 Chinese news stories and 71 British news articles. By applying deductive framing analysis, the results showed that with slight variation, the proportion and pattern of reports on Copenhagen Climate Summit were similar across the two countries. This outcome extends the knowledge of developing and developed countries’ news coverage on climate change. Keywords: Climate change; UK; China; newspaper; Copenhagen

A political economy of positions in climate change negotiations: Economic, structural, domestic, and strategic explanations

After the disappointing outcome of the Copenhagen climate summit, it still remains to be explained why the participating states chose irreconcilable negotiation positions that reflected very diverse domestic interests in spite of a publicly displayed desire for cooperation. While environmental studies have intensely investigated national climate policies and their determinants over the last few decades, little attention has been paid to the bargaining positions the same governments assume in climate negotiations. We argue that their bargaining positions reflect structural, economic, and domestic factors, but less so strategic factors. A country’s vulnerability to climate change, its power and its democratic status are among the best predictors of its choice of negotiation position; its international interconnectedness, on the other hand, does not seem to have an influence. By comparing two negotiation issues – reducing emissions and financing climate mitigation – we can show that democracies choose very different negotiation positions, depending on the issue. When it comes to compensation mechanisms, serious climate reduction measures democracies do not commit to substantial emission reduction targets due to pressure from industry at home. They are, however, more prepared than other states to pay for projects that help to reduce emissions in the sense of a compensation mechanism. By understanding the choice of negotiation positions we can thus explain why the more or less cooperative bargaining positions adopted by states led to a breakdown of the Copenhagen negotiations. We investigated this question using a novel dataset on the UNFCCC negotiations, in which the positions of all participating governments were collected by hand-coding protocols from the negotiations as well as expert interviews with negotiators.

Designing prediction markets for international negotiations: Lessons learnt from the Climate Summit in Copenhagen

This paper presents results from a field experiment of running a prediction market for international climate negotiations. We draw upon our experience of running the Copenhagen Prediction Market during the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December 2009. The Copenhagen Prediction Market consisted of 17 different markets, where participants could trade in shares predicting, amongst others, reduction targets for various countries, the long-term stabilisation goal or the level of funding from developed countries to developing nations for mitigation and adaptation actions. We show that this novel application of prediction markets to climate negotiations is distinct from more traditional applications and, in many ways, more challenging. We discuss our experiences in designing and setting up the market and interpreting its results. In particular, it is crucial to be able to define the outcome of a climate conference in the face of often ambiguous final communications in order to make the prediction market robust and to find benchmarks to compare prediction market performance against.

Reinforcement of multilevel governance dynamics: creating momentum for increasing ambitions in international climate negotiations

Compared to the disappointment of the 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen, the results of the recent Conferences of the Parties can be regarded as positive progress. This was made possible due to lesson drawing and learning among states. Recent evidence from the UNFCCC negotiations suggests that countries began to reflect on the “Copenhagen experience.” They are setting up domestic climate legislation in the form of low carbon development plans and share their knowledge and experiences in the international climate change negotiations. Country representatives engage in workshops and roundtables to showcase their mitigation plans and low carbon development initiatives, thereby raising ambitions and creating group pressure on other countries. This article examines how the diffusion of policies across countries is motivated and facilitated by knowledge transfer and learning within multilevel-reinforcing governance dynamics between the domestic level and international negotiations. It analyzes how changes in the negotiation setting from confrontational formal negotiations to a more open forum and bottom-up pledge-and-review process, in combination with a positively framed win–win low carbon economic development narrative resulted in the diffusion of climate policies across developed and developing countries. Communicating these climate initiatives on the national level has shifted the debate. Countries emphasize less the win–lose perspective of economic costs and sacrifice. Thus, they focus less on the question of who should reduce emissions’, but identify co-benefits instead. The institutionalized knowledge sharing within the UNFCCC is also creating positive competitive dynamics among countries to increase their ambition and to take on a leadership role. This shift in the negotiations carries potential for a more ambitious aggregate negotiation outcome and opens up a window of opportunity.

Climate change and post-politics: Repoliticizing the present by imagining the future?

Several scholars have criticized the predominant post-political representations of our current era, particularly with regard to climate change. However, what happens when a movement explicitly aims at repoliticizing the present in an attempt to open a space for change? Combining scholar activism with theoretical insights from post-foundational political theorists, such as Jacques Rancière, Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau, this paper studies the paradoxical nature of the attempt to repoliticize climate change by Climate Justice Action (CJA), a grassroots movement that was set up before the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009. Comparing different repoliticization strategies, the paper shows how CJA exhibits core features of a Rancièrian political act, which makes visible what was previously invisible by starting from the postulate of equality. However, lacking an elaborate perspective on alternatives, both Rancière and CJA appear to be stuck in the present. Drawing on Mouffe and Laclau’s discourse theory, the paper subsequently analyzes the nodal points of CJA’s discourse that could function as inscription points for alternatives. Yet, these points appear to primarily intensify a we/them distinction. The result is a paradox: to create a space for imagining alternative futures, one must first fight post-political representations of the present. However, when politicization becomes an end in itself, the outreach of the movement, and therefore its capacity to repoliticize and stimulate the imagination of alternative futures, is constrained.

The Analysis of Current Implementation Mechanism of Green Power

Energy is the material foundation to promote social progress and of humans survival. A large number of energy consumption has brought serious environmental problems. After Global Climate Summit in Copenhagen, The attention to the green-house gas emissions of our country from the international community grows day by day. Developing green power is vigorously an important way to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases. However, the cost of green power is so high compared with the traditional fossil energy that green power cannot be promoted only depending on market mechanism. So the mechanism that supports green power should be established. Firstly the implementation of green power of foreign countries (mainly the United States and European Union countries) is analyzed, and its content includes implementation mechanism, the market main body and duties, policy, motivation, supervision, etc. Then the development of domestic green power is described in detail, and a comparative analysis is presented between foreign and domestic implementation of green power in various aspects. Now in our country, the provinces developing green power better are Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Beijing and so on. There are enough green-power resources, potential users in these regions. And with the excitation of national policy, the regions develop green power actively, laying foundation of implementation of green-power mechanism. Shanghai is now the first city of our country that implements mechanism of green power. After the analysis of the present implementation of green power, the deficiency and areas in need of improvement are presented, combined with Shanghais present green-power implementation mechanism, as well as the original national green-power implementation mechanism. And some policy suggestion is put forward for the recent national green-power development in finance, taxation, incentive etc, which analyses and improves the designation of green-power implementation mechanism, including the payments balance and the research of incentive mechanism.

Framing climate change and indigenous peoples

This article examines representations of indigenous peoples in Swedish and Canadian press coverage of the Copenhagen climate summit (COP15). It discusses tensions between the international character of UN summits and the often transnational character of indigenous peoples as well as the issue of climate change. It considers how conceptions of nature, culture and politics intersect in the coverage, and in what roles indigenous peoples appear. Building on theories concerning the representation of indigenous peoples, traditional environmental knowledge (TEK) and identity politics, the study combines content and framing analysis with discourse analysis of a small sample of articles about indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples are underrepresented in the coverage. When indigenous voices emerge they appear as victim-heroes and important intermediaries of urgency and spirituality. They also appear as intermediaries of de-nationalization, but they are misframed politically, recognized in terms of their culture rather than represented in terms of their status.