Climate deal reached but doesn't go far enough: Key

BY DAVID WILLIAMS IN COPENHAGEN

The world's major emitters are backing a deal which has emerged at climate change talks in Copenhagen but Prime Minister John Key says it does not go far enough.

"What we have at this point is a political statement; we don't have a legally binding agreement," Key told reporters.

"What we do have is something which is progress towards that agreement, and subject to the conditionality and the rule changes that New Zealand's been looking for then we look as if we could sign up to that."

Key said New Zealand was comfortable with the text and it could meet the conditions without having to change its mid-term or long-term greenhouse gas emissions targets.

"It is progress but I think it falls well short of the expectations and aspirations people had for Copenhagen."

Developing countries will be disappointed with the deal, Key said.

A STARTING POINT

US President Barack Obama said the world still had "much further to go" in the fight against global warming.

All sides conceded the agreement, which fell far short of United Nations ambitions for the December 7-18 talks, was imperfect but said it was a starting point for a co-ordinated international effort to avert the catastrophic impacts of climate change.

"This progress did not come easily and we know this progress alone is not enough ... We've come a long way but we have much further to go," Obama said after talks with China's Premier Wen Jiabao, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and South Africa's President Jacob Zuma which led to the breakthrough.

The agreement still had to win formal approval from a full meeting of all 193 nations at the talks.

"If this makes it through the meeting in a couple of hours' time then I see it as a modest success," said Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat. "We could have achieved more."

Negotiators had struggled all day to find a compromise acceptable to all which could avert the threat of dangerous climate change, including floods, droughts, rising sea levels and species extinctions.

Tensions between China and the United States, the world's two biggest emitters, had been particularly acute after Obama - in a message directed at the Chinese - said any deal to cut emissions would be "empty words on a page" unless it was transparent and accountable.

Obama said that under the agreement, each country would set out "concrete commitments" which would then be subject to "international consultation and analysis".

A US official said it committed nations to carbon emissions cuts to curb global warming to 2 degrees Celsius.

"We're going to have to build on the momentum we've established here in Copenhagen to ensure that international action to significantly reduce emissions is sustained and sufficient over time," Obama said.

TEXT 'NOT PERFECT'

Speaking shortly after Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the deal was backed by all nations at the talks, and had succeeded in binding major carbon emitting countries to curbing their pollution.

Under the accord, he said all states including China would have to submit their written plans for curbs in carbon dioxide emissions by January 2010. And he said that all countries had signed up for a plan to provide developing nations with $US100 billion ($NZ140b) a year in aid by 2020.

"The text we have is not perfect. If we had no deal, that would mean that two countries as important as India and China would be liberated from any type of contract ... the United States, which is not in Kyoto would be free of any type of contract," he told reporters.

"That's why a contract is absolutely vital."

The European Union, which appeared to have been sidelined in Obama's final negotiations, said the agreement "falls far below our expectation".

A copy of the text, seen earlier by Reuters, included $NZ100 billion in climate aid annually by 2020 for poor countries to combat climate change, and targets to limit warming and halve global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Brazil supported the accord, but its climate change ambassador Sergio Serra sounded a despondent note. "It's very disappointing I would say, but it is not a failure...if we agree to meet again and deal with the issues that are still pending."

Anti-poverty groups were more scathing. Tim Jones, climate officer for the World Development movement said the agreement was "a shameful and monumental failure that has condemned millions of people around the world to untold suffering".

The European Union had pressed for a strong deal to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius and which included tough carbon curbs from other industrialised nations such as the United States.

Scientists say a 2 degree limit is the minimum to avoid some of the worst impacts of climate change including a sea rise of several metres, species extinctions and crop failures.

"Given where we started and the expectations for this conference, anything less than a legally binding and agreed outcome falls far short of the mark," said John Ashe, chair of the Kyoto talks under the United Nations.

GREENS DECRY CLIMATE DEAL

The deal which has emerged from global climate change talks in Copenhagen is a "tragedy for humanity", Green MP Jeanette Fitzsimons says.

Ms Fitzsimons dismissed the deal as a failure "papered over with some fine-sounding words by Obama".

The purpose of the meeting was to agree on a second commitment period for the Kyoto protocol but that had not been achieved, she said.

"We came here wanting an ambitious, fair and binding agreement. The talks have failed on all three counts.

"There are no country targets, only an appendix where countries offer non-binding reductions which collectively will not stop warming of two degrees. As it is not ambitious or binding, it cannot be fair to the developing countries that are already suffering from climate change."

The agreement even lacked an aspirational statement about achieving a stronger position next year, Ms Fitzsimons said.

- with REUTERS

- © Fairfax NZ News