Elizabeth Pearson reports from London

Gordon Brown sees the Copenhagen accord as a constructive step in fighting climate change. Image: Wikicommons

The watered-down accord reached at the Copenhagen conference is a “vital first step” in a global approach to climate change, Britain’s Prime Minister says.
British prime minister Gordon Brown has been among leaders from 193 countries to spend two weeks in the Danish capital fleshing out a worldwide agreement on tackling global warming.

A last-ditch deal agreed on as negotiations concluded today admitted that “deep cuts in emissions are required” but failed to supply any detailed provisions to achieve this.

Mr Brown told journalists at the UN summit that the accord was a “vital first step” but refused to label it “historic”.

“This has not been an easy summit but I do say that the Copenhagen deal offers hope,” he said.

“This is the first step we are taking towards a green and low carbon future for the world, steps we are taking together. But like all first steps, the steps are difficult.”

World leaders agreed to limit a rise in global temperatures to two degrees celsius but failed to incorporate specific details as to how this would be achieved. The setting of individual emissions targets for 2020 was also postponed to early next year.

Mr Brown had been pushing for the treaty to be made legally binding. This action was, however, erased from the timetable, to the distress of the European Union.
President of the EU Commission Jose Manuel Barroso told reporters, “I will not hide my disappointment regarding the non-binding nature of the agreement here”.

“In that respect, the document falls far short of our expectations.”

The UK’s Energy and Climate change secretary Ed Miliband admitted the conference dubbed ‘Hopenhagen’ had not been as successful as anticipated.

“I don’t think it’s the full agreement we would have wanted. We would have wanted a clearer tract to a legally binding treaty. We’d have wanted more clarity of ambition for 2050,” he said.

“[But] it’s not the final word at all, it’s the end of the beginning. It marks a real sense that developed and developing countries, despite their constraints, want to tackle the problem.”

Final day talks were hijacked by a standoff between the two largest economies over calls by US President Barack Obama for China’s carbon output to be independently monitored.

Executive Director of Greenpeace UK John Sauven said the event was altogether unsatisfactory.

“The city of Copenhagen is a crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport,” he said.

“It is now evident that beating global warming will require a radically different model of politics than the one on display here in Copenhagen.”

Elizabeth Pearson is Reportage-enviro‘s London correspondent.

Read other news from the Copenhagen Conference from our correspondents.