At the last round of climate talks in Barcelona, I had an interesting conversation with a former negotiator about what the global leaders might do here in Copenhagen. It wasn’t so much a betting game about what they would actually get done as a discussion about how the mere presence of actual decision makers could result in a political phase-change of sorts.

Negotiators are trained to negotiate, and environment ministers handle environmental issues. Typically these talks don’t get beyond environment ministers, but these officials don’t have much to say about things like money (which is one reason why global warming talks are so difficult). Both levels have mandates and tend to focus on the text, but leaders can do anything they want as long as they can sell it back home.

Which is what everybody wanted, but at the same time everybody seemed surprised when the US President Barack Obama emerged from a series of multilateral meetings with a completely new outline that pretty much ignored two years of negotiations. There was uproar and confusion when the deal came down in the Bella Center. Even seasoned diplomats had no idea what to make of it. Anger over the lack of ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions flared during the plenary, eventually leading to ugly Holocaust comparisons and one Venezuelan negotiator holding up a bloody hand to signify something that I didn’t quite catch). Nobody appeared to like it, including signatories.

Although to be fair, it must be said that virtually everybody ended up endorsing it as the best path forward. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that a bunch of sleep-deprived zombies with blood-shot eyes and two-day socks “took note of” the proposal. What does that mean? Let’s go to United Nations climate chief Yvo de Boer for the answer: “That is a way of recognizing something is there, without directly associating yourself with it.”

And so, we have a deal which the UN climate body has recognized and with which countries can associate themselves if they so choose. The initial deadline for registering pledges, which would presumably be those that are already on the table, is this February. We’ll see. Debate over the significance of the deal will continue for a long time to come (see the New York Times and the Guardian for a current sampling) but one thing is clear: the game has changed.

And with that I’ll sign off. Watch out for our coverage in next week’s issue, and beyond.

The Bella Center paused as global leaders stepped up to the podium for the first time this afternoon. Everybody was hoping for something new from China and the United States, but neither Wen Jiabao nor Barack Obama offered up anything of the sort. Only Brazilian President Inacio Luiz Lula da Silva put something new on the table, saying that Brazil would meet its pledge without any international resources and would in fact contribute money to help poorer countries cope with global warming.

Lula invoked God, angels and miracles, and said all three might be necessary in order to reach a meaningful deal today. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was much more practical, suggesting that maybe it’s time to start thinking about 2010.

Notably, all four said they will continue doing what they are already doing, and what they had proposed to do under an international treaty, regardless of what happens today.

I got off the train this morning, walked past a drum corps and the big-screen television broadcasting interviews with activist experts. I picked up my free vegan sandwich from the ever-pleasant anti-meat protesters and passed through the first security checkpoint. On my way in, I could hear another crowd of protesters amplified by bullhorns somewhere off in the distance.

The Bella Center was eerily empty when I entered. Leaders and their security details are on site, but civil-society groups have largely been locked out. I met Jennifer Morgan, who runs the climate shop for the World Resources Institute, and learned that negotiators reported little progress when they finally broke at 4 a.m. At this stage of the talks, I asked, is there any way that the formal negotiating text can be cleaned up? “It’s hard to see,” she said.

What this means is unclear. In the midst of all the gloom yesterday afternoon, I did a quick round of interviews and discovered a brand of persistent optimism holding that the real talks are now among leaders and that leaders really want a breakthrough. For the first time in history, an environmental summit has become a summit of people who have the power to make big decisions. The top dogs are trying to broker a compromise on the very biggest issues – emissions commitments, long-term funding for developing countries and the like. If they are able to unlock these issues, the ball game would clearly change. It still takes time to clean up text, and time is running short indeed, but who knows – an entirely new, stripped-down text could be put on the table.

“It’s anybody’s guess,” Saleem Huq told me. Huq is an adaptation expert and former IPCC lead author currently at the International Institute for Environment and Development in London, although he will soon be heading to Bangladesh to head a new institute focused on adaptation. “My take on it is that it’s a success no matter what,” he added, gesturing toward a room full of journalists from all over the world. “It’s a story back home in every country. It’s a much higher level of engagement.”

For now it’s a waiting game. Activity has picked up, and now crowds of people and cameras surround televisions providing a view into the main plenary hall. I’m going to pop over to a couple of press conferences just to see if the tone has changed. The Africa Group is first, followed by Japan, Brazil (featuring none other than President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva himself), India and Iran.

It’s crunch time here, and everything appears to be moving along as expected, which is to say everything is behind schedule. The main negotiating bodies finished their work this morning, which is to say that they got as far as they can go. The Danes were expected to drop new text proposing some compromise language this afternoon, which, if accepted, in theory, the ministers would then iron into shape before the leaders take over tomorrow. But there are procedural delays, and the Danes have hit the pause button to try to design a new framework for breaking up the text into pieces rather than negotiating everything in the main plenary, where 193 countries squabbling over every detail could send things into chaos.

As he is prone to do, UN climate chief Yvo de Boer offered up a metaphor, comparing the negotiations to a cable car heading up the mountain. “The cable car has made an unexpected stop, but I am confident that it will be moving forward again soon.”

This afternoon I met Abdallah El Mahboul, who heads the Moroccan Water Resources Department. He, too, was confident that a deal would be struck, although he remains deeply disappointed in the United States and the rest of the industrialized countries for failing to rise to the occasion. But from his perspective, a bad deal with some money and some greenhouse gas reductions is better than no deal, no money and fewer greenhouse gas reductions. “Everybody needs a deal,” he says. “For us, Africans, we just have to get what we can.”

In some ways, this has become one of the key questions: Will developing countries be willing to take what they can get? Or will they hold out? The developed countries aren’t changing their targets, despite ample evidence that they seem to fall short of stated goals and that more could be done. South Africa’s lead negotiator, Alf Wills, says the talks have moved beyond the $10-billion start up fund and are now focused on getting the architecture right for mid-term and long-term financing. We’ll see what happens.

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Something resembling order has been restored to the Bella Center in Copenhagen. The climate talks are back on track after getting derailed, for a second time, by protests from poor countries who are angry about a lack of commitment from industrialized nations as well as lack of clarity about the ultimate architecture of a possible agreement (see BBC , Telegraph).

Meanwhile, the dual-track talks are now taking place on multiple levels, with technical negotiators handling the details and ministers working on the bigger picture in preparation for the historic arrival of some 130 heads of state beginning this evening. The United Nations has had to institute a quota system to control access to the Bella Center. The official capacity is 15,000, but some 45,000 people have now sought accreditation.

What’s remarkable is that the outcome remains in doubt. It’s hard to believe that so many heads of state could walk away with nothing, but the gap between rich and poor countries remains as wide and deep as ever. I just talked to Koko Warner, who researches adaptation issues at the United Nations University, and she says there is still a possibility that a deal could be reached. And keep in mind that she is an optimist.

The pessimists are many, and they say the talks might well come to naught in Copenhagen. Warner acknowledges such a possibility but says the game changes when heads of state arrive. “It’s a historic moment,” she says. But ultimately, the entire affair might well turn on whether the US and China can work out their differences.

And while politicians struggle with discussions over relatively modest greenhouse gas reductions, scientists just keep hammering home the message that more needs to be done. Yesterday the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme released a new report on the ice-sheet melting in Greenland, while Al Gore and Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store released a second report looking at snow and ice trends across the globe. Bottom line: Global sea levels are projected to rise by 1 metre by 2100, more than double the estimate from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 assessment.

This isn’t surprising scientifically, but both scientists and politicians at the meeting used the information as “a call to action,” which is actually in the title of the second document. Store called for stronger action in Copenhagen and for additional action on black carbon and short-lived greenhouse gases, such as methane and ozone.

Sunday was Forest Day, and I celebrated it along with several hundred people at a forum chalk full of science and policy presentations about integrating efforts to integrate forests into the global warming framework. This annual event is in its third year, and the efforts of those present would appear to be paying off: Negotiators working on the deforestation text have reached agreement on all but a pair of issues, which will likely be kicked up to environment ministers.

The negotiations over REDD (for reducing deforestation and forest degradation) have progressed more quickly than most issues, and many think the programme could be a signature accomplishment in Copenhagen. But REDD negotiators do not control the money, and it’s not year clear whether it will make it onto the list of fast-action items.

As far as the text itself goes, some environmentalists are still worried about the text on safeguards against converting forests into plantations, but by and large the observers I talked to are pleased with the actual framework. Several pages of text generally lay out in broad-form a system that would allow rich nations to offset some of their emissions by paying to preserve forests in tropical countries, although many of the details would be left to be worked out by a technical group next year.

One of the two outstanding issues is whether to put in specific targets: the EU had proposed a 50 percent reduction in deforestation by 2020 and a halt to deforestation by 2030, but the current text drops the mid-term goal and includes the 2030 goal in brackets, which means the text is disputed. The second is whether nations will be required to develop national baselines for the rate of emissions from deforestation (a proposal designed to prevent illegal loggers from simply moving down the road) or whether they could develop regional plans of some kind.

Perhaps biggest problem, according to John O. Niles, director of the US-based Tropical Forest Group, is that the text does not specify a date for when many of these details must be worked out. There are few details as to how tropical countries need to account for their forest carbon, no deadlines, and no system for reviewing the baseline assessments that they submit to enter the program. “It just sort of says, ’Let’s get started,’” Niles says. “But maybe that’s all they could get here.”

Meanwhile, the debate over the biggest issues – over emissions and money from developed to developing countries – continues apace, with all eyes on the United States and China. The good news is that negotiators have at least agreed on which document they are negotiating. That document even includes a place for some key goals, such as reducing global emissions by an unspecified amount by 2050. That said, countries haven’t increased their commitments, and scientists who have been busy modelling the proposals are saying what they have been saying for months: current proposals would commit the world to something like 3.8 degrees of warming by 2100 – nearly double the oft-cited goal of 2 degrees.

I’ll be honest. I completely ignored the negotiations in Copenhagen on Friday. No kidding. I didn’t even pretend to care. Partly because not much appeared to be happening, at least not much outside of the usual political struggles that we’ve reported countless times over the past two years. But also because plenty of interesting talks are under way at any number of side events throughout the conference center. There are too many choices, in fact.

I focused my time on a fascinating series of talks related to emissions scenarios, how various commitments address the actual problem of global warming and how much money will be needed for which technologies (stay tuned). Seemed like a good idea, until I heard from a colleague that there was an equally fascinating series of talks on renewable energy, how to deploy it globally and what kinds of tools can be used to promote and assess progress in developing countries. Point being that at when you are here you simply have to make choices and accept the consequences.

One of the consequences of ignoring the negotiations process is that I was completely baffled when a regular source approached me at 7 p.m. and warned of impending doom. Impending doom would normally constitute a news story, but at these meetings it’s never entirely clear how to define “impending” or “doom.” It’s not that I doubted the provider of said information. Even the smallest and seemingly insignificant issues can – and often do – provoke international crises in political negotiations of this caliber. And the reasons cited in this particular case (emissions commitments, money, treaty architecture) were not minor. But it’s also easy to get caught up in the moment and lose perspective.

That said, I hereby acknowledge that I have no idea what is going to happen this coming week. I confess as much with a fair amount of confidence that nobody else does either. It’s one giant question mark. At one point I talked to an environmentalist who invoked the Holy Ghost to explain not one but two possible outcomes, neither of which necessarily satisfied all of his desires. All of which is to serve as my warning against reading too much into any one of the countless stories that come out of Copenhagen in the coming days. Journalists can provide context and frame questions, but it’s unlikely that any given story is going to provide reliable answers.

I pondered the link between experts and politicians as I bounced among talks throughout the day. Scientists and economists presented various modelling results, analyzing climate forcing, emissions reductions and technology investments, and every single one of them came to the same conclusion: current political commitments are significant but fall well short of the goal of limiting the average increase in temperature to 2 degrees, which is what most politicians say they want to do. A second theme also emerged: getting a proper start on that goal, particularly in the next decade, isn’t all that difficult and could be achieved at a net profit thanks largely to opportunities in energy efficiency.

But there are multiple bubbles in Copenhagen’s Bella Center, and ideas don’t necessarily transfer among them. I found myself alternating between optimism and deep pessimism, occasionally soothed by a cultivated sense of pragmatism and my usual dose of hope. In the event that the world moves too slowly now, or the systems politicians opt to deploy don’t quite work as designed, we could always make up the difference later. Sure, the task gets more difficult with each passing year, but this is “Hopenhagen,” as I am reminded every time I get on the metro.

I’m not sure where all of that leaves us. Full-time negotiators will kick things off to environment ministers this weekend, and environment ministers will have a couple of days to resolve sticky issues and set the stage for heads of state who arrive toward the end of next week. It’s safe to say that none of the big issues will get resolved before then, but heads of state can do anything they want as they they don’t have to report back to anybody (at least not until the next election, where applicable). All out collapse cannot be ruled out, to be sure, but it’s hard to imagine a situation where there is more pressure to get something done. The question on the minds of scientists I talked to was not necessarily whether there would be an agreement but whether that agreement would do what it needs to do.

Photo credit: WHTC

I arrived in Copenhagen via Amsterdam from Washington today, along with a host of other Washingtonians making the same journey. After a quick shower, I found my way to the conference centre, through the metal detectors, past the credentialing stand and into the conference. Thousands of people milled about; hundreds of journalists filled a media room; bright lights and cameras focused on a revolving slate of officials who were being interviewed in one language or another.

So what’s new? In short, four days into the two-week talks, not much. Everybody was still talking about how the tiny island of Tuvalu, along with support from fellow island nations and a few of the most vulnerable developing countries, challenged China and India a day earlier, on Wednesday. Tuvalu put forward language that would commit nations to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees instead of the oft-cited 2-degree target. The short, though incomplete, story is that China and India balked because they know that much more would be required of them, as the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions, under a 1.5-degree scenario.

Tuvalu’s proposal isn’t going anywhere, to be clear, but it nonetheless represents the first public rift in the so-called Group of 77+China, an odd coalition that has somehow managed to stick together despite representing both booming economies and the world’s poorest nations. According to this analysis, some of the most vulnerable nations are beginning to recognize that their interests do not necessarily align with those of the major emerging economies.

Not much in the way of news on Thursday, so I used what little energy I had after a nearly sleepless night to mingle, catch up and attend a session on efforts to assess emissions from deforestation in the United States’ international aid programme.

Who knows where things will go from here. Fireworks can be expected, but everybody seems to think that politicians have invested too much to walk away without an agreement next week. But it remains to be seen who will be there to witness it; UN officials are already working out formulas on who will and won’t be allowed in (media included, rumour has it) next week, when attendance is expected to rocket past the 15,000-occupancy limit.

More soon.

Things are winding down here in Barcelona. The latest negotiating text is out, and everybody is waiting for the final plenary session.

Negotiators seem to have coalesced on what needs to come out of Copenhagen, as opposed to what many would like to see. The basic idea, covered in a bit more detail in my last post, is that leaders could sign an agreement providing decisions on the big issues, including emissions targets, financing, technology, adaptation and deforestation, and then come back early next year to get the details for a formal treaty in place. That might not sound like much, but it eliminates the sense of doubt that was clouding the talks earlier in the week.

There’s a bit of confusion in some places, particularly among greens and representatives from developing countries, about what that means, but most see it as a viable solution given that securing a complete, ratifiable treaty might not be possible. Indeed, despite what might be called an air of cautious optimism, the gap between rich and poor countries remains substantial and apparently unbridgeable.

This stark truth was on full display as the G77 group representing developing countries, the European Union and then the United States held back-to-back press conferences giving their assessment of where we stand. I’ll take a closer look at the implications of all this in next week’s issue, but here’s a quick summary: The G77 said it won’t support any agreement unless rich countries cut their emissions by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020; the EU said its offer to go up to 30 percent is already aggressive; and the US said its unofficial numbers, which appear in legislative proposals that would reduce emissions to just a few percent below 1990 levels, are both unlikely to change and in line with the science.

I say “apparently unbridgeable” because these are negotiations, and there is a sense that everybody wants a deal. I briefly cornered Alf Wills, a G77 leader from South Africa, to talk about the issue, and he acknowledged that developed countries could always try to bridge the divide with offers of things like money and technology. “That’s part of the negotiation,” he told me.

As it happens, negotiators working on technology transfer issues appear to have made some progress this week. They are converging on some institutional issues and the establishment of regional technology innovation centers that could help developing countries gear up for the future. Similarly, observers say talks over adaptation and deforestation are moving forward as well, although green groups still have some concerns about safeguards in the deforestation text. (See my post on Wednesday for details; they succeeded in restoring some language intended to prevent the conversion of natural forests to plantations, but say the language isn’t as strong as it should be).

That leaves mitigation and money, which are, admittedly, the biggest issues. Most tend to cite the United States’ inability to put a formal number on the table as the main sticking point, but US negotiator Jonathan Pershing slapped that idea down on Friday. He said everybody should have a good idea what the US number is, given that there is a narrow range in the legislation in Congress. Indeed, although no decision has been made, he said there’s no reason why the United States couldn’t sign a treaty in December. The question is whether there would be one to sign, he said, adding a quick jab at developing countries for, in his view, arguing against a single treaty that binds everybody to differing levels of commitments.

So, with all that as background, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens once leaders take the stage. UN climate chief Yvo de Boer said he’s been informed that some 40 heads of state are planning to attend Copenhagen in December, which should make things interesting.

Barring major fireworks in the final plenary, this will be my last post, but keep an eye out for our formal coverage in next week’s issue of the magazine.

Things are winding down here in Barcelona. The latest negotiating text is out, and everybody is waiting for the final plenary session.

Negotiators seem to have coalesced on what needs to come out of Copenhagen, as opposed to what many would like to see. The basic idea, covered in a bit more detail in my last post, is that leaders could sign an agreement providing decisions on the big issues, including emissions targets, financing, technology, adaptation and deforestation, and then come back early next year to get the details for a formal treaty in place. That might not sound like much, but it eliminates the sense of doubt that was clouding the talks earlier in the week.

There’s a bit of confusion in some places, particularly among greens and representatives from developing countries, about what that means, but most see it as a viable solution given that securing a complete, ratifiable treaty might not be possible. Indeed, despite what might be called an air of cautious optimism, the gap between rich and poor countries remains substantial and apparently unbridgeable.

This stark truth was on full display as the G77 group representing developing countries, the European Union and then the United States held back-to-back press conferences giving their assessment of where we stand. I’ll take a closer look at the implications of all this in next week’s issue, but here’s a quick summary: The G77 said it won’t support any agreement unless rich countries cut their emissions by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020; the EU said its offer to go up to 30 percent is already aggressive; and the US said its unofficial numbers, which appear in legislative proposals that would reduce emissions to just a few percent below 1990 levels, are both unlikely to change and in line with the science.

I say “apparently unbridgeable” because these are negotiations, and there is a sense that everybody wants a deal. I briefly cornered Alf Wills, a G77 leader from South Africa, to talk about the issue, and he acknowledged that developed countries could always try to bridge the divide with offers of things like money and technology. “That’s part of the negotiation,” he told me.

As it happens, negotiators working on technology transfer issues appear to have made some progress this week. They are converging on some institutional issues and the establishment of regional technology innovation centers that could help developing countries gear up for the future. Similarly, observers say talks over adaptation and deforestation are moving forward as well, although green groups still have some concerns about safeguards in the deforestation text. (See my post on Wednesday for details; they succeeded in restoring some language intended to prevent the conversion of natural forests to plantations, but say the language isn’t as strong as it should be).

That leaves mitigation and money, which are, admittedly, the biggest issues. Most tend to cite the United States’ inability to put a formal number on the table as the main sticking point, but US negotiator Jonathan Pershing slapped that idea down on Friday. He said everybody should have a good idea what the US number is, given that there is a narrow range in the legislation in Congress. Indeed, although no decision has been made, he said there’s no reason why the United States couldn’t sign a treaty in December. The question is whether there would be one to sign, he said, adding a quick jab at developing countries for, in his view, arguing against a single treaty that binds everybody to differing levels of commitments.

So, with all that as background, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens once leaders take the stage. UN climate chief Yvo de Boer said he’s been informed that some 40 heads of state are planning to attend Copenhagen in December, which should make things interesting.

Barring major fireworks in the final plenary, this will be my last post, but keep an eye out for our formal coverage in next week’s issue of the magazine.