Over the weekend, The Climate Institute released How feasible is changing track? – a sobering scientific assessment by leading experts from Climate Analytics in Germany and the USA.  This report examines whether emissions can be reduced fast enough post-2020 to avoid dangerous levels of climate change. The key findings are:

• Locking in current targets to 2020 would effectively rule out meeting the goals identified by the world’s most vulnerable people as the threshold above which their survival is threatened – a 1.5°C increase in global temperature above preindustrial levels.

• Locking in current targets to 2020 and then playing catch up to meet a 2°C target requires global emissions to be reduced at a rate of 6 percent of 1990 emissions per year post 2020. This is triple the rate of reduction required if the world sets more adequate 2020 targets. To put this in perspective, this equates to reducing emissions by the same amount as Japan’s and India’s combined 1990 emissions every year – a massive task.

• Delaying action until after 2020 would more than double the rate of global warming. The rapid rise in emissions until 2020 and the necessary rapid emission reduction after the 2020s results in a rate of temperature increase by the 2040s that is double to triple what is currently observed, which is about 0.15°C per decade.

• The report authors conclude: “Since the currently observed rate of temperature increase already poses problems of adaptation for human society and ecosystems, a doubling or tripling of this rate will likely pose a serious threat to these systems”.

To have even a 50/50 chance of avoiding 2°C warming, independent experts say developed countries need to reduce pollution levels by 25 to 40% below 1990 levels by 2020 and developing countries need to curb their emissions to 15-30% below projected levels.

How do current pledges measure up? Our latest assessment has developed countries committing to cuts of between 14 and 22% and developing countries 5 to 20%.  Like Australia’s 25% target from it’s 5 to 25% range, the ambitious end of these targets require a successfully negotiated agreement.

Pledges like these do not make for a happy snapshot.

But let’s take a look at the moving picture.

While Australia stumbled last week, other countries are on the move.

In recent weeks and months, we have seen countries as diverse as Norway, South Korea, Brazil and Japan increased their level of ambition at global talks and through strong domestic policies.  Indonesia has made strong commitments.  Opening bids from China and the US are insufficient, but nobody denies they are starting to battle over who will be the dominant power in the emerging global clean energy economy.

That clean energy and carbon asset economy is expected to be worth trillions of dollars in years to come.  Last year US $155 billion clean energy investments outstripped fossil fuel energy investments for the first time and the UN reports that the current 2.3 million renewable energy jobs outnumber those directly employed in oil and gas.

The Global Financial Crisis has seen governments pump more than half a trillion dollars of public funds into clean energy and low carbon technologies. This is not a short term stop-gap, but a long term investment in the growth industries that will, and already is, providing the successful and sustainable jobs and profits of the 21st century.

With the curtains rising in Copenhagen, we have a strange situation where the momentum building at the domestic level is not being seen in the UN negotiations.

This serves as a reminder that these talks are negotiations – countries will inevitably play hardball until the very end.

So can the Copenhagen climate summit be a success?

Yes it can.

Copenhagen can provide a springboard to the completion of a legally binding, ratifiable, treaty next year.  Ultimately that treaty will swing on the national and collective emission reduction targets and the level of investment on offer from developed countries to help developing countries protect their forests, adapt to the unavoidable impacts and to set themselves on a cleaner development pathway.

To provide a springboard for a new treaty to be finalised next year, five foundational issues need to be settled in Copenhagen.  These issues are set out in more detail in our Copenhagen Checklist report, but include:

1.    Climate Security– commitment to limit global warming to less than 20C above pre-industrial levels and to ensure that global emissions peak and begin to decline by 2020, supported by benchmarks for all major emitters.  This should be complemented by decisions to establish mechanisms to protect forests in developing countries and to set limits on international shipping and aviation emissions.

2.    Legally Binding – a clear and unambiguous decision to finalise a new legally binding treaty by mid 2010. This should be supported by an agreement on binding legal architecture that is flexible enough to capture common but differentiated commitments for all major emitting countries, but has mechanisms to prevent backsliding on current commitments.

3.    Unlock Public and Private Finance – adoption of a “fast-start” $10 – 20 billion a year financing package, to support urgent and immediate mitigation, capacity building and adaptation efforts in developing countries, prior to 2012. This must be in the context of a strong commitment to scale up post 2012 public and private financing flows to $100 to 200 billion per year.

4.    Promotes Accountability, Transparency and Trust – agreement to independent international verification of national emissions inventories under a common international accounting approach with a mechanism to rapidly register, report and verify commitments.

5.    Politically durable – reiteration that developed countries, responsible for three quarters of current atmospheric pollution, will continue to lead efforts with advanced developing countries making legally binding but fair commitments.  Commitment to sustained support for poorer vulnerable countries and their communities to adapt to climate change impacts.

The Climate Institute’s Copenhagen Checklist rates Australia’s current public performance on these foundational issues as 3 stars out of five.  We’ll update this as talks progress.  Australia’s ultimate credibility depends on our final proposed national target; amount of international financial support offered, and whether the government advocates loopholes in accounting rules reducing the fairness of its emission reduction efforts.

But if Australia and other countries pass the 5 tests above, it will lead to much happier snaps at the end of the Copenhagen Conference than at the beginning.

John Connor | CEO, The Climate Institute