Commenting on today’s walkout by African nations at the Copenhagen COP15 climate meeting, Barun Mitra, director of an Indian NGO attending the Copenhagen negotiations and representative of the Civil Society Coalition on Climate Change, stated:

“Today’s walkout at the Copenhagen climate conference is purely a negotiating tactic because there’s so much money at stake. Copenhagen is no longer about climate — it’s about cash and corruption, both for poor and wealthy countries. By accepting restrictions on carbon emissions in exchange for cash, the world’s poorest countries are offering to prevent growth and perpetuate poverty. Ultimately, this could be a tragic repeat of the aid industry in the 1960s and ‘70s, when the leaders of some of the world’s poorest countries stuffed their Swiss bank accounts — all in the name of the poor.”

The offers countries made on emissions reduction prior to Copenhagen appear to be insufficient to prevent a 2-degree global temperature rise. Should industrialised nations or developing countries be expected to raise their offers first?

Julian Morris: Neither rich nor poor countries should “raise their offers”. We do not yet know enough about climate processes to say what level of greenhouse gas concentrations would result in a global mean temperature rise of 2-degrees. Nor do we know whether 2 degrees warming would be “dangerous”.

For mild warming, adaptation is almost certainly the most cost-effective option. It is feasible that humanity could adapt at relatively low cost to a warming of 4 degrees (see e.g. the various reports at www.csccc.info). But for that to be possible, it is essential that existing barriers to adaptation be removed; especially restrictions on trade and weak property rights.

Worryingly, the introduction of restrictions on emissions of greenhouse gases, as well as further transfers to the governments of poor countries (including those done in the name of “adaptation”, or through REDD) would likely inhibit adaptation at the individual level.

(Courtesy of the TPA) From this morning till 18 December 15,000 delegates will descend on Copenhagen to work towards negotiating a treaty to succeed Kyoto and reduce emissions. However, even before the conference has begun, there have been questions over whether a new deal will be struck.  US President Barack Obama and Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen have conceded that the conference is unlikely to produce a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, and are beginning to make arrangements for a delay until the next conference, in Mexico.   British officials also do not expect a new deal, with binding restrictions, to be agreed this year.

In light of that and the large number of other international conferences that have been held this year, taxpayers around the world – who will be supporting the conference and the delegations being sent there – might question whether the conference will constitute good value for money.  This research note provides the first estimate of the total cost of the conference.

Key findings:

• A conservative estimate of the total cost of Copenhagen is £130 million ($215 million, €143 million).
• This estimate is based on the Danish government budget and the costs to participating governments of sending 15,000 delegates – including flights, accommodation, food, conferencing facilities and salaries paid to delegates while they are at the conference.  It is a conservative estimate as it leaves out costs such as the need for supporting work by staff in the home countries.

Download the full report: Taxpayers Alliance website (PDF).

Matthew Sinclair, Research Director at the TaxPayers Alliance, says:

The politicians and bureaucrats going to Copenhagen seem to think that its unlikely that theyll reach a deal and they know that even if they can get something signed, an increasingly sceptical public arent going to accept ever more expensive climate change policies. This means that a huge amount of money is going to be spent on the summit, and thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted to get there, just to give the delegates a good photo opportunity. Politicians need to stop this expensive jamboree and instead focus domestically on bringing down the ruinous cost to ordinary families of green taxes and regulations.