World Leaders Reach Climate Deal in Copenhagen

On December 18, world leaders at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen announced that they had reached a “meaningful agreement” to that would lead to a global treaty to address climate change. President Obama, along with the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa, agreed to an accord that codifies the commitments of individual nations to act on their own to tackle global warming. “For the first time in history,” Obama said, “all major economies have come together to accept their responsibility to take action to confront the threat of climate change.”

The agreement includes a system for monitoring and verifying each nations' greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and also sets a goal for limiting global temperature rise to no more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels by 2050. Additionally, developed countries pledged to provide a fund "approaching" $30 billion over the next three years to help developing nations deal with the impacts of climate change, with a goal to "commit to a goal of mobilizing" $100 billion annually by 2020. Following the conference, Obama acknowledged that the agreement was only the first step in a longer process to address global warming. “This progress did not come easily,” he said, “and we know that this progress alone is not enough.”

The summit did not produce a legally binding agreement among nations to reduce GHG emissions; instead, the agreement gives countries until January 31, 2010 to voluntarily list, in an annex to the accord, voluntary pledges to curb their emissions. Many UN leaders indicated that there is a goal to take what was agreed to at Copenhagen and turn it into a legally binding agreement when they meet again in Mexico City in November 2010. UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer called the accord “politically important,” and said it demonstrated a willingness to move forward.

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