在金融援助方面，簽署協議的已開發國家則承諾，應在2010-2012年三年內前湊足300億美元的緊急援助資金，提供給開發中國家對抗氣候變遷，資金規模到2020年時每年必須達到1000億美元，並將成立哥本哈根綠色氣候基金(Copenhagen Green Climate Fund)來管理。協議裏也提到，到2015年時必須依更新的科學數據重新檢視協議，包括將控溫目標降至1.5度等，也算回應了小島國家的要求。
Fifty-five countries have submitted pledges for curbing greenhouse gas emissions to the UN climate convention.
Governments were asked to do so before 31 January by the "Copenhagen Accord", the document produced at December's UN climate summit in the Danish capital.
In some cases the pledges are weaker than those made before the summit.
The UN's top climate official, Yvo de Boer, said the pledges would invigorate the UN process, but several environment groups say they do not go far enough.
Submissions have come from major developed and developing countries, and collectively account for about three-quarters of the world's emissions from energy use.
But few of the smaller, more vulnerable nations have sent in their figures.
It is the start of the Copenhagen 'greenwash'
Bernhard Obermayr, Greenpeace
"The commitment to confront climate change at the highest level is beyond doubt," said Mr de Boer, executive secretary of the UN climate convention (UNFCCC).
"Greater ambition is required to meet the scale of the challenge. But I see these pledges as clear signals of willingness to move negotiations towards a successful conclusion."
Basic instincts
Earlier, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown had urged governments to send their pledges to the UNFCCC by the 31 January deadline.
"If those countries which agreed the accord in Copenhagen inscribe into it the commitments they made in the run-up to the conference - and I believe it is very much in the global interest that they should do so - the international community will have taken the first steps towards a historic transformation in the trajectory of global emissions," he wrote in an open letter.
CLIMATE CHANGE GLOSSARY
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Carbon intensity - A unit of measure. The amount of carbon emitted by a country per unit of Gross Domestic Product.
The 55 countries sending in pledges include EU member states, US and Japan, as well as the four Basic bloc countries (Brazil, China, India and South Africa) that were the principal architects of the Copenhagen Accord.
Most of them re-iterate pledges made before December's summit; but some are weaker.
The US previously pledged a cut of 17% from 2005 levels by 2020 (equivalent to 3% from the conventional baseline of 1990).
But its current submission promises a cut "in the range of 17%, in conformity with anticipated US energy and climate legislation, recognising that the final target will be reported to the Secretariat in light of enacted legislation".
Canada will also amend its target of 17% to make it align "with the final economy-wide emissions target of the US in enacted legislation".
Australia, the EU and Norway are all currently going for the weak end of the ranges they had previously proposed - 20% rather than 30% in the EU's case - while New Zealand promises no cuts at all in the absence of a comprehensive global deal.
Among developing countries, China re-affirms that its 2020 target is a cut of 40-45% in carbon intensity and that this is to be regarded as voluntary, while India has retreated from a firm pledge to improve its energy intensity to a position where it promises to "endeavour reduce its emissions intensity" by 2020.
'Greenwash' concerns
Although some US-based environment groups applauded the fact that the Obama administration had sent its figures in, many other campaigners were dismissive of the exercise and the numbers.
"Supporters of the accord have failed to make emissions pledges which are strong enough to avert dangerous climate change," said Bernhard Obermayr of Greenpeace.
"It is the start of the Copenhagen 'greenwash'. The accord is no substitute for the fair, ambitious and legally binding treaty demanded by millions of people who are concerned about climate change or are being affected by its impacts."
Only three members of the Association of Small Island States (Aosis) - the Maldives, the Marshall Islands and Singapore - have submitted pledges to the UNFCCC.
Meanwhile, a report from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) raises questions over the accord's financial targets of raising $10bn per year for the developing world over the next three years, rising to $100bn per year by 2020.
"It is far from clear where the funding will come from, if it is genuinely new and additional, and how it will be allocated and channelled," said Saleemul Huq, the IIED's senior climate change fellow and one of the report's authors.
WASHINGTON — The climate change accord reached at Copenhagen in December passed its first test on Monday after countries responsible for the bulk of climate-altering pollution formally submitted their emission reduction plans, meeting the agreement’s Jan. 31 deadline.
Busy factories and traffic are part of life in Ahmadabad, India. On Monday, India was one of the countries that submitted pledges to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Most major nations — including the United States, the 27 nations of the European Union, China, India, Japan and Brazil — restated earlier pledges to curb emissions by 2020, some by promising absolute cuts, others by reducing the rate of increase from a business-as-usual curve.
In all, 55 developed and developing countries submitted emission reduction plans to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the body overseeing global negotiations. Two major nations — Mexico and Russia — had not submitted plans as of Monday evening.
United Nations officials said that the countries that have already filed plans account for 78 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally.
The so-called Copenhagen Accord was pasted together in the final hours of the United Nations-sponsored climate summit meeting that ended Dec. 19. The skeletal agreement was not formally adopted by the conference, is not binding on the parties and sets no deadline for reaching a formal international climate change treaty.
Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations’ climate change office, said that the submissions showed that the commitment to confront climate change on the part of the world’s nations was “beyond doubt,” but he urged countries to do more.
“Greater ambition is required to meet the scale of the challenge,” he said.
Analysts said that even if all nations met their promises, the world would still be on a path to exceed the Copenhagen agreement’s central goal of limiting global warming to less than 3.6 degrees above the pre-industrial era.
“The pledges put on the table to date do not put us on track to meet that goal and will make it very difficult for us politically and technically beyond 2020 to meet that target,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Other aspects of the accord remain unresolved, including the question of financial aid for developing nations to adapt to climate changes and develop sustainable growth plans. The wealthy nations pledged nearly $30 billion in short-term support, but there is no mechanism in place to collect or distribute the money. Longer-term aid pledges remain just a concept.
Nonetheless, it was the first time that major developing nations, whose emissions are growing more quickly than the rest of the world’s, put on paper their plans for slowing production of carbon dioxide and other gases that contribute to a warming planet.
China said it would reduce its carbon intensity — the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of economic activity — by 40 to 45 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels.
India said its carbon intensity would fall by 20 to 25 percent over the same period.
South Korea set an intensity target of 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.
Raekwon Chung, the South Korean ambassador for climate change, said that his nation’s target was set into law in December and that the government was preparing plans to carry it out.
He said South Korea planned to invest 2 percent of its gross domestic product, about $86 billion a year, in green growth programs, including low-carbon energy production, new transportation systems and higher-efficiency building codes.
The major industrialized powers also repeated earlier pledges. The European Union said its 27 members would cut emissions by 20 to 30 percent over 1990 levels by 2020. Japan’s target is 25 percent over the same period.
The United States, in a submission last Thursday, repeated President Obama’s promise to cut emissions “in the range of” 17 percent by 2020 compared with 2005 levels — but only if Congress enacts legislation that meets that goal, a far-from-certain prospect.
Jennifer Morgan, director of the World Resources Institute’s climate and energy program, urged Congress to act quickly on climate change legislation, or risk seeing the United States fall further behind in the competition to develop new low-carbon sources of energy.
“The pledges made by countries like Japan, China, Europe and India show a commitment to collective, transparent action on a scale never seen before,” she said in a statement. “The United States should have no doubt that these countries plan to build their economies with clean energy.”
OSLO (Reuters) - Fifty-five countries accounting for almost 80 percent of world greenhouse gas emissions have pledged varying goals for fighting climate change under a deadline in the "Copenhagen Accord," the United Nations said on Monday.
"This represents an important invigoration of the U.N. climate change talks," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said of the national targets for curbs on emissions until 2020 submitted by January 31.
The countries, including top emitters led by China and the United States, mostly reiterated commitments unveiled before December's U.N. summit in Denmark, which disappointed many by failing to agree a tough, legally binding U.N. treaty.
De Boer said pledges covered 55 of 194 member nations and amounted to 78 percent of emissions from energy use. The U.N. says the deadline is flexible and others can submit plans later.
"Greater ambition is required to meet the scale of the challenge," he said. "But I see these pledges as clear signals of willingness to move negotiations toward a successful conclusion."
Mexico will host the next annual U.N. meeting from November 29-December 10 as part of world efforts to avert more droughts, wildfires, floods, species extinctions and rising sea levels.
The Copenhagen Accord seeks to limit a rise in temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels and sets a goal of $100 billion a year in aid for developing nations from 2020 to help confront climate change.
FILLING THE BLANKS
It left blanks for countries to fill in climate targets for achieving the 2 C goal by January 31. Analysts say that the current targets will mean temperatures rise by more than 2 Celsius.
The 2020 goals include a European Union goal of a 20 percent cut from 1990 levels, or 30 percent if other nations step up actions. President Barack Obama plans a 17 percent cut in U.S. emissions from 2005 levels, or 4 percent cut from 1990 levels.
But U.S. legislation is bogged down in the U.S. Senate.
China said it will "endeavor" to cut the amount of carbon produced per unit of economic output by 40 to 45 percent by 2020 from 2005. The "carbon intensity" goal would let emissions keep rising, but more slowly than economic growth.
"Following a month of uncertainty, it is now clear that the Copenhagen Accord will support the world in moving forward to meaningful global action on climate change," said Jennifer Morgan of the World Resources Institute.
"However, although important in showing the intent to move to a low-carbon economy, the commitments are far below what is needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change," she said.
And de Boer's statement did not even mention the Copenhagen Accord -- the main outcome of the low-ambition summit.
Originally worked out by the United States, China, India, Brazil and South Africa on December 18, the accord was not adopted as a formal U.N. pact after opposition from a handful of developing nations including Sudan, Venezuela and Cuba.
Monday's statement only outlined 2020 pledges and did not say how many countries backed the deal -- the Copenhagen Accord is due to include a list of those who want to be "associated" with it. Submissions from some big developing countries such as China and India do not spell out if they want to be "associated."
Indian officials said they want the 1992 U.N. Climate Change Convention to remain the blueprint for global action, not the Copenhagen Accord.
South Korea's climate change ambassador Raekwon Chung said that U.S. legislation was now vital.
"Every other country in the world is watching the U.S. ... If (U.S. climate change legislation) does not happen this year, what will be the impact on the negotiations? I think the impact would be quite serious," he said.
(With extra reporting by Krittivas Mukherjee in New Delhi, Chris Buckley in Beijing, Deborah Zabarenko in Washington)
For Reuters latest environment blogs, click on: http:/blogs.reuters.com/environment/
大國政治產物 部份國家反對 《哥本哈根協定》是去年哥本哈根氣候會議(COP15)最後一天時，由美國、中國、巴西、印度及南非等五國所共同提出；但當時由於拉丁美洲幾個左派執政國家的反對，所以並未列為氣候大會的共識，僅以會議「附註」的方式放在大會結論裏。由於該協定是經由密室政治所產生，也沒有明訂全球的減碳目標，因此像古巴在一月初就已表明絕不會簽署，而玻利維亞則表示會在今年四月時舉辦「世界人民氣候變遷大會(World Conference of the People on Climate Change)」，從社會主義的立場來尋求對抗暖化的共識。
另一個展現小國力量的則是墨西哥，於COP15中，宣示自2012年起，憑該國之力自行削減5千萬噸的排放量，更預計將原設定2020年相較於BAU削減21％的目標，提昇至30％。更重要的是領銜提出全球氣候基金的規劃，並獲得英國、澳洲、挪威等國的支持，並納入最終協定之中。總統卡德隆，亦獲得全球立法者組織（The Global Legislators Organization, GLOBE） 頒發的國際環境領導者獎（Award for International Leadership of the Environment）。
被台灣視為競爭對手的韓國，除提出2020年時相較基準情境減量減量30％的目標，符合各界對先進發展中國家的期待以外，總統李明博於高階首長級會議中，繼續強調該國以綠色成長（Green Growth）為目標，除說明已花費GDP的2％於環境面向上的綠色經濟發展策略，以及將綠色成長作為明年G20峰會的主題，更宣示將於韓國成立全球綠色成長機構（Global Green Growth Institute, GGGI），作為全球推動綠色成長的智庫單位。
It is the start of the Copenhagen 'greenwash' 
