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President Obama’s proposed “Copenhagen Accord” aims to shift from developed

to developing countries the balance of “common but differentiated responsibilities” that have been bedrock principles of equity in the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), reaffirmed in the 2007 Bali Action Plan’s carefully constructed negotiating mandate for the

Copenhagen conference.

If agreed, it would—in addition to enshrining scientifically unsound

emission reductions and promising entirely inadequate finance for poor

countries—establish new obligations on developing countries. The result

could be the removal of the linchpin on a raft of new responsibilities on

developing countries’ policies at a time when the US itself has yet to enact

any of its own obligations assumed almost two decades ago.

One indication of the new obligations to be imposed on developing countries

is the mere amount of text: almost three times more detailing specific

obligations for developing than developed countries.

Essential to what would be new for Non-Annex I Parties to the Convention are that “Mitigation actions taken by Non-Annex I parties will be subject to

their domestic measurement, reporting, and verification the result of which

will be reported through the national communications every two years…with

provisions for international consultations and analyses” (President Obama underscored this last phrase four times in his brief remarks).

The WTO counterpart to this proposed UNFCCC process would of course be the

Trade Policy Review Mechanism, which is sort of a policy police for each

countries’ trade measures and practices. International reviews with

determine if countries policies are in compliance with world trade rules.

While the current proposed Copenhagen Accord does not go that far it may

extend to similar disciplines eventually. Earlier drafts said that, “A consultative process, the Periodic Forum, is hereby established which will

compromise all parties convening regularly to consider the climate policy

and practices of parties. The consultative process shall be based on the

report of the national authority which will include its national inventory.”

Obama’s UNFCCC move must be seen in the context of the same power dynamics

in play at the World Trade Organization, where developed countries promised to reduce export subsidies and increase market access upon WTO’s

establishment of a legally binding deal in 1994. But 15 years after developing countries opened up their farming sectors to subsidized imports from developed countries (that undercut small farmers in developing countries and threaten food security), the United States still has not implemented its commitments, even after losing to developing countries several WTO legal challenges. Now, as a precondition for concluding the current Doha round of world trade talks, developed countries are demanding that developing countries “pay twice” by opening their markets even more in exchange for implementing what was already agreed before.

Resolving the global climate crisis means the world must move from a

competitive to a cooperative style of international relations, where

President Obama lives up to his prize-winning multilateralism and United

States pro-actively builds trust with developing countries.