The Copenhagen climate conference (COP15) ended without a legally binding agreement, which is vastly disappointing both for environmental campaigners, and for the politicians who attended. But, it's still worth reflecting that simply getting that many world leaders in a room talking about a single issue is an immense achievement and a great step forward.

That said, the failure to deliver a legally binding treaty means we must all apply even more pressure on our individual nations to convince them get on with actions that will help avoid devastating climate heating.

You can help by writing to your MHK and to other Tynwald members.

On this page:
* Draft letter to Tynwald members
* Articles reflecting the disappointing outcome of the Copenhagen Conference

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Write to your MHK?

Please cut & paste the letter below into an e-mail and send it to your MHK. Feel free to add other thoughts too. To find out who your MHK is - Click here

Dear [insert name of Tynwald member],

The recent snow doesn't change the fact that the climate's heating dramatically, and that we need to act now to cut CO2 emissions.

Following the disappointing outcome of the Copenhagen Summit it's more important than ever that individual nations do all they can to address climate change and reduce CO2 emissions.

Isle of Man Government is close to achieving its 2006 promise to reduce CO2 by 20% across government buildings. This should be applauded. However, this success should not be seen as a reason to delay continuing action.

In December Tynwald considered a further 10% CO2 reduction in 2010, but a decision on the issue was postponed until March. I urge you to support a pledge to further reduce CO2 emissions in Government whenever the opportunity arises.

While Government action is important there's also a need for the general public to reduce their impact on climate change.

* I strongly urge Tynwald to open an active dialogue with people and organisations across the Island about the most effective ways Government can help them reduce their impact on climate change.
* I understand that in the current financial climate help to reduce home energy consumption may be difficult to fund. However, new incentives in the tax system could generate revenue from those who pollute the most. These incentives would have the double effect of reducing CO2 and raising revenue.

I would also urge Tynwald to address electricity production on the Isle of Man.

* Electricity use is the key generator of household CO2 emissions. By bringing national renewable energy capacity on-line (e.g. wind, tide and solar power) we could substantially cut our impact on climate change at a stroke.
* In 2006 Tynwald asked the MEA to develop renewable energy. Following a Friends of the Earth campaign last spring the MEA promised to act on Tynwald's policy. However, there still appears to be little actual progress towards installing renewable generation facilities. Please use your voice in Tynwald to apply pressure on the MEA to invest in renewable electricity now.
* I would also ask you to encourage the MEA to develop realistic feed-in tariffs for home generators. Currently home generation is discouraged by financial arrangements which benefit the MEA but don't recognise the investment home generators have to make themselves. Home generation is beneficial to the Isle of Man because it helps reduce demand on the national grid and reduces CO2 emissions.
* I'd also like to see changes in the planning system which will make it easier for wind turbines and other renewable energy systems to be installed quickly on the Isle of Man. Similar changes are already taking place elsewhere.

Action on climate change should be seen as an opportunity for Government as well as a threat.

Our size means we can act quickly, and that our actions will have a greater impact on our national emissions. By reducing our reliance on fossil fuels we can develop greater energy security and present ourselves as an example of best practice to other nations. Through our tax system we can create incentives that will attract and promote environmental business and encourage individuals and businesses to reduce CO2. Through clever strategic thinking we can position ourselves as a test-bed for new low-carbon technologies and practices across Government's portfolio, from Agriculture to Tourism; from Treasury to Transport.

I strongly urge you to make 2010 the year when the Isle of Man showed that even without a binding global treaty we were prepared to join other nations and states in doing whatever's necessary to limit the most damaging effects of climate change.

Yours sincerely,

[Your name]

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Articles on Copenhagen

The main article below is one of the more balanced reflections on the conference. You might also like to read:
* Key players: how they rated - Click here
* Copenhagen treaty 'held to ransom', says Gordon Brown - Click here
* Ed Miliband: China tried to hijack Copenhagen climate deal - Click here

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The outcome at Copenhagen was disappointing. But if we work hard, there is still a way forward

The world needed a climate treaty from the Copenhagen summit last week. All it got was an accord.

There was no hiding the disappointment. The deal that emerged after more than a year of pre-summit negotiations and two weeks of face-to-face talks was merely, in Gordon Brown's terms, "a first step". According to Barack Obama, it was "meaningful".

Given the scientific case for urgent action to mitigate the impact of manmade climate change, it was reasonable to expect something more substantial. But compromise is not the same as failure. Disappointment should not lead to despair.

So what is the significance of the accord?

It underlines consensus among world leaders that global average temperatures must not be allowed to rise beyond 2C. It affirms that, to achieve such a target, there must be substantial cuts in carbon emissions and that the mechanism for achieving such cuts should not hamper economic progress in the developing world.

In more specific terms, the deal includes the first formal financial commitment by richer nations to help poorer ones adapt to the threat of climate change. It establishes a fund with an initial annual outlay of $30bn, rising to $100bn by 2020. The accord also commits signatories to adopt, within six weeks, binding emissions targets, also for 2020.

But much of the text reads like the preamble to the treaty that was supposed to be agreed in Copenhagen, but wasn't. There is no headline global target for emissions cuts. National targets must be taken on trust. There are no incentives for countries to pollute less and no sanctions on those that pollute more. Many commitments are to be enacted "as soon as possible" – not a phrase with much authority in international law.

These gaps indicate more a failure of process than ambition.

The summit itself was chaotic. United Nations rules requiring consensus among 192 nations created the double hazards of an outcome at the lowest common denominator and of smaller groups breaking away into mini-summits on the sidelines. In the end, both dangers were realised. The core of the deal, much diluted from earlier proposals, was hammered out in a meeting between the US, China, India, Brazil and South Africa.

A fundamental obstacle throughout negotiations lay in the question of how much the western world, which has polluted its way to prosperity, should consider itself in "carbon debt" to countries that have yet to realise their industrial potential.

Rich nations acknowledged that debt in theory, but wanted assurance that big polluters in the developing world would ultimately share the carbon-cutting burden.

That stance was denounced by poorer countries as an attempt by the west to wriggle out of obligations, with the added inference that the habits of imperialism were to blame.

That is an emotive argument, but not always a helpful or an accurate one. The status of a "developing nation" does not accommodate the enormous and growing power of China and India. They represent a new kind of strategic entity – bearing the economic and military might of superpowers, but with huge populations living in pre-modern conditions of poverty.

To imagine the US president negotiating with these countries as if he were a benefactor discussing how fast wealth should be transferred from west to east is just not realistic.

Barack Obama has taken undue blame for the lack of progress at Copenhagen. He has even been accused of perpetuating the obstructive legacy of his predecessor, who scarcely acknowledged the existence of climate change.

That is unfair. Given the starting point of no American public consensus on the need for action and no past participation in UN climate deals, the US has raised its offer of carbon cuts and financial contribution faster than most other parties to the negotiations. Meanwhile, President Obama's domestic political capital, and so his ability to steer a climate deal through Congress, is already eroded by healthcare reform, fiscal stimulus and Afghanistan.

The European Union has also become a target of blame for the summit's lacklustre finale. The charge is that the EU leads the rich world in terms of commitment to cut emissions and to make a financial contribution to help others and yet it failed to use that moral authority to up the ante in negotiations. As the most effective multilateral body that so far exists for dealing with climate issues, the EU should indeed have stamped its mark more vigorously on the final accord.

But the Europeans, and the UK delegation in particular, appear to have played a vital role in persuading the rest of the world not to dismiss the US-brokered deal.

That is unlikely to satisfy the critics. There is an argument, deployed by many activists and some scientists, that abject failure at Copenhagen would actually have been preferable. If the talks had collapsed completely, goes this view, the leaders would be shamed. Loss of face might then provoke a reappraisal of the entire process. Something more meaningful might rise like a phoenix from the ashes.

Copenhagen has not been a glorious advertisement for UN-sponsored climate summitry. There is a great danger that low expectations will be baked into this process and that these giant jamborees will start to resemble trade negotiations, notorious in diplomatic circles for getting bogged down in legalistic haggling and stubborn brinkmanship. The planet cannot afford to deal with carbon cuts in that way.

But to reject the whole process as unfit is to cross the line from idealism into despair. Of course the accord is a disappointment for those who hoped to see the dawn of a new global climate order. It sets the right parameters, but they should have been in place at the start of the summit, not hastily approved in its eleventh hour.

Precious time has been lost, but not hope. This is the only process we have to agree global carbon reduction. This is the dialogue that has been opened, in a spirit of goodwill worth admiring, between nations with vastly different strategic objectives.

This inelegant compromise is what multilateral progress on climate change looks like. We cannot dismiss it in the vain hope that something more beautiful will appear in its place. But nor should we pause to applaud its authors. Instead, we must send them straight back to work.

Editorial reproduced from The Observer, Sunday 20th December 2009

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Still having trouble accepting the existence of climate change? Why not read the information on the Met Office website. This is written in plain English by people who know what they're talking about - not by journalists and newspaper editors!

* For the Met Office climate change pages - Click here
* For the Met Office leaflet, Climate Change: the facts - Click here