“Danish text” leak yet another example of biased behaviour by COP15 host

Corporate Europe Observatory is in Copenhagen covering the UN climate talks and watching corporate lobbyists at work.

Yesterday the Danish hosts of the UN climate talks (COP15) had a draft agreement on the Copenhagen negotiations leaked to the public which once again emphasised the privileged access and influence given to the rich and the powerful by the (officially neutral) hosts.

The leaked draft breaks with the principle of "common but differentiated responsibility" as laid down in the Kyoto protocol, where rich countries are required to live up to their historic responsibility as major emitters by taking legally binding targets upon themselves, while the poor countries, least responsible for and most affected by climate change, aren't compelled to act.

It also transfers responsibility for mitigation funds to the World Bank, historically a front organisation for the interests of the rich countries, thus weakening the UN's role on this issue.

The draft presents no surprises in so far as it only constitutes yet another example of the Danish host government acting like anything but the neutral broker envisioned. This time around undue influence was giving to the rich countries trying to avoid strong legally binding targets, but also big business has experienced a very attentive host nation. In May, Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) reported how “big business was being given unprecedented access to the UN climate negotiations” at the World Business Summit on Climate Change.

CEO researcher Kenneth Haar commented that "The Danish Government appears to be under the impression that some of the world's most polluting companies are going to put forward tough measures to tackle climate change. But unfortunately, this doesn't seem likely to be the case."

Instead of reducing the damaging influence from big corporations trying to undermine effective action on climate change, the Danish government decided to give them direct access to the chief negotiators by distributing the conclusions from the Business Summit.

A Danish official has dismissed the criticism of the Danish hosts “it's no secret that there have been ongoing bilateral discussions for some time now." Whether a question of big business or rich countries, there is no way it is morally defensible nor constructive to the negotiations that the host itself doesn't seek to be inclusive and neutral in it's dealings.