Inside the Copenhagen negotiations: The furor over the “Danish text”

Yesterday, there was great sound and fury surrounding the publication of a proposal for an overall Copenhagen agreement that the Danish government was prepared to table if the negotiations don’t go anywhere and have to be rescued. Even though it was well known behind the scenes that the Danes were working on such a text, the paper was only discussed in very exclusive negotiator circles and regarded top secret until today.

But over the weekend copies of the document were beginning to leak, and a Guardian journalist apparently got his hands onto one of them.

While the Danes had probably hoped to make the secret document public when they feel the right time has come, the Guardian article went live on the paper’s website in the late hours of the afternoon, along with an uploaded copy of the leaked text now easily accessible for everyone. Under the headline “Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after Danish text leak”, the article claimed that developing countries reacted furiously to this leaked draft agreement as it would hand more power to rich nations. The accompanying photo from the Copenhagen plenary showed a tired delegate from Haiti in a pose of despair.

Soon after the story went live, chaos broke out at the Chinese delegation’s office, right around the corner from the WWF office.

Hordes of journalists quickly gathered in and around the cubicle where Chinese lead negotiator Su Wei gave a press conference. The Chinese also have a secret and so far unpublished text that they have been working on with Brazil, India and South Africa. Everyone expected China to now launch this paper and condemn the Rasmussen text. But Su Wei refused to comment on the leaked proposal, and soon after that the Danish government issued a press release saying there is no Danish text, followed by UN Climate Chief Yvo de Boer saying that the only formal negotiation texts are those tabled by the UNFCCC chairs.

If you’re confused, that’s because it’s not clear what is really going on. WWF’s understanding is that the Danish text had provoked a lot of negative reactions, primarily from developing countries. This happened already last week, and that’s when the big fights were happening behind closed doors so it’s not really correct to say that the text is causing disarray in the negotiations now, as suggested by the Guardian.

The most constructive approach would be to focus on the UN draft texts that negotiators have been working on for two years and which are ultimately meant to become the new global deal. The WWF campaign team had used the time since the rumors started rushing around the Bella Center corridors to draft a reaction along those lines. In our view, the behind-the-scenes negotiations tactics of the Danish Presidency focused too much on the rich and powerful countries rather than engaging the majority of states who are demanding a fair and ambitious solution. The Danish text is weak and reflects a too elitist, selective and non-transparent approach by the Danish presidency, and the frustration of the poor and vulnerable countries is very understandable.

We expect the Danish presidency to learn this lesson and change its style to a cooperative and listening mode. Actually, this was the first sentence of the newly elected COP President and Danish minister Connie Hedegaard in her opening statement on Monday: I will listen, and I will be transparent.

And the reports coming in from the various WWF experts following the negotiations on Tuesday were indeed encouraging: most working groups started off in a positive atmosphere, and reports about countries blocking or procedural standstill were rather rare. So WWF is calling on governments to focus on improving these texts, instead of being distracted by weak alternatives.

Keith Stewart
Director, Climate Change Program