| Copenhagen and Beyond |
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The `Accord' that emerged out of the Copenhagen Conference is a slim document - it in only two and half pages long. What is more significant is that it did not come out of the two weeks of multilateral negotiation process of the Conference of Parties to the UNFCC (COP 15 as the Copenhagen Conference is known) but from a backroom parley between the US and the BASIC bloc of countries.
Though the chairman of the COP tried to push it through the conference, the majority of the delegates refused to be cowed down. Decisions at the COP are made by consensus, and objections from several developing countries first to the undemocratic process and second to the content of the Accord, meant that the COP only "took note" of the document, and did not "adopt" it. In UN terms, taking note of a document gives it a low status. It means that the meeting did not approve or pass it, and did not view it either positively or negatively.
This is a sad reflection of the Copenhagen conference and the 17 years of negotiations since the Rio Summit in 1992 that this fraudulent document is being held up as its main achievement - an agreement that was not acceptable to the majority of the UNFCCC's membership.