Australia welcomes the Copenhagen Accord and urges further action
Last December, thousands of representatives from governments, observer organisations, civil society and the media met in Copenhagen under the United Nations to agree a path forward on climate change.
The Copenhagen Accord, noted at that meeting, is an important step along that path.
Former Prime Minister Rudd played a key role in negotiating the Accord among a number of world leaders.
In his final statement to the conference, the former Prime Minister urged countries to overcome their differences and for leaders to do everything they could to achieve action to avoid dangerous climate change.
“Unless we all act together - because we are all in this together - there will be limited prospects of development because the planet itself will no longer sustain it,” he said.
The Accord, strongly supported by both developed and developing countries, is the first time under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) there has been agreement to hold any global temperature increase to below 2 degrees Celsius, and to specify, side by side, emissions reduction targets by developed countries and actions to reduce emissions by developing countries.
There was also agreement to a framework for national and international monitoring of what developed and developing countries will do.
The Accord is also the first time that there has been agreement on the finance necessary to support emissions reductions and adaptation in developing countries.
Pursuant to the Accord, developed countries will collectively provide new and additional resources approaching USD 30 billion over the next three years and committed to a goal of mobilising jointly USD 100 billion a year by 2020, from a range of funding sources.
The negotiations in Copenhagen helped to secure agreement on issues of fundamental importance to international cooperation on climate change.
The Accord includes a decision to establish a “Technology Mechanism” to drive innovation and diffusion of clean technology, and agreement on the need to immediately establish a mechanism for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD).
In Copenhagen, Australia joined with France, Japan, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States to announce USD 3.5 billion of fast-start financing for REDD.
Australia formally registered its support for the Accord in Copenhagen and encourages its fast and full implementation.
Australia has welcomed the UNFCCC secretariat’s invitation to all countries to formally associate themselves with the Accord and make their emission reduction targets and mitigation actions public.
Australia submitted information on its 2020 emissions reduction target range to the secretariat on 27 January 2010: 5 per cent unconditional, with up to 15 per cent and 25 per cent both conditional on the extent of action by others, as announced by the Prime Minister on 4 May 2009.
In the public announcement of Australia’s formal submission, the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong, said it was “consistent with our commitment to do no more and no less than the rest of the world”.
Senator Wong has made clear that while the Accord is a welcome step forward on climate change action, more needs to be done to take international cooperation further.
Australia supports continued negotiations in the UNFCCC to deliver further climate change actions, and looks to these negotiations to produce a legally-binding agreement.
The full text of the Copenhagen Accord is available on the UNFCCC website.