Heute hat UN-Klimachef Yvo de Boer erstmals öffentlich eingestanden, dass es in Kopenhagen mit ziemlicher Sicherheit nicht zu einem rechtlich verbindlichen, internationalen Klimavertrag kommen wird. Das Scheitern der auf Kopenhagen fixierten Klimaverhandlungen hatte ich bereits vor mehr als einem halben Jahr kommen sehen: Efforts to reach a global deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol are supposed to culminate in a United Nations conference in Copenhagen next December – one that Stern has described as the “most important meeting since the Second World War in shaping the planet’s future”. Peiser is sceptical that a global deal containing mandatory emission reduction targets can be struck even if President Barack Obama gives new impetus to emission reductions in the US. “He will be the green president and you will see a lot of changes in the rhetoric,” he says. “Do I believe there will be a global agreement? No. This is where the runaway train crashes into the buffers.” The problem, he says, is that the price of a deal is too high for all sides. The developed world insists that developing countries such as China and India must commit to emission reductions. “Can they afford to cut emissions? No, there is no way. Their economies are booming, the energy demand is increasing at astronomical levels, they’re scouring the planet to find resources. Can they cut CO2 emissions? No. Impossible.” Meanwhile, China says that if developing nations are to cut emissions than the developed nations must devote a massive 1% of their GDP to help them do so.

“It’s a blame game now,” says Peiser, and he sees the G8 declaration as part of that. “No one will say this has collapsed. They’ll say, ‘OK, well, we’ll meet again in a year – there will always be another conference.’”