The Copenhagen Accord: Implications for Australia

By Maddocks Sustainability and Climate Change Team

In December 2009, the United Nations Climate Change Conference held its 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) in Copenhagen, Denmark. The primary aim of COP15 was to establish a new agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which is due to expire in 2012.

While COP15 has been widely labelled as a failure because it did not yield an international post-Kyoto agreement, it did produce the 'Copenhagen Accord', which is viewed – at least by some - as an interim step towards a binding international agreement. We outline some of the main elements of the Accord in this article.

Status

The Accord is a political agreement, rather than a binding legal instrument. While it was supported by most COP15 parties, there were a number of detractors. This lack of consensus meant that the Accord could not by formally adopted.