Secret Copenhagen recording reveals resistance from China and India

A leaked recording of behind-the-scenes negotiations between world leaders at the Copenhagen climate summit in December has revealed bad-tempered exchanges and clear frustrations from Europeans at what they saw as intransigence by the Chinese. The recording – published on the website of German magazine Der Spiegel – offers an extraordinary glimpse of the battle taking place between leaders including Barack Obama, Gordon Brown, Angela Merkel and Nikolas Sarkozy, and Chinese and Indian negotiators who were determined to resist a treaty that includes binding emissions reduction targets. The failure of the Copenhagen summit to agree such a deal has left international talks on climate change in limbo as scientists consistently warn that carbon emissions need to be constrained to prevent dangerous levels of global warming. The audio clips are taken from a high-level 90-minute meeting of 25 selected leaders and representatives on the afternoon of Friday 18 December last year, just hours before the two-week talks were due to close. Dubbed "the summit within the summit", the meeting featured leaders including German chancellor Angela Merkel, Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh and Gordon Brown, all perched on wooden chairs arranged in an impromptu circle inside a conference room in the bowels of Copenhagen's Bella Centre. Of the key players, only Wen Jiabao, Chinese prime minister, was missing – an absence that came to symbolise the divisions exposed by the summit's failure. Der Spiegel released an eight-minute edited segment of two much larger sound files – recorded "accidentally", the magazine said – which features an exasperated Sarkozy accusing the Chinese of "hypocrisy" over a failure to take on any commitments to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. The west, Sarkozy says, has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80%. "And in return, China, which will soon be the biggest economic power in the world, says to the world, commitments apply to you, but not to us." He adds: "This is utterly unacceptable ... This is about the essentials, and one has to react to this hypocrisy." The Chinese were represented at the meeting by He Yafei, a top diplomat, who appears to repeatedly attempt to stall progress. "Given the importance of the paper, we do not want to be rushed ... We need some more time." The paper referred to was the outline of a draft agreement, which contained key pledges, such as a target to reduce global emissions 50% by 2050. The target, which is drawn from scientific studies, became key source of disagreement, because it demands binding action from all major emitters, including China and India. Yafei insisted the target was removed. "We have said very clearly that we must not accept the 50 per cent reductions. We cannot accept it." At one point he rebuffs Sarkozy's outburst, saying: "I heard President Sarkozy talk about hypocrisy. I think I'm trying to avoid such words myself. I am trying to go into the arguments and debate about historical responsibility." In response to Sarkozy, Obama makes it clear that he is not prepared to stay beyond a few hours. "Nicolas, we are not staying until tomorrow. I'm just letting you know. Because all of us obviously have extraordinarily important other business to attend to." Developing countries argued at the summit that the vast majority of emissions were due to industrialisation in the developed world and that rich countries had not made significant commitments to reduce their carbon emissions. There was also dispute over attempts to introduce separate carbon targets for developed and developing countries, marked in the draft only as "x" and "y". "We cannot go over and say nice things but x and y wait please one year or so," Merkel said, which drew an angry response from an Indian delegate who accused her of "pre-judging options". Brown attempted to mediate. "I think it's important to recognise what we are trying to do here," the prime minister said. "We are trying to cut emissions by 2020 and 2050. That is the only way we can justify being here. It is the only way we can justify the public money that is being spent to do so. It is the only way we can justify the search for a treaty." Downing Street refused to confirm that the recording was genuine, adding, "We wouldn't comment on recordings of a private meeting." The environmentalist and author Mark Lynas, an adviser to the Maldives government at the Copenhagen summit, was in the room during crucial negotiations that took place between the leaders between around 8pm and 1am on the final day. He was not present at the meeting featured in the recording, which took place earlier, but said he believed the tape was genuine because the tone of the discussions was the same. "The general interaction between Chinese and Indians and the first world leaders [as heard on the tape] was certainly what I saw," he said. He added that the later meeting recapitulated many of the same arguments. "It really was the whole world against China, with India standing behind the Chinese at that point," he said. "Contrary to expectations, [Gordon] Brown held his temper very well ... I think Brown did everything he could to retain some level of environmental integrity in the agreement." Lynas said he did not believe that Sarkozy's undiplomatic outburst was significant in hardening the Chinese position. "It was nothing to do with the way they were being treated. Petty personal insults aren't really the point. But they can be used to gain an advantage. If you can feign great offence you can push your point all the harder. The frustration was certainly genuine on the part of Sarkozy." Lynas said he had "no idea" who had recorded the meeting or leaked it to Der Spiegel, but said that amid the chaos of the final negotiations, with aides going in and out of the room and whispered phone calls happening on the side-lines, it would have been easy to make a recording without being noticed. "You could put your headphones next to your mobile phone and hit record and you'd get the whole thing," he said. "In that degree of chaos pretty much anything could happen."