'Arrogance' undermined Copenhagen
Richard Black for BBC News
| 17 Mar 2010
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The "disappointing" outcome of December's climate summit was largely down to "arrogance" on the part of rich countries, according to Lord Stern.
The economist told BBC News that the US and EU nations had not understood well enough the concerns of poorer nations.
But, he said, the summit had led to a number of countries outlining what they were prepared to do to curb emissions.
Seventy-three countries have now signed up to the non-binding Copenhagen Accord, the summit's outcome document.
The weak nature of the document led many to condemn the summit as a failure; but Lord Stern said that view was mistaken.
"The fact of Copenhagen and the setting of the deadline two years previously at Bali did concentrate minds, and it did lead... to quite specific plans from countries that hadn't set them out before," he said.
"So this process has itself been a key part of countries stating what their intentions on emissions reductions are - countries that had not stated them before, including China and the US.
"So that was a product of the UNFCCC (UN climate convention) process that we should respect."
The former World Bank chief economist and author of the influential 2006 review into the economics of climate change was speaking to BBC News following a lecture at the London School of Economics (LSE), where he now chairs the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
During the lecture, he compared the atmosphere at the Copenhagen summit to student politics in the 1960s - "chaotic, wearing, tiring, disappointing" - and said it was one in which countries had little room for real negotiating.
However, he said, it was vital to stick with the UN process, whatever its frustrations.
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