Entries For: December 2007

On Day two of the Bali Conference, countries were divided over whether to discuss a provision on binding targets to curb carbon emissions.  Apparently, there is no explicit agreement to include targets in the Bali Roadmap or to leave this discussion for the next round of negotiations in Poland in 2008 and Denmark in 2009. The so-called Bali Roadmap is expected to create the next phase of commitment after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 20I2.

I’m guessing a thought balloon popped up in your head just after reading this intro. And it says: But what’s needed are targets! In fact, what’s needed are hard caps on emissions!  Millions of poor people are suffering right now from the negative impacts of climate change, hello? Action is needed now, not in 2008 or 2009!”

My thoughts exactly.  Talk about being of one mind.  

Then again being of one mind seems a remote possibility in the Bali talks. It seems that the most important thing here, the issue on which the talks hinge is whether a compromise with the United States will be achieved. The consensus from reading the media reports on the second day of the talks is this: failure to reach a compromise will weaken the Bali Roadmap. Right. But isn’t failure to curb emissions quickly going to destroy millions of lives, lands and livelihood?

Incidentally, the US and UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer seem to be of one mind. They both uttered the same analogy about the Bali talks as being some kind of a first date in which the parties are not expected to make a commitment. De Boer has made a statement to the effect that a marriage contract is a culmination of a love affair, not the topic of discussion on the first date. Then comes the US with “We will be very open and flexible, but we don’t want to start off with anything here in the beginning of the process that is going to pre judge what ultimately may be concluded by 2009. So to the extent that this is analogous to a first date, we don’t want to sign the marriage contract yet.”

Thought balloon pops back up with “I hate commitment phobes!” Ok, so maybe that wasn’t what your thought balloon says.

So to the extent that the US calls the Bali talks a first date, we can conclude that this is not going to work. First dates don’t work, it’s the law of physics. Thing is, for me, when you are running out of time, you don’t go on first dates. You plan and make a decision to commit to someone who will make you happy or contented or at least someone you can tolerate – or you make a decision not to make a commitment at all. Imagine you only have one year to live, would you go on successive first dates hoping something will work out with someone along the way?         

Anyway, talking about commitment, legally-binding targets indeed have to discussed in Bali. It is urgent to make an action now and not next year on reducing emissions drastically.  There is no debate that voluntary commitment does not work. The European Union has taken this position and it has announced that it should take the lead on setting legally-binding targets that should be discussed in Bali. Moreover, it announced that it is moving closer to achieving its collective emissions reduction target in 2010 to 7.4% below the 1990 level, which is just short of the 8% reduction target for 2012.#

lani villanueva

It's day 4 of the conference and I, for one, am exhausted. I know how delegates from some of the poorer nations must feel. I remember several years ago when I first became an activist, a round of WTO negotiations was taking place and I was told of the difficulties for poorer nations to even follow negotiations at these big conferences. I don't think I really appreciated then what this meant, but being here in Bali it is obvious that rich nations can flood the various meetings with experts whilst poorer nations must surely be expected to bring magicians who can be in seven places at once.

The main conference centre is a hive of activity with highly technical discussions going on in several fora including the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol, the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technical Advice (SBSTA), the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and others. That is not to mention the countless bilateral discussions, meeting of political groupings such as the G77 and the EU, the packed schedule of side events and official briefings, the press conferences...the list goes on.

To cover all of these meetings, the Australian government has, according to the official participants list, 110 delegates attending the conference. That, surely, is more than enough to provide genuine experts to all of these complex areas and ensure Australian interests are met in the negotiations. Australia is facing severe consequences from climate change as a major drought has plagued the country for at least the last 6 years. Indeed, the new government swept to power partly on the back of it's commitment to ratifying the Kyoto protocol, an act it carried out on the first day of the conference.

The Seychelles is at far greater risk. Recent reports on the island show that extreme weather events are becoming more common and that global warming has led to intense bleaching of the beautiful coral reefs that exist of its shores. The Seychelles has 3 people registered for the conference. With no offence intended to those delegates, it is clear that the two representatives of the Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources and Transport along with one Ambassadors, can not be expected to follow such complicated negotiations.

Talk about an unfair playing field.

I think this is a crucial role for NGOs at conferences such as this. GCAP, as well as Oxfam and other agencies, are working hard to ensure that the poorest people and nations are not forgotten during these meetings. That the impact on humanity is not subsumed by technical jargon.

I was privileged to join a panel at a meeting in the fabulous civil society compound near to the main conference centre yesterday. The compound, unlike its ultra-modern conference centre counterpart, is built as a temporary Indonesian village boasting raised wooden huts with thatched roofs, open sides, no central heating, and masses of passion from the mainly Indonesian participants. There were at least 80 people sat cross-legged on reed mats at the meeting I addressed and, following three presentations, there was a clamour for their stories to be heard. We heard from Indonesian farmers who are now only able to harvest rice once a year whereas before it was twice, from teachers in Jakarta whose students sometimes cannot get to school due to increased flooding, from an activist in Kalimantang whose livelihood is being destroyed as owners of a massive coal mine cut down forests and pollute the area.

This is where real action is happening, not inside the cozy air-conditioned confines of the conference centre. This is where there is real passion for change. As civil society activists, it is imperative upon us to make delegates hear these voices.

We will continue to do so.#

NUSA DUA, BALI -- Expect humidity with increased carbon emissions might as well be the weather forecast yesterday when the United Nations Climate Change Conference opened in the posh Nusa Dua tourist enclave in Bali, Indonesia.

Expect heavy traffic and loads of contradictions might have been an advisory as well.

More than 10,000 people from 190 countries, including five heads of states, environment ministers, industry lobbyists, and civil society and environmental campaigners are taking part in the event, which seeks to create a new treaty to replace the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol.

I was stuck in traffic on my way to Nusa Dua yesterday morning and almost came in late for the conference opening and the 9:00 am media stunts to take place in front of the Bali Convention Center where the conference is being held. I arrived two minutes after nine, nervous and pleased at the same time because I thought I would be stuck on the road forever, inside a Blue Bird, the local cab, the fare for which costs an arm and a leg.

Riding a bicycle to the site makes sense – in fact, hundreds of bikes are being provided by the UNFCCC for the delegates for free. By biking, one can get past the traffic jam caused by the huge SUVs carrying government officials and all sorts of posh delegates who, to be sure, will not be taking part in the parallel Civil Society Forum activities. But one can also get serious sunburn from riding exposed to the sun in hot Bali weather. One can get sick as well from the pollution caused by the increased number of fossil fuel-guzzling automobiles on the streets, which have added to the already high number of motorcycles, the locals' main mode of transport, -- which adds up to the greenhouse gas emissions and environmental stress.

Say Bali and the word paradise comes to mind – if you say Bali years ago, that is. Today, Bali stands for paradise lost. Intense tourism, pollution, deforestation, warming weather, the 2004 Indian Ocean quake that triggered massive tsunamis in many parts of Asia, as well as the terrible terror bomb attacks in 2002 and 2005 have reduced it into one of those popular island getaways, which require one to first read a travel advisory if one is planning to go there.

This week until next, Bali is in the center of the global discussion of a future climate regime. The Bali meeting will have to produce ways to reach a consensus on climate adaptation and mitigation, transfer of technology from developed to developing countries and financing scheme to curb and overcome the impacts of climate change. This is taking place while logging, most of it illegal, destroys thousands of hectares of land in Bali and all over Indonesia, adding up to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Indonesia has one of the world's largest areas of rainforests. Massive illegal logging and burning of forests have stripped it of more than 70% of its original forest cover. As a result, Indonesia is now the world's third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, next to the United States and China. Today, the Jakarta Post bannered a story on Indonesia's state minister for the environment Rachmat Witoelar's optimism that a consensus would be reached during this conference. Witoelar said many governments have warmed up to the idea of creating a new agenda for negotiating solutions for the warming of our world.

But while others have warmed up, the US remains frosty to the idea of drastic emission cuts. The US is seen as the biggest obstacle to forging a new pact with binding limits on emissions. George Bush has stated that they are keen on a common, long-term goal decades in the future without specific targets or limits. Curbing greenhouse emissions, he said, must be ""in a way that does not undermine economic growth or prevent nations from delivering greater prosperity for their people."

It has been seventeen years since the first global climate treaty was signed by almost all the world's nations, which set voluntary goals for curbing the emissions of greenhouse gases. The Kyoto Protocol, the first legally binding treaty signed by most of the world's leading greenhouse gas producers, was ratified in 1997 as an addendum to the original pact, setting mandatory limits on emissions for the industrialized countries that ratified it. The US refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol citing drastic emission cuts would harm its economy and that China and India are two of the world's major emitters, which should also curb their emissions.

Today, seventeen years later, those countries that ratified Kyoto have largely failed to meet their targets. And the US remains as pig-headed about setting specific targets as before.

The UNFCCC, however, has stated that any long-term policy response to climate change must be acceptable to all, including the US. The debates and compromises are on.

Yesterday, GCAP's Ben Margolis was interviewed twice and twice he was asked for his opinion on the US position. It seems that the biggest issue here, which dominates discussion and which the media is picking up at the expense of drowning the voices of groups vulnerable to climate change, is what is the framework for negotiations that is acceptable to the US.

lani villanueva

Bali is beautiful. This small tropical island, part of the Indonesian archipelago and perched off the East coast of Java is, for the next two weeks, playing host to a major UN climate change conference.

I am here for the first week of the conference with colleagues from the Global Call to Action Against Poverty – the world’s largest anti-poverty movement, with national platforms in more than 100 countries. I will try to send updates from the conference looking at both what is being discussed – but also to give a flavour of the conference itself.

There is no longer serious debate that humans are causing significant climatic changes, and that the poorest nations and people in the world are being hit first and hardest by these changes. So can Bali be the moment when negotiations truly begin on a crucial follow up to the Kyoto Protocol as well as on other vital areas including adaptation and deforestation?

My initial impression is, perhaps unhelpfully. Let me explain.

First the conference itself. Planes carrying delegates (the irony is lost on few) come down low over the narrow strip of water that separates the island from Java, and land at Denpasar on the South tip of Bali. Those delegates are whisked away in gas-guzzling people carriers to the exclusive resort of Nusa Dua, home to countless five star hotels and to the main convention centre where the meeting will take place.
 
In luxurious surroundings, and under the hot Balinese sun, delegates waft from hotel to conference centre in taxis, bell boys carry suitcases into air-conditioned rooms, talk is of clause 4 of this and article 15 of that, Balinese security guards and police patrol the boundaries, and locals are kept firmly out. In such surroundings I fear the emergency of climate change is lost. Radical action suppressed by freshly fluffed pillows.
 
And yet, around 12,000 government officials, civil society activists, UN staff, private sector representatives and others are arriving over the weekend for the 13th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and there are, perhaps, a few important features that distinguish this meeting from its predecessors and give hope that decisions can be made. 

The unity of dialogue, the role of civil society, and the timing of the conference are all playing a role to ensure that this conference is definitive in shaping global decisions. 
 
Having recently been at the World Bank and IMF annual meetings, it is already clear that civil society is far more integrated into the process here than at the Bank and Fund. Here the negotiation halls are open to all accredited delegates, the civil society forum is running parallel to the main conference and dialogue is free and open between all sides.  This is highly significant as it means that decisions reached will have been done so in a relatively transparent manner and are therefore more likely to have the support of all key actors.
 
Not unrelated is the fact that this conference is historic in the unity role players are facing in the debate.  While in many areas of economics and politics, different interest groups are brought to the discussion table largely to protect their own interests in a largely zero sum game, with climate change, business, government, and civil society stand to lose, and lose in a drastic way, if there is not unified, quick action.
 
Finally, the timing of this conference is working in its favour.  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has become a widely accepted body for scientific evidence on climate change allowing a vital agreed basis for dialogue on agreements and future treaties. It’s fourth assessment report released this year highlights the need for drastic action in the most startling terms yet.
The ravages of climate change are already being felt, from Bangladesh to New Orleans. There is now widespread public awareness about climate change, and the more it is affecting the lives of citizens, the more they are demanding action from decision makers.  With a political incentive to act together against climate change, Bali could just be the place where promises are finally turned into action.

For the sake of all of us, let’s hope so.

Ben Margolis