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TechnoratiNew Year, No Resolutions on Climate Change
With the dramatic wrap-up of the UN climate change conference in Bali, 2007 is drawing to a close. Now we have seven short years-until 2015-to reverse the rise of greenhouse gas emissions and avoid a global temperature increase of two degrees Celsius. Worldwide scientific consensus says that going above a two degree increase would usher in the worst effects of climate change. Picture another 200 million people displaced by floods and an additional 600 million people suffering from hunger.
As maddening as the doomsday scenarios are terrifying is the fact that climate change can be controlled. Although there are challenges, the toughest obstacles are not scientific or technical or even financial. They are political. Nowhere was this more apparent than in Bali last week.
"If You're Not Going to Lead, Get Out of the Way"
From the outset of the Bali negotiations, the US delegation obstructed a key solution to climate change: mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions. They insisted that the conference produce only a blueprint for further negotiations, instead of outlining the emergency measures that are needed on climate right now. The US was repeating its standard argument, namely, that economic growth must meet no obstacles, especially in the form of limits on greenhouse gas emissions for US industries.
But economic growth is just another way of measuring natural resource consumption, and consumption (particularly of fossil fuels and forests) is what is driving climate change. The Bush Administration's fantasy of endless economic growth is putting us on a collision course with reality. The reality is that the planet has its limits, and we are fast approaching them. That means that economic policy needs to be crafted within a broader framework of environmental policy, and not the other way around. In other words, the Administration's approach needs to be turned on its head.
Yet, thanks to US intransigence, backed by Canada and Japan, the European Union's proposed 25-40% cut in emissions by 2020 was dropped from the final "Bali Action Plan." And the EU didn't pull those numbers out of a hat. That 25-40% figure comes from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's foremost expert body, whose numbers, if anything, are turning out to be conservative. The US made sure that the Bali Action Plan ignores their findings.
Frustration with US obstinacy came to a head in the final day of negotiations. While the US was chipping away at the draft outcome document, pressure on the US delegates became increasingly vocal, with one representative from Papua New Guinea stating, "If you're not going to lead, get out of the way."
Climate Justice
Papua New Guinea, whose representatives made international headlines on the last day of the conference, is one of many developing countries where harrowing predictions about climate change are happening now. In some areas of Papua New Guinea, rising sea waters are already destroying homes and communities. Developing countries with large populations vulnerable to disasters like droughts and floods have seen little attention or money from developed countries to help them cope. In Bali, the consensus reached by African governments underscored the need for more funds to deal with climate catastrophes.
In fact, a growing divide between developed and developing countries was on full display in Bali, with developing country representatives, like Munir Akram of Pakistan, voicing some of the strongest criticism of US actions. For instance, in addition to stonewalling any real progress in the Bali Action Plan, the US worked to shift the debate away from its own culpability for climate change (the US, with the world's biggest economy is also the worst carbon polluter) and onto developing countries. According to Akram, some rich countries (though he refused to name names) threatened poor countries with trade sanctions if they did not commit in the Action Plan to cut their own emissions.
Developing countries in fact do have an obligation to avoid the same carbon-intensive development path as industrialized countries. There is simply no more room in the atmosphere for carbon emissions. Rich countries have used it all up through the same processes of industrialization that made them rich in the first place. This patently unfair dynamic leaves industrialized countries with the primary responsibility not only for vastly reducing carbon pollution, but also for providing the "technology transfers" (as they're called in the Action Plan) to enable poor countries to develop economically without doing more damage to the atmosphere. Finally, developed countries need to shoulder the burden for "adaptation" as the Action Plan refers to it, or the measures needed to enable developing countries to survive and adjust to the climate crisis that the rich have created. These imperatives flow directly from the language of "common but differentiated responsibilities" in the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change of which the Bali talks were part.
Gender Justice
Bali was an opportunity for developing countries to highlight the ways in which the world's poor are being hit first and worst by climate change. But no government, North or South, emphasized the fact that worldwide, 70% of poor people are women. Nor was there a focus on the importance of women's knowledge and skills to the survival of poor communities facing climate change. It is rural women, after all, who have historically developed and enacted solutions to ecological challenges that we need to adapt and replicate today. Worldwide, women in communities are responsible for developing sustainable agriculture, preserving biodiversity, securing fresh water supplies, building wind-resistant housing, and more. These kinds of local solutions, and a gender perspective more broadly, must be integrated into climate policy at all levels.
What Next?
Thanks in large part to pressure brought to bear by other delegates, the US representatives finally signed the Bali Action Plan. But what sort of a plan is this? The best that delegates in these climate change negotiations were able to say is that the path is open for progress in 2009, when a presumably more amenable US administration will be in office. In short, the Bali Action Plan represents the lowest common denominator of government positions and barely advances the climate agenda.
The UN has already scheduled another four negotiating sessions on climate change for 2008. But a significant shift is required before these discussions can begin to generate positive change. As far as global climate policy is concerned, the US is clearly a rogue state. But even governments that are not subsidiaries of the oil industry tend to be staffed by people with a vested interest in the economic status quo. All governments need to feel the pressure from a climate movement demanding social and economic justice as the starting point for a new climate regime.
Yifat Susskind is MADRE Communications Director, and Diana Duarte is MADRE Media Coordinator.
12 Comments so far
Show AllThat's the awful truth hedology.
"If WE Not Going to Lead, THEN WE SHOULD GET Out of the WORLD'S GREENER Way".
But the question is "WE" is the part of the world, regardless we agree with this or not. When it comes to global warming, finally it is going to hurt the whole world including US.
US is the hurdle between the nature and the world.
US is a CAPTAIN of the SINKING SHIP (NAMED AS "THE WORLD").
Why does the US believe it needs do nothing? Its because it thinks it can survive, largely intact, thanks to the resources and power it gets from the rest of the world, while the less well off will perish. Some amalgam of Christian survivalist belief seems to think that they are the chosen ones, gods own people who will not perish in the apocalypse. They can burn all the coal they like, keep the nuclear plants going, and watch the rest of the world drown or die of thirst, disease or hunger, or receive a massive blast of the mighty US stockpile of WMD, all seen on CNN, on massive plasma wall screens in the air - conditioned comfort of home. Why care if you can bomb other nations at whim, practice deceit on your own people, cheat at elections, invade and steal other nations resources, carry out mass murder and torture, and then shirk all your responsibilities and get away with it? Why should the US of I ever think changes to the climate might affect them too, if their shopping malls still deliver every consumer comfort way beyond satiety, scraped ever harder from the ragged flesh of the earth. Only when the blow torch of climate change is apon you, your fields barren dry dust, the oil tankers empty, and the population in starving revolt, the US army will find its true purpose in shooting dead the protesting masses of its own people.
You wrote it perfectly ROBERT and in just four paragraphs.
The Bali agreement only provides more time for delays in meaningful US participation, which have been the greatest obstacle for meaningful progress. Untill focus is directed to meaningful measures, rather than carbon caps, more discusons, etc, reducing in carbon pollution can never be achieved.
Success can never be achieved without dramatic reduction of fossil fuel use along with development of alternative energy sources. Despite the assertions of the energy cartels and this administration, this is possible; but it will require concerted efforts. A significant increase in fuel tax is the most logical (& probably the only) means to promote & encourage these deveopments. The resulting alledged hardships on the less affluent need, which are being used as an arguement against this tax, could be readily delt with by adjusting the income tax structure and eliminating penalizing taxes such as phone taxes.
Contrary to right wing assertions such measures would aid rather than damage our economy and security by reducing dependence on imported oil while improving our air & water quality. Often overlooked is the fact that these measures are necessary for other environmental concerns, even if warming were not an issue.
Until Americans seize control of US policies from the the special interests who guide this admimistration and falsify science, progress torward avoiding the dreadful consequences of global warming will be minimal if at all.
On January 31 2008 there is a teach-in at 1,000 plus univesities and colleges called "Focus the nation" Check it out on google, my local college is doing workshops and seminars- how about yours! Also communities can join.
I sadly expect to see less than twenty different individuals post on this thread. So many citizens, even the good people who read Common Dreams and post here and are truly concerned about important issues, often ignore the undeniable most serious issue.
Humanity MUST place the global warming, and or, the acidity of our oceans at the top of the priority list. We must have a world wide effort to deal with it and begin now. Not next year or 2009, __ NOW.
If it were indeed a fact, that the United States was truly a world leader, a MASSIVE world wide effort could be initiated and we may have a piss ant's chance. We aren't really a world leader, we are the world's biggest polluter and the most frightening loser.
The United States position and the desruptive actions by our delegates at the conference is absolute insanity.
If more than a combined total of 2,500 scientists, geologists, oceanographers, climatologists, have agreed with a consensus, that our water planet WILL DIE unless we act quickly to stop, and or attempt to reverse the damage we are doing to the enviroment, their reports should be taken as seriously as a massive heart attack.
Just a couple of paraphrased statements from those who have spent their entire adult lives studing the enviroment of the Earth's biosphere. __ Tundy Agardy, PhD__ "One of the most unexpected consequences of global warming, is the silent yet dramatic impact upon our ocean's waters and the vital life forms that are 'suddenly' dying off."
Carol Turley in the Oscar Report, __"This acidity of the ocean's, is the MOST serious issue humanity has ever faced". ___A world renouned tropical forest ecologist and President of the Heinz Center,__"This is the most chilling enviromental breifings I have ever heard."
http://whyplankton.com/
That very brief, ( two paragraph link ), which can be read and understood by any seven year old, in less than a minute, tells us all we need to know, to realize that if we allow the continuation of burning coal, spreading DU, polluting our oceans with garbage and chemicals, we may have less than ten years.
Not ten years to discuss the problem, ten years left for us, our children and theirs, to be able to breathe oxygen. The ocean's "phytoplankton" are dying, those microscopic ocean plants produce most of the oxygen in the orbiting biosphere we call Earth.
We may have until 2020, or even 2050, but the clues are obvious, we may ONLY have from five to ten years left, before ALL visible life on Earth will be gasping for breath.
Some of the very most experienced and knowledgable scientistts who study our biosphere, believe that is very possible and few, especially the governments of the United States, Canada and Japan will pay attention. ___ Incredible, ignorant, selfish and short sighted insanity. I will not write the word impeach,___ because that sadly has become stupid also.
Oops.
responding to djan: If you are suggesting that public policy does not greatly influence private behavior, you only need look at the several million people in homes they are about to lose to demonstrate the falsity of that proposition.
I agree with cyberbrook. It is tempting to call governments' impotence to change sheer unwillingness, especially when they are run by the military industry. But the truth is the people keep the economy running by answering to every offered new "opportunity". You don't have to buy a bigger car, you don't have to watch a larger TV, you don't have to eat meat and you don't have to fly. These are choices. I know it doesn't sound very romantic, but change is a matter of personal behaviour rather than revolution. Stop producing carbon dioxides. Get informed about what produces them and act accordingly. It probably won't be enough because your neighbour keeps being an idiot, but what were you supposed to do? Kill him?
"But economic growth is just another way of measuring natural resource consumption, and consumption (particularly of fossil fuels and forests) is what is driving climate change."
Very true. Mammon likes his hell hot.
Resolve to do what's best for your personal health, for public health, for animal health, for environmental health, and for world peace and social justice: choose vegetarian.
Meat Eating and Global Warming at www.ivu.org/members/globalwarming.html
Eco-Eating at www.brook.com/veg
While we're struggling, voting, and hoping for social change, let's engage in personal change.