Bali Climate Conference Roundup, Day 2
by Stacy Feldman - Dec 4th, 2007
Day two of the UN climate change conference has come to a close. The theme, as Reuters explains, is progress amid squabbles:
A 190-nation climate meeting in Bali took small steps towards a new global deal to fight global warming by 2009 on Tuesday amid disputes about how far China and India should curb rising greenhouse gas emissions.
The "small steps" Reuters is referring to is the official creation of a "special group" that will explore how best to take negotiations forward. The group will begin to hammer out answers to three questions: how should negotiations be conducted beyond Bali, on which topics, and by when.
Not exactly sexy, but they're fundamental for future success.
UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer called the "special group" the "first development" of the conference, an encouraging sign for things to come.
The squabble picked up by Reuters is a familiar one -- the battle between developing nations and developed ones on how best to share the burden for solving climate. Its importance in Bali was noted by several other media outlets, and by de Boer himself.
He put a positive spin on it though, oddly calling the dispute the "second development" of the conference.
De Boer took seriously the plea of developing nations who are concerned with Bali's emphasis on future negotiations. They want attention on the right now, on their urgent needs of adaptation, technology transfer, and capacity building. And they don't want to have to pay an arm and leg in the process.
In the language of wonk, it's what de Boer called the challenge of "common but differentiated responsibilities."
His answer? Participants must balance the future with the present. Not sure what that boils down to in real life policymaking, but it sounds much more like a potentially deal-derailing challenge that could rankle more and more than any statement of progress. His full discussion of the two "developments" is here:
The primary reason why this could be a nasty battle is because the powerful twofer of China and India is leading the charge. They say that rich nations must take on far deeper cuts in emissions, even though China is about to overtake the US as the world's largest carbon polluter. Developing nations, they argue, need cheap fossil fuels to grow their economies.
Could this torpedo a deal? Probably not, at least not on its own, but it's an enormous hurdle.
Good news for US negotiators though. With the attention squarely on China and India, the media pressure on them softened somewhat. And Japan may be its newest ally.
Yep, according to reports, Japan may be edging toward supporting US-backed voluntary emissions targets in a post-Kyoto accord, along with Canada. This could set up a familiar division among the developed nations. The EU remains steadfast that any deal must have binding targets for all signatories. And the newly elected Rudd government in Australia is safely with the EU on this one, so far.
In other "news," bloggers from Enviromedia disclosed that during a closed briefing for business and industry, the United States negotiators had this to say: “We are not just listening, we are presenting a number of new ideas in private meetings with other countries.” They were unwilling to disclose any of the ideas though.
Not the stuff of which revolutions are made.
So far, an all-around unimpressive performance. But it's early. As de Boer told skeptics, "a marriage contract is not something to discuss on a first date."
Bookmark/Search this post with:
Post new comment