Wednesday, April 17, 2024
Ramesh Jaura
In the forefront is a community of global citizens named Avaaz.org – meaning “voice” or “song” in several languages including Hindi, Urdu, Farsi, Nepalese, Dari, Turkish, and Bosnian.
Since the international negotiations began Dec. 3 on Indonesia’s tropical island Bali, they have been presenting ‘Fossil of the Day’ awards to “the countries who have done the most to block progress at the talks.”
The fossils, represented by lumps of coal, are presented in an elaborate awards ceremony at 6pm (local time) daily at the Bali International Conference Centre. The ceremony is broadcast live on YouTube.
The ‘winners’ are chosen by a vote of the Climate Action Network each afternoon.
The awards are naturally not handed over personally to the delegations chosen, but in proxy to members of the youth delegations from different countries.
The countries that received the awards more than once until Wednesday (Dec. 12) are: Australia, Canada, Japan, Saudi Arabia and the United States. The 27-nation European Union (EU), generally considered ‘climate progressive’, could also not escape the dubious honour.
The EU won a prize Dec. 5 “for explicitly endorsing the existing Global Environmental Facility (GEF) modalities…on the Adaptation Fund, despite serious concerns by developing countries that the governance of the Fund reinforces global inequality.”
The Africa Group had clearly stated that existing GEF and World Bank procedures are not acceptable for governing the Fund, which must move very large sums of money to enable adaptation to climate change.
The laudation said: “The EU should be encouraging engagement and leadership amongst Parties of the G77 plus China, supporting unconditional support for adaptation. Instead, the EU took the side of continued control by wealthy countries of the system charged with helping the most endangered countries adapt to climate change.”
Saudi Arabia has been ‘honoured’ with three first prizes and two second prizes, including one for accusing certain developed countries of bribing developing countries.
Saudi Arabia also bagged an award for a long and rambling intervention complaining about an unfair focus on carbon dioxide and for saying that a certain article in the draft agreement to emerge from Bali “should not attach an economic element to the noble cause of fighting climate change.” The laudation said that Saudi Arabia has been trying to undermine the fight against climate change “by alleging adverse economic effects” on economies dependent on oil exports.
Japan bagged seven awards. On Dec. 4, the second day of the conference, Japan won the first and second Fossils – for listing elements of a post-2012 agreement without mentioning absolute emissions reduction targets and timetables for developed countries – though emission reduction targets are at the heart of the Kyoto Protocol. Japan’s proposal would kill it.
Japan shared a third prize the same day with the United States and Canada. The laudation said: “The USA, Canada, and Japan claim to love technology as the solution to everything – but today (Dec. 4) they insisted that the technology discussion take place under the SBSTA, the technical advisory body, not the SBI, the implementation body. In other words, they insisted on all tech talk and no tech action. Or in still other words: they can talk the tech talk, but they can’t walk the tech walk.”
Canada has won nine Fossils until Dec 12, including one “for demanding absolute binding emissions targets for both developing and developed countries from the start, in a clear attempt to sabotage Bali progress.”
The citation said: “Canada’s per capita emissions are five times those of China and ten times those of India. Canada urges us to follow the model of the Montreal Protocol on Ozone protection – but Canada has forgotten that the Montreal Protocol began with developed country commitments only. Developing countries took binding limits only later, with extra time for compliance and financial support from developed nations.”
The U.S. has won ten Fossils, including the top prize Dec. 12 – for the second day in a row – for blocking consensus in the SBSTA on sending the draft text on technology transfer. The citation for the award reads: “This proposal had seemed like the hoped-for way out of the impasse in SBSTA…until the U.S. re-impassed it, in an impressive feat of impasse-ification. Coal!”
SBSTA is a subsidiary body for scientific and technological advice that counsels the Conference of the Parties (COP) on matters of climate, the environment, technology, and method. It meets twice a year.
COP is the prime authority of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with its secretariat in Bonn, Germany. It is an association of all member countries (or “Parties”), and usually meets annually for a period of two weeks.
It evaluates the status of climate change and the effectiveness of the treaty. It examines the activities of member countries, particularly by reviewing national communications and emissions inventories; it considers new scientific findings; and it tries to capitalise on experience as efforts to address climate change proceed.
On Dec. 12 the U.S. won another prize for last-minute efforts to block consensus on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) in SBSTA, first by calling for deletion of the paragraph linking REDD to the Bali Roadmap, and second by insisting on last minute wording, with unclear intentions, to link deforestation and degradation to broader land use considerations.
The Awaaz.org laudation reads: “If the USA can’t see the forest for the trees on deforestation, soon there won’t be any forest left to see.”
The U.S. and Canada have shared a second-place Fossil for working to remove language in the dialogue on ranges of emissions reductions for industrialised countries beyond 2012, as well as language calling for a peaking of global emissions in 10-15 years.
The award says: “If the U.S. and Canada want to be taken seriously on climate change, they should support numbers commensurate with the challenge. If they want to be known as the countries that blocked a serious response to the climate crisis, though, they’re on the right track.”
Paula Dobriansky, head of U.S. delegation, seemed to be reaffirming the citation for Fossil of the Day Awards – past and future – when she told journalists Wednesday: “We’re very committed to working towards a successful outcome. We want to launch a process that is open and does not predetermine or preclude options. We have been listening carefully to the perspectives of others and will continue to do so in the days ahead. We hope to identify a way forward that will bridge out differences and bring us together in common pursuit of our shared goal of addressing climate change.”