GENEVA, Dec 28 (IPS) - Many newspapers in the frigid North commented, with a tinge of envy, that their diplomats were enjoying basking on the sunny beaches of Bali, the site of the largest-ever climate negotiations, while the global climate continued its seemingly inexorable climb up the thermometer. Having attended the meeting myself, I can attest to the warm climate of Bali, but few diplomats spent much time on the beach. Quite the contrary, a typical climate diplomat's day started with meetings at 7 am and often continued until late into the night time hours.
The problem most definitely was not a lack of effort and diligence on the part of the diplomats, but rather the difficulty in reaching consensus on topics that are definitely going to have winners and losers, with significant amounts of money hanging in the balance.
Looking first at positive features, the over 10,000 participants from all parts of the world, the dozens of seminars, press conferences, symposia, workshops, and demonstrations, made it very clear that climate change has become the number one environmental issue in the world. The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for their scientific work, and to former U.S. vice-president and almost president Al Gore, for his bringing the issue to the public, is one indication of the high public profile the topic has received.
On the negative side, it is very disheartening that despite the diligent work of the diplomats, and the supporting chorus from the civil society choir, so little was accomplished in terms of real achievements. In stark terms, all that was really agreed was to continue discussions, in hopes of agreeing by 2009 a new and improved international framework for addressing climate change, replacing the anaemic Kyoto Protocol that would have brought about only very minimal impacts on climate mitigation even if all parties had fully implemented their agreed targets (most have fallen woefully short, and some have retrogressed).
Indonesia certainly did its part, providing pervasive security, making bicycles available for travelling between the various venues (some of which were over a kilometre apart), and supporting strong action from developing countries. But at the same time Indonesia continues to clear its tropical forests, often those growing on peat soils that are major stores of carbon, to grow oil palm that helps meet the energy and food demands of the North.
One can hardly blame a developing economy such as Indonesia for cashing in on its forest resources, but the images of hundreds of orphaned orang-utans and vast areas of devastated forests were painful reminders of the ecological suffering that the tropics endures so that the industrialised economies can enjoy a more comfortable life.
Despite the disappointments, the Bali meetings still marked a turning point, when nobody seriously disputed the importance of the problem, and instead argued about means for solving it, or at least mitigating its impacts. For many delegations, the worst villain was the U.S., the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases on a per capita basis (though China probably has overtaken the U.S. as the largest overall emitter of climate-changing gases).
But while the formal delegation from the U.S. seemed to be doing everything it could to abstract effective action, numerous other levels of the U.S. government were far more supportive, with leadership coming from mayors and governors as well as non-governmental organisations and academics. California has been particularly active in providing leadership in reducing carbon emissions and enhancing fuel efficiency standards.
It is all the more depressing that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has just declared that the California legislation is invalid, claiming that a Federal approach yet to be implemented, is far superior. This is all the more ironic in that EPA required a court order to even consider carbon dioxide to be a pollutant that required EPA standards. As Al Gore pointed out, the U.S. will soon have new leadership that, one hopes, will be much more supportive of efforts to address the linked challenges of climate change and a post-petroleum future.
Other positive indicators included the initiative by the World Bank to provide support to developing countries seeking to conserve their old-growth forests, an effective way of sequestering carbon. Also on the positive side, parties agreed to establish an adaptation fund, though the quantity of this fund is miniscule in relation to the challenges that it needs to address.
Another positive indication came from numerous governments that stated they will not be waiting for global consensus before acting, and will already start collaborating with other like-minded nations in helping to address climate change challenges. The government of The Netherlands, as just one example, presented its plans for collaborating with Mozambique, Mali, South Africa, Tanzania, and Mexico in addressing various aspects of climate change through cooperation from its ministries of environment and of development cooperation.
So while most of us who care about the global climate are deeply disappointed at the paltry results from the intergovernmental negotiations carried out at the Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations in Bali, we are also heartened by the numerous new partnerships that were formed, by the energy demonstrated by the hundreds of civil society organizations addressing the issue, and by the general feeling of urgency on the part of the vast majority of the ten thousand people who flocked to Bali not for the beaches but for the opportunity to prevent climate change from converting our planet from a blue and green paradise to a hothouse where much of life will be nasty, brutish and short.
*The author is chief scientist of IUCN – The World Conservation Union.
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