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Del.icio.usby Dan Shepard, Information Officer, UN DPI
It was one day late but countries achieved a major breakthrough on international climate change action at 2:31pm Bali time on Saturday. It was not without high drama featuring plenty of twists and turns along the way on a day when many delegates had planned to catch flights home.
It even took the special intervention of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yodhoyono and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to exhort delegates to complete what seemed like hopelessly deadlocked talks.
Yodhoyono called on countries to complete "the most difficult mile," of an "exhaustive marathon." He told delegates that we could not allow "the human race and the planet to crumble because we cannot find the right words."
The Secretary-General, who returned to Bali after a visit to Timor-Leste, said he was reluctant to speak again to the conference but that he was disappointed in the progress that had been made. "The hour is late. It is time to make a decision." He appealed to delegates not to "risk everything you have achieved so far."
After a morning of false starts and false hopes, mis-communications and misunderstandings, countries agreed on a roadmap to launch negotiations toward a global, comprehensive agreement to address climate change. The Bali decision sets out an agenda that frames the discussions that will take place over the next two years and sets a deadline of 2009 to complete the negotiations.
After agreement was reached, the Secretary-General issued a statement strongly welcoming the outcome and saying that the Bali Roadmap achieved all three of the main objectives. "The Bali Roadmap that has been agreed is a pivotal first step toward an agreement that can address the threat of climate change, the defining challenge of our time."
But the agreement did not come painlessly. On a key provision, concerning the obligations of developing countries in the future negotiations, India, speaking for developing countries, said that alternate wording had been agreed to during the night. And then Bangladesh said that language concerning the least developed countries and small island states had been omitted. The Philippines said the phrase "on the basis of equity" had been omitted. And then the United States said it could not accept the formulation that was put forward but offered to keep working until an agreement could be found.
Then South Africa, responding to the US, said developing countries had voluntarily moved to accept new obligations for their national actions on climate change that were "measurable, reportable and verifiable," a concession that only a year ago, he said, "would have been unthinkable." South Africa asked the US to reconsider its position.
Then an avalanche of countries took the floor in support of the developing country position, many asking the US to state their reservations separately and not block a consensus.
US Under Secretary of State Paula Dobriansky took the floor again and said the US wanted a roadmap and wanted to be part of the roadmap.
"We are very committed to long-term greenhouse gas emission reductions," and she said the US would work with other large emitters to halve global emissions by 2050. And then she said the US "will go forward and join the consensus," which was followed by a thunderous ovation.
"It feels like we are in a movie with lots of plots," said the delegate from Egypt.
After full adoption by the plenary, countries thanked the US for joining the consensus and thanked the secretariat of the Climate Change Convention and the Indonesian government for hosting the Conference.
Digg | Del.icio.usBy Curtis Moore, Independent Consultant and a Former Counsel, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
It is Thursday of the second week of the climate negotiations in Bali, which is the traditional day to reach agreement--or not--at international global warming negotiations. But do not confuse an agreement -- if there is one, and there almost certainly will be--with a solution. A Bali roadmap may be a great accomplishment, but it is not a solution, nor will it lead to one. A solution is what is desperately needed because the peril posed by global warming is far more grave and imminent than all but a few realize.
The Earth is approaching--some believe it may have already passed--a half dozen tipping points. These are infinitesimally small changes that trigger sudden, often violent and irreversible change. Because of the extended delay from the development of science until its restatement by the IPCC, none of these considerations is before negotiators in Bali. But one government in the world has considered these facts, then adopted the most comprehensive, multifaceted and aggressive program to combat global warming in the world. That government, which will come as no surprise to many, is California.
Continue reading "California Suite Music"
Digg | Del.icio.usby Dan Shepard, Information Officer, UN DPI
It's not enough just to talk about climate change. The UN, which has been at the forefront of pushing the issue at the international level, announced that it was going green in Bali. The Secretary-General said, "We will lead by example, by moving towards carbon neutrality throughout the UN System."
Some 20 UN agencies, funds and programmes joined together -- something that UNEP head Achim Steiner noted is difficult to begin with -- to offset the emissions caused by their travel to Bali, including the emissions caused by the travel of this writer. The carbon offsets will be accomplished by buying certified emission credits from the newly operational Adaptation Fund. The greening effort will go beyond Bali, and the UN system is working on a number of ways to make its operations climate-neutral and Norway is providing $820,000 for that effort.
Some countries are already on the road to becoming climate neutral, with Norway aiming for 2050, Costa Rica planning to be climate neutral by 2021, its 200th anniversary of independence, and New Zealand shooting for a 2025 goal of generating 90 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources.
Digg | Del.icio.usBy Curtis Moore, Independent Consultant and a Former Counsel, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
Negotiators in Bali are in theory supposed to produce a "roadmap" to future agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. What might emerge instead, however, is a roadmap to a confrontation of historic proportions, a rematch between George Bush -- or, at least, his surrogates -- and his opponent in the 2000 campaign for the Presidency, former Vice President Al Gore.
The two could not be further apart on an issue than they are on global warming. Bush is casual and sanguine, Gore urgent and demanding. Bush’s emissaries to Bali, to their credit from their perspective, have thus far succeeded beyond all expectations in obstructing and slowing negotiations. The result has been, in the words of one journal that specializes in covering the proceedings, a "shift" in tone, with parties "already casting blame for the apparent failure of talks" in one arena.
Ten years ago negotiations reach a similar stage in Kyoto, when they seemed hopelessly bogged down. Then Gore, whose signature issues even then were the threats of global warming and stratospheric ozone depletion, arrived unexpectedly on a White House jet. In a matter of about 13 hours he forged the consensus that became the Kyoto Protocol.
For the past several days Gore has been in Oslo, Norway to accept the Nobel Prize for Peace for his work to raise public concern over global warming. By all accounts his talks have been stemwinders, with an "almost historic aura," according to one observer.
Thursday, Gore arrives in Bali where the situation today is much the same as 10 years ago in Kyoto. But on this occasion, those who have created the logjam are representatives of the United States.
Continue reading "The Roadmap"
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