A better world is possible - Global Commons Institute

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Copyright Bruce Nixon 2010. All rights reserved. This electronic copy is provided free for personal, non-commercial use only. www.brucenixon.com “There are solutions to the climate crisis. What people and the planet need is a just and sustainable transition of our societies to a form that will ensure the rights of life and dignity of all peoples and deliver a more fertile planet and more fulfilling lives to future generations. It called for: Complete abandonment of fossil fuels within the next 30 years Recognition, payment and compensation for climate debt A rejection of purely market –oriented and technology centred false and dangerous “solutions” such as nuclear energy, agro-fuels, carbon capture and storage, Clean Development Mechanisms, biochar, genetically “climate-readied” crops, geo-engineering and reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), which deepens social and environmental conflicts. Real solutions to limit climate crisis based on safe, clean, renewable, and sustainable use of natural resources, as well as transitions to food, energy, land, and water sovereignty. Indigenous rights organisation, Survival International, raised concerns about climate mitigation measures affecting the survival of tribal people as badly as climate change. Some developing countries, as already mentioned, are demanding reparations from the West. They argue that developed countries have been accumulating a climate debt for the past 200 years and it is their greed that has brought about the climate change crisis that will have the worst consequences for developing countries. What went wrong? George Monbiot described COP 15 as "a scramble for the atmosphere comparable in style and intent to the scramble for Africa". Conference processes were seriously flawed: undemocratic, unrepresentative, unfair to poor and small countries and chaotic. We must not let it happen again. Accounts of what happened at COP 15 differ widely. Essentially, leaders at Copenhagen represented three interest groups: Wealthy developed nations trying to rise to the challenge but fearing the political consequences of climate measures on their economies, employment and affluent living standards; developing nations aware of the dangers of climate change to their countries but wanting to continue economic growth in order to raise living standards to Western levels; the poorest and most vulnerable countries threatened with massive consequences such as flooding, drought and complete annihilation. The latter are the least able to afford the measures to deal with the consequences of climate change for their people, for which the wealthy nations have been largely responsible over the past two hundred years. These three groups had far from equal influence and resources. The developed and rapidly developing nations had large delegations – both Canada and China had over 200 people. 24 countries had less than 8 delegates, most of them least developed or small island states. The European Youth Forum organised themselves to assist underrepresented delegations. The absence of Women at the top negotiation tables was notable, apart from Angela Merkel and Conference President, Connie Hedegaard who somewhat mysteriously resigned, replaced by a man, partway through. In October, she had threatened to resign after complaining of being left out of an important meeting. Some 20,000 people attended the event. There were 3-4,000 representatives of Parties’ (Nations) negotiators. The rest were Business NGOs (BINGOS), Green NGOs (GRINGOs), Youth NGOs (YOUNGOs), Trade Unions (TUNGOs) Indigenous Peoples Organizations (IPOs), local government and municipal authorities 198
Copyright Bruce Nixon 2010. All rights reserved. This electronic copy is provided free for personal, non-commercial use only. www.brucenixon.com (LGAM), Non-Governmental Observers and Media/Press following the proceedings and attending side events and exhibits. Then there were the protesters. The Danish government had rushed through new repressive laws. There were mass “preventative” arrests. Protesters were treated violently and there were many arrests including media people. The Bella Centre, thirty minutes drive from the city, lacked sufficient space to accommodate it all. Many people were accommodated far away from the centre. Consequently, some people slept on floors and settees. Outside the conference negotiations were many NGOs and protesters, together with some of the press and the media. Perhaps 40,000 people came, including the 20,000 attendees. Arrangements were chaotic and contributed to mistrust. In the second week NGOs and key civil society organisations were unable to get in. On Thursday of that the Chief Negotiators for Brazil and for India were barred. The Chief Negotiator for the Indian Government was so upset with how he was manhandled that he couldn’t think straight and, before putting India’s representations to the conference, waited for about 20 minutes whilst he got his composure back! Brazil and India are not minor players. Arguably, Brazil’s rainforest holds the key to human survival. The main conference room was windowless, separating everyone from the environment and the biosphere on which all our futures depend, main subject of the conference. The Northern elite mind is disconnected from Nature and the reality of life for billions of people in other parts of the world. Deep issues of personal identity are an obstacle to accepting the transformation in our way of life that is needed so urgently. Summits, deciding the fate of all life on the planet, should be held in places where people (and other creatures) are most vulnerable and where delegates can see the natural world outside – not in a windowless centre in an affluent city. Here is an account of the negotiations based on IIED’s report. In the second week, towards the end of the negotiations, talks were going on in two completely separate processes. First, negotiations among all 192 Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change continued. Second, and behind closed doors, a select group of about 25 world leaders came up with the Copenhagen Accord, to which most of the vulnerable countries had very little input. As 25 Parties agreed to the Accord, President Obama told the US media that a deal had been struck. The only trouble was that it had yet to be presented to and adopted by all 192 countries attending; so his announcement was premature and looked as if the US was trying to take undue credit. China, India, Brazil and South Africa formed a new block called BASIC. As the BASIC group took on the industrialised nations, the most vulnerable countries were squeezed out. As a result, the G77/China block of 130 developing nations may not survive. A new block representing poorer developing nations seems likely. Gradually they began to compromise. Prime Minister Zenawi of Ethiopia, representing Africa, made a deal with President Sarkozy of France and dropped the 1.5-degree target in exchange for a promise of funding for Africa. This split the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), most but not all of which are African, and left the small islands as the only nations hanging on to the 1.5-degree target. The story of Kiribati is shocking and reveals the flaws in the conference process that led to unjust and disappointing outcomes. During the Schumacher College course, we listened to a firsthand account of the conference given by Alex Randall from the Centre for Alternative Technology. Alex and a colleague were to attend COP15 as representatives of CAT. Beforehand they noticed that some country’s delegations were enormous whilst others were tiny. They decided to research which countries most needed help. They took the IPCC maps on hydrological collapse, matched them with density of population, low GDP per capita and the smallest negotiating teams. They e-mailed all those worst off countries to offer their services. Kiribati with only five representatives accepted. 199
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