Endless deadlock on the way to a new climate deal

Negotiations to reach an agreement at COP15 face an embarrassing political deadlock. All the countries are on the pit lane ready to start the race, but, despite the ambitious emission reduction targets set by Japan and Indonesia, India and China’s progress and joint plans, developed countries are being very lazy in showing leadership while they bear most of the responsibility for the current climate change emergency.

What is stopping us from having the new Protocol approved and signed soon by as many nations as possible? It seems that everybody is waiting for the United States to pass the Climate Change Bill in the Senate or to come up with a plan B to take the lead: in the meantime Gordon Brown and the British Ministers are pushing for heads of governments to go to Denmark in December and solve there the critical points open. Developing countries want economic resources from public money to sustain the cleaner, but more expensive technologies needed (they don’t trust funding promised from carbon market sources); they are ready to take voluntary actions to reduce their domestic emissions, while expecting higher carbon emission cuts by developed countries. France suggested an international taxation on CO₂ meaning that market solutions, although key for businesses, are not enough; concerns have been expressed by African countries that cannot compete with India and China for the CDM (Clean Development Mechanisms) projects. Issues and options are on the table of all governments at the moment, and hopefully they are working hard on them.

Yvo de Boer, the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, reminded in Bangkok that the negotiating text having been cut from 200 pages to 100 pages means that points of disagreement are being solved and recently suggested that poor nations could slow the projected growth of their emissions by 15 percent by 2020 to help ensure a deal. Clearly though, stronger signals from the EU and the US would help lift the bar and jump higher: the persisting economic crisis is just a sign that we have to hurry up and change things more quickly.

But what if all these global negotiations are to be put into discussion after the slow progress reached via the Kyoto Protocol? Andrew Deutz, Director of International Government Relations for Nature Conservancy thinks that the system could well evolve towards daily negotiations, with “climate embassadors” working continuously in the same city like it happens for the negotiations on weapons and trade. What we are seeing is a game where trust and cooperation between rich and poor countries need to be substantially increased: the page of history is to be turned from the current heavy burden of oil dependent post-colonialism to the new green (or low carbon) era. Countries highly impacted are somehow taking the actions needed: will we in the Western world need many more New Orleans to happen before leaving our doubts and privileges back? Let’s hope that the eight years long Doha rounds without agreement will not be mirrored by the future climate change talks.

Written by Luca Marazzi on behalf of Responding To Climate Change