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Institute
for Policy Studies (IPS) and International Forum on Globalization
(IFG) Launch "Bali
Call" with 125 Signers Blog Entries Dec 16, 2007: "The
Day After: An Overview of Bali Results" by Walden Bello
A day after the dramatic ending of the Bali climate talks, many are wondering if the result was indeed best outcome possible given the circumstances. The US was brought back to the fold, but at the cost of excising from the final document--the so-called Bali Roadmap--any reference to the need for a 25 to 40 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2020 to keep the mean global temperature increase to 2.0 to 2.4 degrees Celsius in the 21st century. Reference to quantitative figures was reduced to a footnote referring readers to some pages in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 Report which simply enumerate several climate stabilization scenarios. The alternative scenarios ranged from a 2.0 to 2.4 degree rise in temperature to a 4.9 to 6.1 degree increase. This prompted one civil society participant to remark that the Bali roadmap is a roadmap to anywhere. Would it have been better to have simply let the US walk out, allowing the rest of the world to forge a strong agreement containing deep mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions on the part of the developed countries? With a new US president with a new policy on climate change at the beginning of 2009, the US would have rejoined a process that would already be moving along with strong binding targets. As it is now, having been part of the Bali consensus, Bush administration negotiators, say skeptics, will be able to continue their obstructionist tactics to further water down global action throughout the negotiations in 2008. One wonders what would have happened had Washington remained true to its ideological propensities and decided to stomp out of the room when the delegate from Papua New Guinea, releasing the conference‚s pent up collective frustration, issued his now historic challenge: We ask for your leadership and we seek your leadership. If you are not willing to lead, please get out of the way. As everyone now knows, after last-minute consultations with Washington, the American negotiator backed down from the US‚s hard-line position on an Indian amendment seeking the conference‚s understanding for the different capacities of developing countries to deal with climate change and said Washington will go forward and join the consensus. The single-minded focus on getting Washington on board resulted in the dearth of hard obligations agreed upon at the meeting except for the deadline for the negotiating body, the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention, to have its work ready for adoption at the Conference of Parties in Copenhagen in 2009 (COP 15). Many delegates also felt ambivalent about the institutional arrangements that were agreed upon after over a week of hard North-South negotiations. An Adaptation Fund was set up, but it was put under the administration of the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) of the US-dominated World Bank. Moreover, the seed funds from the developed countries are expected to come to only between $18.6 million to US$37.2 million--sums which are deemed severely inadequate to support the emergency efforts to address the ongoing ravages of climate change in the small island states and others on the frontlines of climate change. Oxfam estimates that a minimum of US$50 billion a year will be needed to assist all developing countries adapt to climate change. A strategic program for technology development and transfer was also approved, again with troubling compromises. The developing countries had initially held out for the mechanism to be a designated a facility but finally had to agree to the watered-down characterization of the initiative as a program on account of US intransigence. Moreover, the program was also placed under the GEF with no firm levels of funding stated for an enterprise that is expected to cost hundreds of billions of dollars. The REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) initiative pushed by host Indonesia and several other developing countries with large forests that are being cut down rapidly was adopted. The idea is to get the developed world to channel money to these countries, via aid or market mechanisms, to maintain these forests as carbon sinks. However, many climate activists fear that indigenous communities will lose be victimized by predatory private interests that will position themselves to become the main recipients of the funds raised. Still, many felt that the meager and mixed results were better than nothing. Perhaps the best indication on whether the conference was right to bend over backward almost 180 degrees to accommodate the US will come next month in Honolulu during the Major Economies Meeting, a Washington-initiated conference that was originally designed to subvert the United Nations process. The question on everyone's lips is: Will the Bush adminstration revert to form and use the conference to launch a separate process to derail the Bali Roadmap? Walden Bello, Board Member, International Forum on Globalization, is senior analyst at the Bangkok-based research and advocacy institute Focus on the Global South, a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org), and professor of sociology at the University of the Philippines. He was an NGO participant at the Bali Conference on Climate Change. Dec
18, 2007: Bali
Conference Ends: A Review of Key Technical Issues and Debates Nusa Dua, Bali -- The Bali Climate Change Conference concluded dramatically one day late on Saturday (15 December) afternoon after a dramatic day of events. The day (as the night before) was filled with the tension of deal making and deal breaking. It saw tempers rising to boiling point, an accusation of mismanagement by the Secretariat that led to its top official taking leave temporarily in tears, a direct intervention of the UN Secretary-General and the Indonesian President to appeal to the countries to make a final deal, a seemingly recalcitrant United States holding the entire meeting to ransom, before several dramatic and angry appeals led finally to its announcement that it would "join the consensus." In the end, the conference agreed to launch a "comprehensive process" to tackle a long list of issues, including how to mitigate and adapt to climate change, as well as provide the financial resources and technology to developing counties to do so. The Bali conference marked the fact that all the governments present accepted the scientific findings that global warming is "unequivocal" and that delay in reducing emissions increases the risk of more severe climate change impacts. At previous meetings of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), it was still being debated by a few governments whether climate change is really occurring or how serious it is. The most significant result at Bali was the creation of an ad hoc working group on long-term cooperative action to discuss a wide range of issues under the four "building blocks" of mitigation, adaptation, finance and investment, and technology transfer. Despite its low-key name, the group will carry much of the power of the UNFCCC in the next two years, and the talks it will hold (whether they take the form of formal negotiations or informal dialogues or probably a combination of the two) may well shape the structures and content not only of climate politics but also have ramifications for global economic and development issues, besides a range of environmental issues. What was left out in the final document was as important as what managed to get in, after the many hours of wrangling. At least three controversial issues have been set aside for the time being, because there was no consensus, but are bound to re-appear when the group convenes its first meeting in March or April. The first is whether issues other than the four building blocks will be included in the agenda of the group. Many developed countries had proposed topics such as the further commitments or contributions of developing countries, a level playing field for economic competitiveness, energy security and stronger cooperation with other international organizations (which some saw as meaning the WTO, among others). Several of these topics had been looked at with suspicion or opposed by many developing countries as being not in the mandate of the UNFCCC or not "mature" enough for negotiations. An annex in an initial draft had contained sub-headings with the four traditional issues (mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology) as well as a fifth heading "Other Issues", all to be filled in at Bali. But in the end, the annex was dropped altogether. Perhaps there was too little time and too much controversy on what to add or leave out in such a list that would determine the agenda of the crucial next years. At the group's first meeting, which will establish its work programme, these issues will be discussed, and the proponents of the "other issues" (actually "new issues") are bound to put their proposals again on the table. The second is whether the new process will lead to a new "comprehensive" agreement (which is what many developed countries expressed they wanted). Or whether the existing treaties governing climate change - the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol - will be retained largely unscathed and the focus will be on strengthening the implementation of decisions already adopted but not implemented (this is favoured by the G77 and China). The developed countries made it clear that they want to radically change or replace the Kyoto Protocol and even parts of the Convention. The developing countries are deeply suspicious of this intention, as the two treaties are relatively friendly to their interests. Under these present treaties, the developing countries do commit to take measures to fight climate change but they are not obliged to undertake legally binding emission reduction targets, and their efforts are conditioned by the extent to which the developed countries provide finance and technology. Throughout the two weeks' talks in Bali, the United States, Japan, Canada, European Union and Russia continuously pressed the developing countries to take on more obligations. Some called for binding reduction commitments. In the final outcome, there was no mention that the working group would come up with a new "agreement", but the pressures to alter some of the basic tenets of the existing treaties will resume at the group. Many of the developing countries, in contrast, are adamant that the existing commitments of developed countries to their own emission reduction, and to providing finance and technology, be implemented. Thus, the emphasis placed by the G77 and China on a work programme on technology inside the subsidiary body on implementation, and on the monitoring of the finance and technology obligations through "measurable, reportable and verifiable" means. Thirdly, the Bali document does not set a global target of reduction of Greenhouse Gases, nor a target for developed countries. Originally, a 50% global cut by 2050 was proposed, and later the phrase "well below half" was used. The Europeans and NGOs were also pushing strongly for mentioning an "indicative range" of 25-40% emission cuts by 2020 (from 1990 levels) for developed countries. But strong objections from the United States led to the removal of any figures. The battle between the US on one hand and the Europeans (supported by the G77 and China) on the other hand became the most politically charged exercise in the Bali conference's last two nights and days. In the end, a footnote referring to the related data and targets from the intergovernmental panel on climate change was placed in the text as a compromise. The main criticism against the US in Bali was the watering down of the text relating to the scientific facts. The next prominent criticism was its unreasonable demands on the developing countries, an attitude that led to the final dramatic exchanges on the plenary floor. In the last two days in particular, the US became everyone's (including former Vice President Al Gore's) favourite target. On 13 December night, on the very eve of the scheduled conference closure, when things were supposed to be tidied up, the US threw in a bombshell of a proposal to amend the paragraphs on mitigation. It wanted to do away with the present distinction between developed and developing countries, which is a fundamental tenet in the UNFCCC, and it suggested new ways of categorizing countries (for the all-important purpose of allocating mitigation responsibilities) according to emissions, energy use and levels of development. The US also advocated non-binding action, which would overthrow the principle and practice of binding emission reductions of developed countries. The American proposal was rejected by the Europeans and the developing countries. It also caused intense outrage among the NGOs, which saw it as a ploy to wreck the Bali meeting, and move in its own rival non-binding approach through continued meetings of its "Major Economies" initiative. This threat was eventually deflected. Perhaps the biggest achievement of Bali was the ability of the rest of the world to contain the US, get it to withdraw its proposal, and on the final day, pull it into accepting a consensus. The last was done by the other governments, supported from the floor by applause and boos from the NGOs. At the end, the US agreed to take (or at least discuss) its own emission reduction commitment under the UNFCCC umbrella, although it had pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol (which is where the legally-binding targets for emission reduction by developed countries are set). How to engage with the US, in process and substantially, will be a major challenge in the working group. Most delegates (government and NGOs) openly hope that the next US Administration will act differently than the present one, and a kind of one-year "holding position" in which to continue engagement with the US until change happens will be one of the delicate acts of the new working group. The Bali outcome says that a comprehensive process to enable the full implementation of the Convention through long-term cooperative action up to and beyond 2012 in order to reach an agreed outcome by addressing several issues that are then described. The first two items, known as para b (I) and para b (ii), drew much of the energy and attention of the delegations in the final two days, and right up to the end. Para b (I) deals with the mitigation actions of developed countries. The final text is as follows: "Measurable, reportable and verifiable nationally appropriate mitigation commitments or actions, including quantified emission limitation and reduction objectives, by all developed country Parties, while ensuring the comparability of efforts among them, taking into account differences in their national circumstances." This is weaker than the previous text which in straightforward fashion asked for "Quantified national emission limitation and reduction commitments... by all developed country Parties..." The US had objected to this language and to the reference to the efforts by parties to the Kyoto Protocol in the previous text. The final compromise was accepted by all as a means to get the US on board. It had to abandon its proposal for a non-binding multilateral system that did not specifically categorise countries as developed or developing. Para b (ii) deals with the mitigation actions of developing countries. The final text reads: "Nationally appropriate mitigation actions by developing country Parties in the context of sustainable development, supported by technology and enabled by financing, in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner." A large part of the drama of the final day was led by the G77 and China in their striving to get this language. According to G77 sources, this paragraph had been agreed to in long talks of the previous night in a small contact group of Ministers and officials. At the least it had been understood that the G77 would be given the opportunity to put in an amendment to a previous text which would be bracketed to denote that there was no consensus and therefore that delegates could propose amendments. But on Saturday morning, to the shock of the members of the G77 and China, an un-bracketed text appeared which had the words "measurable, reportable and verifiable" up front, and which thus implied that only the mitigation actions by developing countries are referred to in this way. The G77 and China wanted both this and the actions by developed countries to provide technology and finance to be "measurable, reportable and verifiable." When behind-the-scenes consultations between Ministers and officials from China, India and Pakistan with the Indonesian Foreign Minister were taking place, the President of the Conference of Parties, the Indonesian Environment Minister, opened the plenary and placed this most sensitive document for adoption. This was objected to on procedural grounds by the G77 and China members. After suspension of the plenary, it was re-convened again with the aim of adopting the draft decision, at which point China angrily asked why this was happening a second time when high-level consultations were still going on, and demanded an apology from the Secretariat. The UN Secretary General and the Indonesian President made a dramatic entry and pleaded for flexibility and decisive action. When the plenary finally convened, the G77 and China asked for their amendment to be adopted, i. e. that the words "measurable, reportable and verifiable" be placed at the end and not at the start of the sentence. The EU said that it could accept the change. But the US said that it could not and wanted further consultations to be held. The hall gave out a loud boo, which is quite unprecedented in a diplomatic setting. Many developing countries spoke out, including an eloquent response by South Africa's environment minister. Some developing countries reminded the hall that the paragraph marked an important step forward for developing countries to undertake new mitigation commitments. Most effective of all was the plea from the heart by Papua New Guinea, which told the US delegation that everyone was looking to it for leadership, and that it should now: "Either take the lead or get out of the way!" In the end, swamped by criticisms and appeals from all sides, in the glare of the world media, the US gave in, and the Bali conference could then proceed to its end. No country got from Bali what it really wanted, but no one was forced to take on something it found unacceptable. But many of the battles that were fought here were not settled and the ball is now in the feet of the new working group. It will meet in March/April 2008 and three other times next year. The work programme can be expected to be even more intense in 2009, when it is mandated to reach a decision. Mark Randazzo, Funders Network on Trade and Globalization (FNTG) 3401 Folsom Street, San Francisco CA 94110 Tel: 415 642-6022 mark @ fntg.org http://www.fntg.org Dec
15, 2007: Special Report on U.S. Obstruction, and the Final Bali
Climate "Comprimise" As the day begins in North America some of you have probably already heard the news that a deal has been cut here in Bali at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties. The meeting was scheduled to end yesterday Indonesian central time at 6pm (Friday), but was extended overnight, and the crucial final plenary commenced at 1:10pm this afternoon (Saturday). I wanted to write while it's still fresh and give you all a taste of what it felt like. Given that working groups convened overnight--finally breaking up at 4:30am--it's perhaps not surprising that this morning started a little rough. The President of the COP, Indonesian Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar, re-convened a plenary at a time when the G-77+China--the main grouping of developing countries--was still at work on an alternative text for the critical parts of the 'Ad-hoc Working Group' review process, explained below. Meanwhile, overnight, Indonesian President Bambang Yudhoyono, and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, each flew to Bali to push parties to come to an agreement. So doing raised the diplomatic profile of the end-game substantially. At 1pm the President and the Secretary General swept into the main plenary hall along with Minister Witoelar and the Conference's top diplomat Yvo de Boer. Witoelar proceeded to take note of what had already been agreed to--"every item on the agenda has been read over carefully, and between 80 and 90 percent of all the items have already been adopted." This felt ominous in and of itself, because everyone in the room knew it was that last ten to twenty percent that would make all the difference. Witoelar then apologized "if I have tread on your sensibilities,"--the reasons for that statement shortly becoming apparent. He then introduced President Bambang Yudhoyono, who noted that he had come to Bali "to make a special appeal," asking delegates to do more to make the Bali Road Map a complete package. He noted that the High-Level Event convened by the UN Secretary General earlier this fall had created the demand for a breakthrough at Bali, a "political commitment to concrete commitments, actions, and timelines." In his plea, President Yudhoyono noted that the "worst thing" that could happen would be for the Bali process to crumble "because we couldn't find the right wording." Ban Kin Moon then took the podium. He startled the audience by stating that he was coming before us "reluctantly," reluctant because the UN's top diplomat was essentially forced to acknowledge his disappointment in the lack of progress at Bali. He urged us not to risk all we had achieved thus far; he praised the "strong and good draft" put forward by the President of the COP; and he said, "it's time to decide." Two speeches that turned up the temperature on what would happen next. And with that, these two dignitaries left the room, their entourages scurrying after them, and Minister Witoelar turned us to Item 4 on the Agenda--the crux of the Bali Road Map--the "Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention." An aside here to describe the evolution of text on Item 4 during the week. The first draft, put forward by Witoelar and his Indonesian team last Saturday, was really very good. It did four things. It reiterated the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities"--which notes the historical responsibility of industrialized ("Annex I") countries for virtually all emissions leading to the increase in the global atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gasses. Annex I countries who signed onto the Kyoto Protocol have binding reduction targets for their emissions. The first official act of the new government in Australia--Prime Minister Rudd coming to power last month in what one Aussie noted as 'the world's first national election decided on the issue of climate change'--was to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Of Annex I countries, then, that left only the United States standing obstinate and alone outside the Kyoto Protocol. The second thing the initial Witoelar draft did was to note the need for urgent action--something that even the United States embraced--on the basis of those common but differentiated responsibilities--and that's where the devil of details lay in wait. Third, last Saturday's draft set a near-term target for reductions from Annex I countries of 25 - 40% reductions. While the European Union embraced this preambular language, it drove the Americans crazy. In side-meetings throughout the week, the Bush administration's negotiators--as well as Minority staff from Congress--repeatedly and often quite savagely noted that no current legislation, not Warner-Lieberman, not any other bill, contemplated that level of near-term reductions, and they said flatly that they were not going to agree to something in text on which they saw no prospect of delivering. Finally, the Saturday draft also noted the need to reduce total global emissions by 50% by the year 2050. As you can see, then, some elements of this initial text referred to global responsibilities, and some to Annex I country responsibilities, and overall it tried to give shape and heft to the notion of "common but differentiated responsibilities." And the Americans immediately set about attacking the text. By mid-week we had a text that had removed all the quantitative language except the 'reduce by half' language, which given the time-frame is more aspirational than operational. It was replaced with qualitative language, and included a phrase regarding the need for a "peak and decline" in emissions. Here too there was a tussle on whether that language on 'peak and decline' should be accompanied by a statement regarding timeframes. The science indicates that we have no more than ten or fifteen years to put total global emissions on a downward slope to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. One can imagine then that countries other than the United States--most conspicuously China--might have concerns about early-action 'peak and decline' language. So this too was part of the negotiating dance--how to get and keep China on board, so as not to drive them into the arms of the Bush science-deniers. (Meanwhile, at 3am on Friday morning, the United States had put on the table a pathetically awful text which tried to demolish ANY distinction between developed and developing countries--which is the way that this convention has been structured since its inception in the early 1990s. Almost none of the language in that submission survived into the draft presented to the plenary this morning.) The first intervention in the Plenary dealing with Item 4 came from China. It was a 'point of order.' And while phrased diplomatically, it was basically a scathing attack on the way that the morning's plenary process had unfolded, convening at a time when the G-77+China were still discussing alternative text elsewhere. On the dais (and projected onto the two acre-sized screens arrayed at the front of the hall) were Minister Witoelar and Yvo de Boer, puffy-eyed and exhausted. It fell to de Boer to answer, and twice during his short reply he had to stop to compose himself. Not out of anger, but from sheer exhaustion and frustration. He was trying not to burst into tears. He replied to the Chinese that he simply hadn't been aware that the G-77 was still discussing Agenda Item 4 in side-meetings when the plenary had reconvened. His voiced drained out of him, and suddenly he got up and simply walked out of the hall, trailing a couple of very surprised aides. (Having composed himself--or possibly having laid down for a twenty-minute nap--he later reentered the hall and took his seat.) And then the moment of truth: India presented the alternative text from the G-77+China. The essential point about this alternative text is that it takes into account "differences in national circumstances" amongst developing countries--that is, not just in relation to Annex I, but in relation to each other--but without the binding reduction commitments that the U.S. had sought from countries like India and China. From the developing world, this was seen as a compromise that indeed not all developing countries could be treated equally--the bigger emerging economies might have to do more--but it preserved flexibilities for them to pursue those commitments at a time to be worked out later--thus, the "Bali Road Map" over the next two years. Portugal, speaking on behalf of the European Union, let the other shoe drop. "We support the proposal made by....India." Deliberately echoing a phrase used by the Secretary General Ban Kin-Moon, Portugal noted that we must "travel the road together." The room erupted in a standing ovation. Bangladesh, on behalf of the 'least developed countries' (LDCs), took the floor to note that they had continued concerns about the text--it was worried about what 'differences in national circumstances' would mean in practice for least-developed countries. Perhaps anticipating U.S. objections to one of the two contentious paragraphs, Bangladesh pointedly noted that it was not going to block consensus on the basis of the one paragraph with which they had a quarrel. Costa Rica rose to support Bangladesh's statement. The Philippines referred us back to already-agreed text in the Convention that precedes the language on 'common but differentiated responsibilities'--and that is the phrase on the basis of equity. The only possible basis for a truly globally-just climate regime is emissions calculated on a per-capita basis, and it has yet to get a serious hearing in the UNFCCC process. But the Philippines brought us back to that first-principle reminder. Representing small island states, the Maldives chimed in with their support, as did Switzerland on the basis of the "Environmental Integrity Group." (That grouping includes countries north and south that are already seeing climate-change impacts in their glaciers, water supplies, sea levels, and agricultural sectors.) Even the freakin' Saudis rose to say they could live with the G-77 text. And then it was the turn of the United States. Assistant Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky, with only the absolute bare minimum of diplomatic language, stated flatly that the United States rejected the changes. It was not prepared to accept the G-77 text. Then occurred one of the most remarkable sounds that has perhaps ever been heard in the annals of international diplomacy--like a collective global groan--descending then to a murmer, then increasing in volume to a full-throated expression of rage and anger and booing and jeering, lasting for a full minute, so that finally the Minister had to call the meeting back to order. Japan, predictably, followed the United States with a statement that was completely opaque, from which we could conclude only that Japan supported the G-77 text while also supporting the "major economies" convening process begun by President Bush as a supposed counterbalance to the Kyoto Protocol. (The Americans, with almost unspeakable rudeness, issued invitations to the next 'major economies meeting' on the first day of the Bali COP. Sort of like making a big show of announcing your engagement while at someone else's wedding.) Then the backlash began. South Africa's representative, with great eloquence, noted that the U.S. statement was 'most unwelcome' and 'without basis.' He hammered on the science and winded up by wondering how, if the administration had accepted the science, it could possibly want to block progress. Echoing Bangladesh's earlier statement, he noted that the Developing Countries were making commitments (in one of those two contentious paragraphs), and yet the U.S. was not. Referring to redrafts from earlier in the week, Brazil noted that the EU and China and the G77 had gone along with most of the amendments offered by the U.S.--they had not blocked progress. The small island states noted their survival imperative. Pakistan's ambassador stated that "the text before us would not have come about without the flexibility shown by the G-77+China." Uganda lamented that U.S. views were taken into account in this redraft, and yet the U.S. was blocking. Tanzania stated the situation flatly: "the United States has the power, and that is the power to wreck the progress made thus far." Casting all diplomatic niceties to the winds, the representative from Papua New Guinea stood up and said: "if you're not willing to lead, please get out of the way." (This was a superb slap at a disgusting comment made by Council on Environmental Quality chief James Connaughton at a press conference a day earlier, when he had implied that the United States was leading, and other countries needed to "fall in line.") A pause. A lull. Witoelar on the dais, puffy-eyed, anxious. de Boer, returned to the stage, head in hands, peering between his fingers. Dobriansky signals she wishes to speak, and Witoelar calls on the United States. "We are heartened by the strong commitments made by the major developing countries here at Bali," says the UnderSecretary. "We appreciate the contributions of Japan, the EU, and Canada in emphasizing the need to half emissions by 2050." She went on to argue that the United States had made three commitments at Bali. And then: "The United States will join the consensus" regarding the proposed compromise text. A surge of emotion through the hall, and then a collective sigh of relief. No standing ovation, no cheering--but a sustained, respectful applause. * * * * * Let me end with two personal notes. This is rainy season in Indonesia. When I lived here in the late 1980s, you could count on it raining in December every afternoon. A drenching rain. The rice fields were electric green. The smell was sweet. The rains knocked the humidity out of the air. And this year--it rained only once, for perhaps ten minutes, during the entirety of COP13. In almost twenty years coming to Indonesia, I have never felt it so hot, the humidity so crushing, the air so acrid. At dinner last night, I spoke with a young server from a village in the mountains. From a family of rice farmers. They planted in early November, anticipating the rains. But there has been no rain. The seedlings dried up. His father has had to go into debt. The son was sent from the mountains to go work in a tourist mall south of the provincial capital. Elsewhere in southeast Asia, where this is no easy access to the tourist cash economy, families resort to other strategies to stay alive when their crops fail. They mortgage their homes and fields first. Then they sell their daughters. Climate change is now. My second personal note is a Christmas wish. There is domestic climate-change legislation working its way through Congress. It's not nearly good enough, far-reaching enough. But it's also analogous to the first draft that Minister Witoelar put on the table last Saturday--a great start, destined to be hammered and picked at and watered down and possibly thrown off the bridge in the end anyway. We can't let that happen. So family and friends, let me ask for some of your time in the coming weeks and months, to be ready to lobby, to call your members of Congress, to spend a little time on this issue, to stay with this. It's time the United States really and truly joined the global consensus--that climate change is now. And now, to sleep. From Bali, over and out. Peter Riggs is director of the Forum
on Trade and Democracy, consultant to the Rockefeller Brothers
Fund, and member of the Funders Network on Trade and Globalization,
and Climate Change Philanthropy Network. Dec
13, 2007: Summary Report from Bali With less than 48 hours to go before the Bali climate conference comes to a close, it is now universally expected that the 13th session of the Conference of Parties (COP 13) will produce a watered-down “Bali Roadmap.” Once again, countries will be bending over backwards to seduce the United States into joining a post-Kyoto multilateral process to bring down greenhouse gas emissions. The expected declaration is supposed to get the parties to agree to hammer out the details of a negotiating framework by COP 14 in Poland in 2008 and to come out with a final agreement by COP 15 in Denmark in 2009. It is also expected to contain a reference to a 25-40% cut in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2020, though Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) was quick to disavow that this was “not a target.” Australia Rejoins the Fold Some climate activists, however, have not been swept away by Rudd. They complain that his words still have to be reflected in the behavior of Australia’s negotiators in Bali, who are imprisoned in the obstructionist paradigm of the Howard regime. Obstructionists Inc. North-South tensions have been high. On December 11, talks broke down on three issues, including the key problem of transfer of technology to assist countries of the South cope with global warming. The transfer-of-technology talks broke down over whether to use the term “facility” as the developing countries wanted, or “program,” the preferred word of the North, according to Pakistani Ambassador Munir Akram, chairman of the Group of 77 and China bloc. According to one developing country deputy environmental minister who did not wish to be identified, “the United States has sent dinosaurs to these negotiations, and that’s why we’re stalemated on 80% of the issues.” Washington is the bete noire in Bali, and no one is more frustrated than U.S. climate change activists who constantly apologize for the Bush administration’s intransigence. Differences within the Group of 77, while much less visible, have not been absent. Malaysia, for instance, surprised developing country delegates at the beginning of the negotiations when its representative appeared to hew to the U.S. line that it wanted an institutional outcome to the negotiations that was “flexible” and “non-binding.” At a side event sponsored by the Indian government on December 12, one speaker suggested that commitments to GHG emission cuts would depend on whether a country belongs to the rich-country bloc, the developing world, or a third category made up of “one big country.” This was obviously a reference to China, whose presence in the Group of 77 bloc has made many -- especially the smaller island countries that are clamoring for emergency aid to meet the sea-level rise that is already drowning them -- uncomfortable since they see their interests as entangled in the dynamics of the negotiations between the global north and China. The rich countries want China, which is on track to surpass the United States as the biggest GHG emitter and is experiencing record but environmentally destabilizing economic growth, to be eventually included in a regime of mandatory emission reductions. The same demand has been made, though not as strongly, with respect to India and Brazil. Big Business Roars in Climate change activists have been appalled and stunned by the business takeover of the climate change discourse. “I can’t believe it,” one Indian activist muttered as he walked out of a session entitled Linking Emissions Trading Markets. “These guys have their own specialized jargon. I did not understand one word of what they were saying.” According to Kevin Smith of the Durban Network on Climate Justice, “The carbon market was originally a very minor part of the architecture of climate architecture, one that climate activists agreed to in order to get the United States on board the Kyoto express. Well, the United States did not get on board, and we are now stuck with carbon markets driving the process since the corporations have found that there is money to be made from climate change.” Smith and others claim that the carbon market is a panacea that will merely allow polluters in the North to keep on polluting while allowing private interests in the South to displace smallholders so they can set up unmonitored and unregulated tree plantations that are supposed to absorb carbon dioxide. World Bank Provokes Protest An even bigger reaction greeted the Bank’s launching of its $160 million Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, which is designed to use market mechanisms to compensate developing countries, including host country Indonesia, for not cutting down their large tracts of forest. Some 100 activists staged a one-hour-long demonstration at the Grand Hyatt Hotel that put World Bank President Robert Zoellick on the defensive. The protesters, which included members of the Indonesian Civil Society Forum, Friends of the Earth International, World Rainforest Movement, Global Forest Coalition, Jubilee South, the Durban Group on Climate Justice, and Focus on the Global South, warned that incorporating forests into the carbon market would simply guarantee their passing into the hands of big private interests. Of special concern to the protesters was the fate of indigenous communities. The proposed Bank facility, they warned in a statement, “could trigger further displacement, conflict, and violence. As forests themselves increase in value, they [would be] declared ‘off limits’ to communities that live in them or depend on them for their livelihoods.” Global Civil Society Erupts This eruption of trade justice and development activists brought a contentious, World Trade Organization ministerial-like atmosphere to the negotiations, which had formerly been marked by a civil if not chummy relationship between government negotiators and climate lobbyists. “This opening up of the process to folks who are bringing new issues like trade and justice and people’s empowerment into the equation has been a bit disconcerting to the traditional climate NGOs,” said Emma Brindal of Friends of the Earth-Australia. “Climate Justice” was the call that united the groups at the Solidarity Village. In a statement issued at the end of the meeting, the participants stated: “By climate justice, we understand that countries and sectors that have contributed the most to the climate crisis -- the rich countries and transnational corporations of the North -- must pay the cost of ensuring that all peoples and future generations can live in a healthy and just world, respecting the ecological limits of the planet. In Bali, we took another step towards building a global movement for climate justice.” Walden Bello, Board Member, International Forum
on Globalization, is senior analyst at the Bangkok-based research
and advocacy institute Focus on the Global South, a columnist for
Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org), and professor of sociology
at the University of the Philippines. Dec
11, 2007: The Important Role of Trade Talks at Bali Climate Conference Victor Menotti Dec
8, 2007: Bali Trade and Climate Brief Their involvement indicates the seriousness of climate concerns because cutting emissions in time to avoid catastrophe requires global economic institutions to adapt to today’s ecological realities. If climate change is indeed the global emergency we believe it to be, then climate protection must become a new lens through which we view the rules of trade and finance. Re-prioritized values must guide global governance to recognize ecological limits and to agree on equitable ways to live within them. Trade Ministers aim to discuss in Bali how trade policy can contribute to climate protection. Several proposals have been informally tabled for discussion; the sections below correspond to the specific proposals. The purpose of this policy brief is to share some thoughts that might contribute to a more coherent approach to global governance for climate, energy, and trade. A critical question for Bali is whether any proposals ultimately empower trade policy makers or climate policy makers. At a time when governments urgently need to intervene in markets by sending clear signals that shift the decisions of energy investors and consumers, the idea of reducing the rights of government through binding trade disciplines is, at best, unhelpful, and, at worst, antithetical to the new directions we need to explore. Even proponents of more trade liberalization, such as the US Trade Representative and the World Bank in their reports on trade and climate, admit that the most important factor for shifting energy investment, production, and technology transfer toward a new carbonless economy is government action to internalize carbon costs. No decisions or positions taken in Bali should foreclose any policy options for climate protection. The most important contribution trade policy can make to climate protection is to not only safeguard but actively increase the “policy space” that climate negotiators need to act urgently. Trade Ministers could also declare that whatever is agreed in UNFCCC will not be subject to challenge in the WTO. Liberalizing Trade in Environmental Goods and Services The only outcome claimed by the World Bank study is the “huge gains in trade volumes,” from 3.6 to 63.6 percent. Amazingly, even though trade in cargo is fueled by one of the dirtiest of all energy sources (bunker fuel), not one proponent seems to ask about the inherently increasing carbon footprint that will result from shipping around the planet more of the goods on the proposed list of fifty types of turbines, towers, tanks, tubes, and other goods. UNFCCC could easily undertake a climate assessment of any trade liberalization proposal, with a view to the principal of “first do no damage to climate.” WTO is not a competent venue to determine which technologies are climate friendly, and the UNFCCC already has a mechanism to accelerate transfer. Waiting for results from the finalization of the WTO’s Doha Round, which are hung up due in large part to developed country failures to deliver on past promises from the previous Round, is too far off in the distance for adequately dealing with emergency actions needed now. Climate concerns should not be used to give new legitimacy Doha. Moreover, the US-EU “breakthrough” priorities for a Doha deal have included the opening of markets for its Energy Services companies like Halliburton in countries with large oil ad gas reserves, so any benefits from trade in clean tech would have to be offset with the WTO’s deepening our dependence on fossil fuels. The fundamental flaw in the US-EU-World Bank proposal is its failure to recognize some of its own basic assumptions and findings, particularly the fact that the most important factor driving the adoption of new clean energy technologies is government action to internalize carbon costs. Putting a predictable price on greenhouse gases is what will move markets most, yet empowering trade rules can only reduce the necessary role governments must play in shifting to new energy supplies by sending signals to energy investors, producers, and consumers. Cost internalization can come in many forms, including caps and/or taxes on carbon, renewable energy criteria, or even energy-efficiency standards. The imperative to internalize carbon costs should compel policymakers to protect and expand the policy space of climate policy makers so that they have the freedom to enact necessary measures. Subsidies for GHG reductions International cooperation should expand, but national and sub-national governments must still be allowed to support their own transitions. Even US President Bush’s programs and proposals for supporting industry efforts to increase innovation of energy-efficient equipment and to accelerate the adoption of climate friendly technologies may face uncertainty under world trade rules. Emissions allocations also face uncertainty as unfair subsidies, raising questions about Kyoto’s extension of carbon markets, Brussels’ attempt to include aviation, and Washington’s efforts to enact almost anything Congress is currently considering. Investors are also asking for incentives in renewable energy outlay costs, so “getting the incentives right” may also require getting the trade rules right. Governments should share a common interest in safeguarding the policy space for specific subsidies aimed at shifting to socially stable and ecologically sustainable energy supplies. Non-Tariff Barriers to Investment The rules on new investment in energy infrastructure will determine the future of our climate. The IEA recently forecast that $22 trillion in new energy infrastructure will need to be financed over the next 25 years to meet what it calls “runaway demand” for energy, led by China and India. That’s why investors everywhere are calling for governments to put a price on carbon so that they can plan which energy infrastructure projects to finance. Even OPEC’s recent Riyadh Declaration communicated the need for oil-importing countries to clarify their intentions about future demand for petroleum; why invest in something that must be phased out? Some of the most important mechanisms for guiding energy investment are the permitting processes that determine which production facilities will be built, where, and for whose benefit. Licensing processes need to be public and participatory if we are to ensure that energy production is ecologically sustainable and actually helping the poor. Intellectual Property Even in one of the emerging clean energy technology sector’s key epicenters of activity, the San Francisco Bay Area of California, there is no consensus within the industry about the necessity for global monopoly patents on important new clean energy technologies. Its world-class hub of universities, innovators, entrepreneurs, and investors working with environmentalists make it a microcosm of the energy revolution. Yet among many leaders it is not clear how much a barrier, if at all, intellectual property is in transferring clean energy technologies. Many agree that, if climate change is indeed the emergency we believe it is, then patents should not be used to withhold important innovations. More assessment of these issues is needed. The UNFCCC, in collaboration with trade policy community, could be the appropriate arena through which to carry out such an assessment in order to guarantee its climate-first perspective. Subsidies for Fossil Fuels Conclusions No decisions or positions taken in Bali should foreclose any policy options for climate protection. The most important contribution trade policy can make to climate protection is to not only safeguard but actively increase the “policy space” that climate negotiators need to act urgently. Trade Ministers could also declare that whatever is agreed in UNFCCC will not be subject to challenge in the WTO. Thanks to Suzanne York and Katie Damasco for research. Victor Menotti Dec 6, 2007: Panel on World Bank's Carbon Finance by Janet Redman (top of the page) The setting sun lighting up the building tropical clouds so that the sky looks like a Thomas Cole painting. I was just about to run back to the convention center where the negotiations are taking place, but the evening light convinced me to sit by the pool and reflect for a minute. Quiet contemplation is a bit interrupted by a 4 year old boy mooning his big sister over and over and laughing hysterically. While it's not so good for work, it helps me remember to take a break and appreciate the joy of being able to enjoy such a beautiful place. Keeping me company on the poolside patio is a table of three Brits from the Institute for Global Studies in bikinis and swim trunks taping a radio show about the UN climate talks. At another table are some new friends from Kalikasan, the People's Network for the Environment in the Philippines. I just met Clemente Bautistam, Kalikasan's national coordinator, at a panel I participated in with Friends of the Earth International and Greenpeace International examining and critiquing IFI responses to climate change. At the panel I talked about the World Bank's use of carbon finance, specifically looking at on-the-ground impacts of carbon finance projects in the Prototype Carbon Fund. I showed Tamra Gilbert's (Carbon Trade Watch, www.carbontradewatch.org) slides to show the communities upstream of a Bank supported hydropower dam that was destroyed by recurring flooding and silt buildup that eventually buried their homes and agricultural lands. The Bank chose this project for carbon finance based on the electricity it will provide to the grid that would have otherwise been generated through fossil fuels. I also used her powerful photos of timber plantations in Brazil that Plantar re-sowed with eucalyptus after clear cutting Amazonian rainforest. Plantar qualifies for carbon financing because the trees are cooked to make charcoal, which is then used as a substitute for coal in manufacturing processes. I hadn't planned on it, but I ended up citing the Durban Landfill Gas Recovery Project in South Africa as well. The Bisasar Road landfill, one the three projects under the Durban umbrella, is especially disastrous. The landfill was sited in a mixed-race community by an Apartheid-era municipal government. The surrounding community, which had since experienced elevated levels of health effects like cancer, was led in the struggle to close the landfill by community activist Sajida Khan. They had almost succeeded in shutting the dump's gates when the World Bank stepped in offering carbon offset revenue in return for capturing and flaring the methane emitted from the landfill. While the Bank eventually pulled out of the deal most likely due to the negative press it received for funding such a toxic project, the ground work was already laid. Other financiers took over the project and the Bisasar Road landfill remains open today. Sajida Khan has since died of cancer. I was surprised to find myself a little choked up upon telling the story, but also moved to see people in the audience shaking their heads as if they agreed that this was justifiably a matter to get choked up about. The crowd was mostly from Jubilee South, a group campaigning for cancellation of debt from loans made to their governments by organizations like the World Bank. After governments accept these loans, it falls on the people to repay them- either directly through taxes or indirectly by having funding for their public education, health care, road maintenance projects, etc. sacrificed in lieu of debt payments. The audience, which had largely no background on climate change beyond a panel earlier that day, instantly made the connections between odious development debt and the World Bank's role in perpetuating climate change. Their comments and questions focused on how they could challenge the logic and policies of development banks through the lens of this new issue. The discussion following the panel revealed the tensions between trying to change development institutions from within and fighting to shut them down from without. Ultimately most folks there agreed that all strategies are necessary and any of us interested in halting the damage that these institutions do must work on whatever front we can. Cheers from Bali, The UN website for the Climate Convention gives an upbeat tone to the meetings here. However, behind the PR, there are divisions that are apparent, not just between North and South, the G77 and the EU, the "umbrella group" of Japan, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the rest of the world, but also between and among NGOs. When money is on the table, there can be plenty to fight about. And right now there is a lot of money being dangled before governments-and NGOs-that comes with a catch: Accept carbon trading as the deal, or get nothing at all. Even so-called adaptation funding, arguably the largest piece of the pie, if done correctly, is being proffered to cash-poor countries-but only as a percentage of the carbon trading budget. The message: Accept carbon trading or your poor will starve. Not slurping, many governments are jumping on board this offer. Too many developing countries are still suffering the legacy of indebtedness and poverty to Northern institutions like the World Bank and IMF, staggering debt set in motion by the high oil prices of the 1970s to have much of a choice in the matter. If it means pledging to protect their forests and treat them as carbon offsets to allow the North to continue to to pollute, so be it. And then there is the question of bribery. While no one can be certain how much money has infected the political process in developing countries, there are indications that deals that are being structured here in Indonesia involve serious insider dealing with carbon traders, deals that place billions of dollars on the table. Surely, once the deals are sealed, there's enough to share with a few choice decision-makers. Surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly to long-term observers of the climate debate, this attitude has infected many NGOs as well. Environmental NGOs are eager for more cash to help them protect a rainforest here or save an endangered species there. And NGOs that work on hunger or disaster relief are equally eager to get more revenue for their efforts. Those who are skeptical of the conditions placed on this cash are largely outside the NGO circles that have dominated this process thus far. To be fair, those working on this issue for years have seen the debate shift from regulatory measures being shot down in favor of market mechanisms, in order to get the largest emitter, the U.S., on board. Recognizing that time is running short, they feel there is not time to go back and rethink the whole concept. They are wedded to a process that they now have pushed their governments to accept, and are reluctant to reconsider. Perhaps because time is indeed running out and so few alternatives are making it on the formal table, or perhaps because to do so would be to lose face, they continue, full steam ahead, ignoring the concrete results that signal failure, corruption, and, worst of all, an increase in greenhouse gases under carbon trading regimes. But here's the deal: Carbon trading is not some innocent attempt at climate stability. It is the corporate, neoliberal agenda, writ large. Countries that are already on the treadmill of debt will become even more beholden to the institutions that have so successfully advanced the corporate agenda via the World Bank, the WTO, and other agents of hegemony. What, then, is to be done? I suggest there are at least six critical components in a strategy that might actually turn the tables on this dominant "solution" to the climate crisis. But they will not come from the environmental groups, at least not from most of those that are represented here at the climate negotiations, nor from the governments themselves. First: Name the problem. We have been hoodwinked. Just as the sub-prime mortgage crisis was entirely predictable by the average realtor, and yet was allowed to unfold, this buying and selling of carbon permits is clearly headed for a meltdown, and we need to face up to it. Second: Reestablish sovereignty. Carbon trading, as a neoliberal tool, strips governments of their regulatory authority and hands that power over to outside actors-either the carbon traders themselves or so-called carbon auditors who cannot be made accountable to the people. Sovereignty must be restored and reinforced in countries around the world if we are to truly get a handle on this problem. Third: Make transparency central to any climate solutions. Carbon trading thrives on secrecy. In the world of carbon markets, as in the world of markets everywhere if left unchecked, business confidentiality trumps the public right to know. The public right to know, in this case, is not about a toxin here or an offset there: It's about whether or not our planet is in safe hands. Do we simply trust Halliburton when they say they are capturing a billion tons of CO2 from their oil fields? Can we trust governments to not be bribed by the waste disposal industry around the quantity of methane being captured from their landfills? There can be no integrity without transparency. Fourth: Bring solidarity into the climate discussions, and don't relegate it to some relic of a bygone era. Carbon trading pits communities in the North against communities in the South. Excess pollution is being allowed in inner cities and other poor communities in the North in exchange for tree-planting programs or methane capture in the South. Within developing countries, these trades often divide the rich against the poor, the plantation owners against the poor farmers. By accepting carbon trading as inevitable, communities are essentially turning their backs on the basic rights of communities, North and South to clean air, clean water, and food. Fifth: Follow the money. There is absolutely no reason why we should now invest taxpayer dollars in the very oil, gas and coal companies that are driving climate change. Not when scientists tell us we have 7 years to turn this ship around. Institutions like the World Bank, Ex-Im, JBIC, the EIB and others must cease financing fossil fuels, and do it yesterday. Private finance will follow suit once the deep pockets of these public institutions are no longer sending the signal that such investment is acceptable. Finally, work for debt cancellation. The climate crisis is in many ways driven by debt. Debt forces countries to remove barriers to free trade. It forces them to roll back regulations that protect their forests. It forces them to extract oil, gas and coal for export or to accept outsourcing of energy-intensive industries to their shores more readily than they would otherwise do. And it gives developing countries little choice but to get on the carbon trading bandwagon, further expanding foreign control over their resources. These all have climate consequences. Thankfully, the debt cancellation movement is here in Bali. Most of the activists have not been able to access the negotiations, and many are bewildered by the mind-numbing array of acronyms that greet them upon their arrival at the UNFCCC. They imagine, as do the rest of the uninformed public, that the "experts" have things under control. But, just as in the Wizard of Oz, the grand and powerful Oz is finally being revealed as the fraud he is by the one seemingly most ignorant of his majesty: a small dog, barking and wagging his tail. Those with fresh eyes and little experience would do well to trust their instincts and not be turned away out of intimidation. The solutions are simple: Do everything possible to keep the oil, gas and coal in the ground. Stop decimating our forests. Provide money for countries and workers within those countries to transition toward clean technologies and to help them build their economies around a green economy. Don't turn your back on the poor who are already facing surging tides, drought, and crop failure, and will need billions of dollars, if not outright resettlement to wealthy countries in order to survive. If we stay focused on these fundamentals-and not on the false solutions of carbon trading-we may just see a breakthrough. Perhaps not here in Bali, but then again, these things can only happen on the ground, in all of our countries and communities, around the world. Let's get on with it. Daphne Wysham |
Dec 26, 2007, 5:30 pm KWMR - West Marin Radio, California - "Epicenter." This program will focus on the December 3rd -14th UN Conference on Climate Change in Bali to negotiate a post-Kyoto Agreement between nations. IFG's Victor Menotti and Claire Greensfelder, both who attended the conference in Bali, will be in conversation with Bing Gong, Bernie Stephan, and Lyons Filmer. Dec 11, 2007 IFG Communications Director Claire Greensfelder presents at UNFCCC Side Event on the "False Solution of Nuclear Power" organized by Women in Europe for a Common Future, Tuesday, 11 December 2007, Inna Putri Bali Hotel. Click for Flyer Dec 7, 2007 "Bali
Call" Press Release issued. "125 Prominent Citizen
Leaders from Around the World Launch “Bali Call” for
Parallel Negotiations for Global Economic and Energy Transition" Dec 3, 2007 IFG Program
Director Victor Menotti on KQED - NPR radio show, Forum
with Michael Krasny, Monday, December 3rd at 9 AM, discussing
the U.N. Climate Convention in Bali, and IFG/IPS participation
at the event. (An audio archive of the show is located at the
bottom of the page in the forum archives, 'Week of Dec 2, 2007'
- titled,
"Bali Conference on Climate Change".) |
