Climb down on climate

AS THE bard said famously, all is well that ends well. So with the UN Climate Change conference in Bali that saw unanimity at the end of heated debates lasting the past few days. In what is seen as a happy finish to the deliberations, the meeting has adopted a plan for the framing of a new global warming pact in two years’ time. This unanimity would not have been possible had the US not effected a climb down from its tough postures, and joined Europe and the developing world, to further the cause of environment and humanity. Now, the way is clear for negotiations leading to the introduction of a new global agreement on climate, well in time to act as a replacement for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, that expires in 2012. It will chart out a course for the humanity to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, a process that is blamed for global warming. Noteworthy, however, are the points that the Bali Roadmap does not commit nations to specific actions against global warming; and that, its brief, as is reported, is “limited to setting an agenda and schedule for negotiators to find ways to reduce pollution and help poor countries adapt to environmental changes by speeding up the transfer of technology and financial assistance”. The fears are for real. As environmental scientists warn, the rise in global temperatures is of awesome proportions, leading to the melting of the ice in the Arctic, evidence of which is already before us, leading to floods, rising of sea levels, submergence of inhabited and scenic islands like Bali, eruption of storms, as also conditions of drought... and what not! The studies in this context are emphatic: that, if allowed to go on without checks, this will ultimately lead to the end of the humanity. Reason why, the humanity as a whole, cutting across nations and continents, must stand up and work hard to stem the tide. Divided we stand, united we fall.
Without doubt, as the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon observed at the conclusion of discussions at Bali, “This is the beginning, not the end”. It must be noted that the UN chief has conducted himself with tact and dignity, contributing much to the successful outcome of the meet. He stood between the clashing sides — Europe and developing nations, on one side; and America on the other — and moderated discussions with valuable inputs or assessments that helped both sides see reason. It is not America that won at this UN meet; it is the world and its denizens. This, also due to the sane stands taken by Ban at crucial times to facilitate a positive outcome, even at the risk of raising suspicions he was pro-US. With Ban at the helm of the UN, and a possible transfer of power in the US to a more climate-friendly regime by the beginning of 2009, good times are hopefully ahead for those championing the cause of environment; or, rather, promoting the cause of the humanity.
 

Bali road map

THE world now has another Road Map. It must be hoped that the “Bali Road Map” to agreement on limiting climate change fares better than the Middle East Road Map on bringing peace and justice to the Palestinians. The common destructive denominator to both road maps is Washington, which has successfully blocked real progress on both issues. But Friday night in Bali, when it was faced with the anger of virtually every other UN Climate Change Conference delegation in a full plenary session, Washington finally backed down. The Americans had been insisting on firm commitments on carbon emission control from the developing countries before they themselves would enter into a process that would at last bind the United States to similar undertakings. Until the very last minute, it looked as if Washington was going to stay out of any final Bali agreement, which would have produced another Kyoto-type half-deal that achieved little except more rhetoric and hot air. And hot air is what the climate deal campaigners are seeking to control. The compromise that brought the Americans on board was that no firm emissions targets would be set at Bali but that in the coming two years, intense negotiations would fix such goals, which would be embodied in a binding international agreement in Copenhagen in 2009.
There will be those who will wonder why another 24 months of uncontrolled carbon emissions should be permitted when rising sea levels are already threatening the physical existence of some low lying Pacific Island states, if not by inundation, then by the “salinification” of their water tables. Nor are emissions likely to be cut very quickly thereafter. There will be rows and cheating and defiance as the final deal is implemented and policed. But politics, especially on a global scale like this, is always the art of the possible. At least one positive measure emerged in the agreement that wealthy countries should pay poorer countries to protect their tropical forests. The mechanism has yet to be worked out but it seems clear that states with tropical woodland need to earn more from not cutting them down than would from doing so. This includes the economic cost of farmland that will no longer be cleared, as well as the earnings from timber. The Indonesians are to be congratulated for the way they ran the Bali conference. It now seems feasible that when the world meets again on Nov. 30, 2009 in the Danish capital there will be a pretty clear deal on the table, to which everyone, including the United States, will sign up. Indeed, it may be that by then a new Democrat president could have already seen through Washington’s ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. It is almost certain that by the next meeting there will be further compelling scientific evidence of climatic change and the extent to which man-made pollution is contributing. There may even be a new sense of urgency to signing the comprehensive worldwide deal, which George W. Bush, in the very first demonstration of his infinite capacity for error, scuttled in 2001.

—Arab News