December 1, 2006

U. N. Nairobi Climate Conference After Show Comments

by Holger J. Thuss

COP/MOP 12, the biggest climate jamboree of the year, is over. Time to resume the two weeks of international talks in Kenya's capital Nairobi aimed at "avoiding dangerous human influence on the earth's climate", as New York Times commentator Andrew C. Revkin puts it. His conclusion: nothing particular has been achieved. In this, he was seconded by The Guardian's Xan Rice, who also reported that green activists "expressed anger last night after a UN climate change conference in Nairobi seemed to be about to end without major breakthroughs."

Ronald Bailey of Reason Online www.reason.com/news/show/116805.html believes that nothing much (good or bad ) was accomplished at the 12th Conference of the Parties (COP-12) of the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) chiefly because most other countries are waiting for the United States. Unless the US jumps on the global warming bandwagon, the Kyoto Protocol signatories will do little more on the issue. In particular, the principal thing other nations are waiting for is the end of President Bush's Administration in January, 2009.

However, he also realized that at least this time the absence of substantial results is not the fault of the US, since its influence on e.g. the Chinese or the Indian government is very limited. In particular, for the governments of developing nations, eradicating poverty is the priority. For them, climate politics is not so much about "what can we do to pursue development under the constraints imposed by climate change", but about "what can we do to address climate change under the constraints of the need for development and poverty eradication".

It wasn't Greenpeace's and the WWF's fault, as their reports that climate change will caused the disappearance of alpine glaciers (Greenpeace) and birds (WWF) represent a maximum of ignorance and alarmism. They combined "Large-scale bird extinctions may occur sooner than we thought" and, "the glaciers are literally melting before our very eyes" with a minimum of evidence, though perfect timing. That's how they stampede blissfully ignorant politicians in their direction. My favorite sentence was, "Island and mountain birds may simply have nowhere to go."

The lack of a productive outcome was certainly not the fault of the U.N. During the conference they even distributed a children's book, Tore and the Town on Thin Ice, the tale of a fictional young Arctic villager who becomes aware of global warming when his dogsled crashes through thinning ice. In his dreams the sea spirit "Sedna" visits him and tells him that he is her ally in helping the world heal. He is also visited by animals that each tell the story of their unique suffering.

U.S. Senator James Inhofe, the Senate's most vocal global warming skeptic, dismissed the climate change meeting as a "brainwashing" session. He emphasized that the book relies on disputed science. He said, "This is paid for by the United Nations and it's brainwashing little kids".

The conference's lack of results appears to be due to its reliance on sleight-of-hand tactics. "We remind the EU of its self-proclaimed leadership, which it is not living up to, unfortunately," said Stephan Singer, WWF's policy officer for Europe. "What we have seen so far unfortunately is a very lukewarm and hesitant EU." His view was shared by other environmentalists: "The EU's murky position is causing confusion and mistrust," said Steve Sawyer of Greenpeace International.

Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel both know very well that imposing carbon dioxide emission limits without somehow including all the big emitters could unravel the painful progress the world has made toward freer trade. Less trade simply costs jobs at home and abroad. Distributing emission certificates nearly free doesn't seem to be a very serious way to curb emission either.

Yet this is the common practice for most EU members. That's why EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas is so furious with both the British and German national allocation plans for the EU emission trading scheme. With so little real commitment from EU nations, it is not at all surprising that the Nairobi conference could not agree on greenhouse gas emissions limits for the industrialized country signatories of the Kyoto Protocol for the period after 2012.

Of course, the delegates also adopted a few proposals. For example, the plenary session voted to launch a small "adaptation fund" worth three million dollars designed to help poor countries adapt to climate change. The plenary session also set a deadline of 2008 to finish a review of the Kyoto Protocol's effectiveness which could be important for future negotiations. This deadline coincides with the end of the Bush Administration. The conference even decided to "consider next year" a Russian proposal aimed at allowing countries, "to take on emission com-mitments voluntarily."

The delegates also agreed on what they call a "dialogue." "So for the last two days, environment ministers from around the globe have been listening to and discussing presentations from various experts on development and on applying markets to climate change" reports Ronald Bailey from Nairobi. According to Howard Bamsey, the dialogue's cofacilitator at a UNFCCC secretariat the "purpose of the dialogue is to take people out of the tensions and concerns of negotiations and allow them to rethink possibilities."

Thus, it was decided that developing nations won't be "pressed" immediately to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Finally, the important thing (perhaps most important for climate conference tourists) had to be the vote on where next year's COP-13 meeting will be held. They chose Bali, a popular tourist destination in Indonesia. Perhaps that is why the EU enthusiastically welcomed the "solid results of the Nairobi world climate conference". Or in the words of EU-delegation leader Jan-Erik Enestam, "The European Union has achieved all its main priorities and continues to lead the battle against climate change."

Even if you believe the science is settled (which is certainly not the case) and that something must be done about the global climate, the procedures and results of the Nairobi conference won't boost your confidence in the intellectual and political skills of the global climate change bureaucracy and industry. It seems it is be not very efficient to have 6000 people meet to create a three million dollar fund. In this even Greenpeace climate expert (and self-appointed CFACT critic) Karsten Smid will find common ground with Senator Inhofe.