The 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the UNFCCC arrived pregnant with anticipation for the conclusion of a much needed and long awaited binding agreement to address the global problem of Climate Change following a road-map that had been put together two years before in Bali. COP15 left us with an abortion, followed by a last minute emergency Caesarean section, a dying UN mother and an illegitimate child that is expected to save the world but will either die prematurely or become an unwanted orphan in a world driven by greed and apathy.I had the audacity to invent a new word for the climate change dictionary, which I also posted to Twitter: Cockenhaven (vb.) To cock up the climate change talks and then find a safe haven to hide from taking responsibility for having done so #cop15. There was no response, but that's no surprise because everyone was still plugged into real time reporting, digesting the first of the flowery speeches (although some spoke from the heart - Lula da Silva/Brasil) and the #cop15 tag was racking up about 50 tweets a minute - too fast to actually keep up with everyone's sentiments and thoughts. A friend of mine was calling COP15 a joke: "JOK15 in JOKENHAGEN"
The world expected an agreement, and a clear consolidated commitment to a solution. It didn't happen. COP15 was a resounding failure. The ramifications are pretty clear. I started joining the dots and scetched the first strokes into my facebook status on the evening of 18 Dec: COP15 has failed. International cooperation has once again failed (last time it was the WTO). WTO & Kyoto are now two monuments in history signaling the need for structural change.
At last the world is waking up to the fact that it is economics that drives climate change. A BBC article claimed: "Despite many expressions of concern about projections of climate change, finance has emerged as an issue more likely to make or break a deal than emission pledges."
The real underlying issues are poverty, inequality and a capitalist system that exploits unfairly and leaves a trail of destruction in it's wake. I believe that the bigger the need for change the more traumatic it will be when it comes, and that's bad news for our climate change future.
The blamestorming has begun. It's inevitable when people who are in positions of authority have a mandate and a moral responsibility to deliver on their commitment to finalise a deal and they fail to do so. Not only are the UK and China pointing fingers at each other but the process and procedures involved in the negotiations are also being blamed. Lots of people are playing the Blame Game.
One analyst described Obama's efforts as follows: "Obama decided a comprehensive treaty was a bridge too far. And he pulled off a deft political maneuver. He circumvented the UN process (ticking off less powerful nations), screwed his European allies (by cutting them out of the real talks), and reached out to his top opponent in the negotiations: China." One of the people I was following on Twitter said "This is the end of the UN as we know it".
But the "deal" is a tepid one to say the least. The details are nebulous. Reports state that some form of progress has been achieved: the US has "roped China and other major developing nations into a system in which they're going to have to commit to some form of emissions limits (even if those obligations are not binding under international law)." This is quite amorphous fluffy stuff, a bit like snow that melts after a few days, weeks or months. It lacks the commitment we expected to see and is not even very clear or specific. Have these people never heard of SMART goals?
This is not a "deal". It's more of a take-away food wrapper dripping in the oily residue of something that tasted good at the time but wasn't actually good for our health in the long run. There's also the guilty new year's resolution to go back to gym for some more exercise in Mexico City at COP16.
Two day before the end of the conference a report was saying: 'Obama and other world leaders recently said they will reach a "politically binding agreement" in Copenhagen, which is fancy diplomatic speak for, “We’ll hunker down in our Danish study hall and bang out as much homework as we can, but there’s no way we’re getting this project turned in before next semester.”'
There is no doubt in my mind that a fundamentally different paradigm is required. Einstein said something about having to shift paradigm gears when trying to solve a problem. Something like this (although few of his quotes are captured exactly word for word): 'We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.'
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