Photo credit: america.gov

The 15th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen, which many have said was our last chance to take action against “the greatest threat the world has ever faced”, ended in a failure.

For over 15 years delegates and politicians from around the world have discussed, debated and negotiated the questions of dealing with manmade climate change in various COP (Conference of the Parties) summits. So why haven’t they made any real progress yet?

That is a big question that covers a whole range of topics and issues that I won’t go into. Instead I will try to focus on the actual politics and tactics used at the COP summits. I will try to see if uneven development and inequality plays any part in how the actual negotiations plays out, how the delegates attending perceive climate justice and fairness, and if all this combined somehow sabotages the efforts to secure a climate deal.

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Photo credit: adopt a negotiator

Here are some of the biggest and most interesting news today related to the ongoing COP15 climate conference in Copenhagen:

A draft text for a potential final agreement in Copenhagen was leaked today to the Guardian. The “Danish text” has made the developing countries “furious” as the draft agreement would give even more powers to the rich nations, weakening UN’s future role as well as abandon the Kyoto protocol. Some say this shows the true agenda in Copenhagen, others believe the draft is unofficial and may have changed a lot since its first creation.

The Environmental Protection Agency in the USA has declared that carbon dioxide is a public danger. This would make it possible for Barack Obama to impose his proposed emissions cuts without an agreement in the sceptic U.S. Senate. A report released today by the Center for Biological Diversity claims that Obama now has the clear legal authority to make a binding commitment for greenhouse gas reductions in Copenhagen without waiting for Congress.

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Foreign Secretary in the UK, David Miliband, doesn’t seem to have much hope on the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference (Cop15) this December in Copenhagen, Denmark. Miliband even warns that the climate talks are in “real danger” of failing, the Independent reports:

“The deal the world needs in Copenhagen is now in the balance,” he said.

“There’s a real danger the talks scheduled for December will not reach a positive outcome, and an equal danger in the run-up to Copenhagen that people don’t wake up to the danger of failure until it’s too late.”

Miliband put the blame on “the complexity of the issue”, the economic recession as well as “suspicion” between the North and the South. In light of a diplomatic pr tour around Europe “to raise the issue of climate change” Miliband warned that if the world failed to come up with an agreement to cut emissions global temperatures will increase with 4C.

“This would lead to large scale migration as parts of the world disappeared under rising seas, threaten infrastructure as extreme weather events became more common, and put pressure on natural resources such as water – all of which could have serious impacts on peace and security across the world.”

What do you think about the upcoming Climate Change Conference this December – the last chance we have to take action against “the greatest threat the world has ever faced”? Will it be a success or a failure? What are your hopes and expectations? Please share your thoughts and ideas by voting in the poll below and/or making a comment.

Australia has had a notorious history of imposing invasion, occupation, holocaust and genocide on Indigenous peoples that continues to this day. However with the support of 90% of the Australian people, successive pro-coal Australian Governments have effectively committed to inaction on its world leading per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution and hence to Climate Genocide of the Developing World.

White Australia has an appalling secret genocide history that falls into 3 phases, specifically:

(1) 1788-1901, as a genocidal British colony involved in the Aboriginal Genocide (in which the Indigenous or Aboriginal population fell from 1 million to 0.1 million) and in genocidal British colonial atrocities (notably in the Sudan, India, South Africa, China, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands);

(2) 1901-2001, as a UK- and then US-linked independent nation involved in continuing Aboriginal Genocide (by occasional massacres, deprivation, social exclusion and forced removal of Indigenous children from their mothers) and with genocidal, civilian targetting, UK and US imperial atrocities in Europe and in nearly every Asian country – Australia participated in WW1 (invading or bombing numerous countries) , invasion of Russia, WW2 (invading or bombing numerous countries), and military actions against Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Iraq ); and

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George Monbiot, Europe’s leading green commentator, gives his rather negative opinion about the British and G8 climate strategy which he says “just doesn’t add up”. Monbiot argues that the British climate plan, which the G8 pretty much adopted as its own, is a “mockery” and that it is “very unlikely” to stop a two degrees increase in global temperatures.

“According to one person who has read the drafts, the new policies will include buying up to 50% of the reduction from abroad. If this is true, it means that the UK will not cut its greenhouse gases by 80% by 2050, as the government promised. It means it will cut them by 40%. Offsetting half our emissions (which means paying other countries to cut them on our behalf) makes a mockery of the government’s climate change programme.”

Monbiot writes that “if global justice means anything”, the rich West must of course make deeper cuts than the poorer developing countries. “We have the most to cut and can best afford to forgo opportunities for development”, Monbiot writes on the Guardian.

“Carbon offsetting makes sense if you are seeking a global cut of 5% between now and for ever. It is the cheapest and quickest way of achieving an insignificant reduction. But as soon as you seek substantial cuts, it becomes an unfair, impossible nonsense, the equivalent of pulling yourself off the ground by your whiskers. Yes, let us help poorer nations to reduce deforestation and clean up pollution. But let us not pretend that it lets us off the hook.”

It is, like always, worth a read: The rich can relax. We just need the poor world to cut emissions. By 125%

Photo credit: Hipnos

I often hear people saying that overpopulation is the main problem to our environmental and ecological problems. Some people even claim that it’s responsible for global warming. I also agreed with this idea before. But after reading more about the subject over the years I have changed my mind.

The rich countries in the “North”, i.e. the West, have a “rapidly decreasing” population which is “expected to decline over the next forty years.” Developing countries such as India, China and most of Africa on the other hand is where we will see future population numbers increasing.

And yes. It seems so easy to blame countries with an overwhelming rising population for being responsible for wrecking our planet, climate and environment. Because surely more people must mean more pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Right?

Not really. The West is responsible for about 80% of the worlds CO2 increase. An average person living in Great Britain will in only 11 days emit as much CO2 as an average person in Bangladesh will during a whole year. And just a single power plant in West Yorkshire in Great Britain will produce more CO2 every year than all the 139 million people combined living in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique.

As Fred Pearce from the Yale Environment 360 blog notes, only a small portion of the world’s people are using most of the planets resources as well as producing the most of the greenhouse gases. And those are living in the West:

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What is equality and development? And what kind of influence has the environment on both of these relations? For me, environmentalism has always been about caring about the well-state and equality of everyone and everything. Al Gore said, during the annual World Economic Forum Meeting in 2008, that you can’t solve climate change or poverty in the developing world “without dealing with the other”:

“Earlier this year, Bono and I spoke about the intersection between the extreme poverty in the developing world – especially in Africa – and the climate crisis. It is impossible to solve one of these issues without dealing with the other (Gore, 2008)”.

So if we are to solve the equality in the world, our uneven development and environmental problems we just can’t work on one of them. They are all connected and thus we have to deal with all of them at once.

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