Dex Torricke-Barton, For The Straits Times 18 Dec 09;
THE United Nations Climate Change Conference may technically succeed by the end of this week. Today - or more likely, after a theatrical all-night session lasting well into tomorrow - officials representing 192 countries will probably put pen to paper, inking a new agreement calling for reductions in global carbon emissions.
But even if the delegates achieve this outcome, it is likely that there will be little to cheer about. As of today, most observers are deeply pessimistic that a new agreement will prove substantive.
This week, a long-feared, seemingly intractable stand-off came to the fore between major industrialised economies and poorer developing nations. The sticking point was who will bear the financial burden for stopping CO2 emissions.
With increasingly fraught exchanges between the American and Chinese delegations, and African delegates briefly storming out of the summit, a new draft text released on Tuesday was stripped of any concrete or binding emissions targets, let alone a firm date by which emissions should peak.
Granted, delegates may still pull a rabbit out of the hat. If United States President Barack Obama arrives in Copenhagen armed with a more serious offer than his initial 17 per cent emissions reduction target, he may just be able to twist the arms of the Chinese and Indian leaders, particularly if his willingness to bargain also leads to another dramatic concession by his European Union partners.
The shape of a new financing mechanism could conceivably be bolted together, to be spelt out more fully after the summit. And if the thorny question of whether to ditch the Kyoto Treaty or start afresh with a new global platform could be answered, one of the main obstacles to an agreement would be removed.
But as time ebbs away, and the mood grows increasingly grim, some world leaders are changing their plans so as to avoid the summit, and the conference president Connie Hedegaard has resigned. The moment for the world to come together appears to be receding.
How did we come to this? And where do we go from here?
Whatever the criticism that is levelled against Copenhagen, one thing is clear - the science underpinning climate change is not on trial. Climate change sceptics have had a field day in recent weeks, first over the leaked e-mail messages from the Climatic Research Unit at Britain's University of East Anglia apparently showing environmental data being falsified, and then over Mr Al Gore's unlikely claim that the North Pole could be entirely ice-free within five years.
But the former US vice-president was right to state that the hysterical denunciations of conservatives are really just 'a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing'. While some will claim that the failure of Copenhagen reveals a fracturing of the scientific consensus and a rejection of the established data, such claims can be readily dismissed. This is not why the negotiations will have failed.
But another complaint that is often made by the sceptics - that the climate change lobby is arrogant and disconnected from the concerns of ordinary people - might just speak to the underlying reason for Copenhagen's failure.
Over the last decade, the supporters of international climate change legislation have increasingly taken the support of the public for granted. Far too little effort has been made to build mainstream coalitions in favour of reasonable and coherent climate change solutions that both address the legitimate concerns about the economic costs of transitioning to cleaner sources of energy and prevent the climate change agenda from becoming a front for a host of disconnected concerns, ranging from veganism to the rights of indigenous peoples.
The latter was supported in the context of Copenhagen by celebrity eco-warrior George Monbiot, who wrote in The Guardian, 'This is a battle to redefine humanity'.
No, it is not. It is a battle to get 192 governments to put some effort into specific scientific innovations and more robust development regimes.
Perhaps because that is what international climate change action ultimately comes down to, the green lobby did not really feel the need to get ordinary people interested in Copenhagen, or to frame the search for a global agreement as anything more than a bureaucratic exercise.
This week at Copenhagen, the eyes of the international media might have been watching, and many people might have been dimly aware that big things were afoot. But there was never any more than a fraction of the public pressure or incentive that could have been brought to bear on the diplomats to hammer out an agreement.
The prescription for success is simple. The green movement must begin its work anew. It must have not only good science, but also good communication. It is that which will make for a force for change. Anything else is just so much hot air.
The writer is a consultant for Global Expert Finder, a project of the UN Alliance of Civilisations.
