Bob Morris Takes on COP 11 (edition 4)

Bob COP 11 Dispatch #4 (Final)
Bob Morris, Montreal, Dec. 6, 2005

Sunday the hall was closed, but that doesn’t mean there was a break in the action. Climate Action Network (CAN), which is the alliance within which many, most or all of the world’s environmental non governmental organizations (ENGO’s) are working, had a planning meeting at the National Library that lasted long after closing (and my dinner) time. Mostly focused on 3.9 and Articles 9 and 10…oh, sorry, you don’t speak COP/MOP.

The main points we are going to continue to press are:

1. We want Kyoto Protocol with hard emission reduction targets extended past 2012 and expanded in terms of both provisions and participants.

2. We want clean development mechanisms (CDM’s) funded and extended beyond 2012 under Kyoto.

3. U. S. government is trying to kill Kyoto and they aren’t going to change their tune for at least three years. That is because they don’t want to have mandatory reductions in emissions until the oil companies have drained every possible ounce of profit.

4. We don’t want the rest of the world to be held hostage to the U. S. government pursuit of a fossil fuel friendly agenda.

On Monday I attended the presentation by the United Nations Environmental Programme Finance Initiative Climate Change Working Group (UNEP FI CCWG, I’m not kidding). This very accomplished panel comprised leading experts on international trade, economics, financial markets, banking and insurance industries who reported their findings on future costs, risks and opportunities of climate change, with recommendations for policy decisions under COP and COP/MOP.

(Clarification: The COP track refers to policies under the Council of Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. There are 160 signatories (give or take) including the U. S. and all are committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions but not to establishing and meeting binding targets or mandatory clean development mechanisms. The COP/MOP track refers to the Meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, negotiated under COP in 1997. 150 (or so) countries (not including the U. S.) have ratified this treaty, meaning the U. S. cannot participate in decision making or carbon market trading in the COP/MOP track. For those of us not making a life’s work of diplomatic esoterica, “Kyoto” and “COP/MOP track can be used interchangeably. All carbon market trading is done under Kyoto because trading requires binding emission levels.

Anyway, these UN financial wizards surveyed the top international financial trading, banking and insurance corporations and presented their findings to a packed room of very well dressed financial reporters, governmental representatives, business non governmental organizations (BINGO’s, I swear I’m not kidding), corporate observers and your humble ENGO. Astonishingly, sum of their recommendations was both in accord with the joint positions of CAN (remember, that’s us ENGO’s), but with real teeth. As an example, they called for strong governmental support of clean (non carbon emitting) energy sources and phasing out “conflicting” and “inconsistent” support of fossil fuels!!! When they were weakly challenged by a BINGO carbon apologist about the “uncertainty” and “risk” of moving to a clean energy economy, they roundly thrashed her by citing the much greater costs, risks and economic uncertainty of unabated emissions leading to catastrophic climate impacts as well as the missed opportunities for those countries (read U. S. and Australia here) who fail to provide for a rapid and well managed transition. In contrast, when I asked them if they had factored into their risk analysis the prospects of carbon emitters and facilitating governmental agencies being sued for the harm they have caused the health of people, economies and the biosphere, using the suits against the American tobacco companies as an analogy, the panel engaged in an excited discussion of the certainty of both private and public suits occurring on the basis of not only harm to the environment but also (and this seemed most alarming to the assembly) fiduciary negligence (i.e. shareholder and lender suits).

Later points, some of which I am not sure I understood, were introduced with “as noted by Mr. Bob from Sierra, U. S.”, and I even got passed a note by someone in the crowd. I felt like a pretty girl in a cowboy bar.

There are points that we will find objectionable in the CEO Briefing on the Future of Climate Policy, most notably their inclusion of “clean coal” and nuclear (despite the prohibitive cost) in a clean energy menu, but I think those can be dealt with later through aggressive carbon valuation and cost/benefit comparisons with energy efficiency, solar, wind and geothermal investments. In short, the U. S. government position does not represent the business community, except for the worst of the multinational oil corporations.

After the Financial Markets meeting I stopped at the in-house café for my afternoon latte. I became acquainted with two delegates from Angola, one of whom said, “Oh yes! I know Sierra Club. You helped me when I was in Washington to testify.” We then talked about the need to move forward with clean development mechanisms (CDM’s) after 2012 so they could get funding commitments from the developed countries and financial institutions. I think this makes me a lobbyist, since they were signaling a position different from their bloc, called “the G77 and China” and taking one favorable to our CAN position.

I left my Angolan friends to go to the Youth Caucus. I had been invited by some youth activists when I was discussing with them the need for some dramatic public action that demonstrated the point that the U. S. government position did not represent the interests of the American people or the desires of informed U. S. citizens. I had found my contemporaries uncomfortable about participating in actions sufficiently visual and dramatic to get major market media penetration, but I hoped the youth would be interested. The Caucus was well run, energetic, informed and collegial, with the only problem being that they are so smart and excited and have so much to say that they talk really fast and have to constantly remind each other to slow down so non native English speakers can keep up. They welcomed me despite my obvious lack of qualifications (i.e. youth) to be there and I got to talk with a few who agreed on the need and would pursue the idea.

I left the future, appropriately, in the youths’ capable hands to go to yet another meeting, this one a 30 minute briefing for U. S. ENGO’s by the U. S. negotiating team. The head negotiator, Mr. Harlen Watson, obviously didn’t want to actually brief us on the U. S. negotiating position, which we all knew was to wreck Kyoto, block any targets for emission reduction and delay any actions that would move money away from concentrated fossil fuel industries and towards more dispersed clean energy initiatives. He therefore just opened the panel to questions. Apparently at a planning meeting I had missed it was determined that the CAN chair would work through a pre selected panel of questioners, a reasonable strategy. While our execution of the questioning turned out to be somewhat disappointing, the performance of Mr. Watson and his three sycophants was infuriating.

Our panel of questioners turned out to be more preachers than prosecutors, not an uncommon fault among we who would save the world. When we did get in some substantive questions, however, Mr. Watson revealed that his position was that “there is currently no level of carbon saturation in the atmosphere that they would consider a problem” because “a lot more research needs to be done”. He further stated that there is “no clear evidence” that heightened carbon levels cause any extreme climate events,” again citing the need for more scientific study. Unfortunately we didn’t follow up by asking him why the NOAA budget to conduct those studies was drastically cut just two weeks previously. Mr. Watson also said that it wasn’t a problem that U. S. businesses couldn’t engage in the growing carbon trading markets because those businesses that “have subsidiaries overseas can participate,” a position that encourages U. S. businesses to move overseas.

This was the end of my short but busy week in Montreal. I leave with great respect for our friends in Sierra Club of Canada. They are organized, dedicated, and tenacious and they were gracious and helpful to me. I was similarly impressed with the Youth Caucus, which included numerous Sierra Student Coalition members from the U. S. Fred Hiatt is a wise and experienced mentor and would make an excellent chief negotiator for a future U. S. delegation.

The main lesson that I took from this is that Sierra Club is right on target with our new priority goal of building a new energy economy based on clean power and climate protection. The one factor that the world is counting on is for us to build a grassroots movement that will require the U. S. to become a leader in achieving this goal rather than an obstacle. I recommend we budget and raise funds to participate in future COP’s (including next year in Nairobi) and amplify our role representing U. S. grassroots. I also would recommend we acknowledge the complexity, importance and promise of the year round COP and COP/MOP processes, and their convergence with our stated top priority, by having one full time staff person dedicated and permanently assigned to enable, organize and amplify volunteer participation.