29 novembre, 2011

First day in Durban

I arrived yesterday in Durban, South Africa, for the seventeenth conference of parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, aka COP17. This is my first COP, and WOW what an experience !

The thing about COPs, as I understand them, is that basically noting happens in terms of pure negotiating. I mean, obviously, there are a lot of meetings and sessions of the various tracks but they are astonishingly boring.Declarations from parties are a mix of legalistic and technical jargon and political declarations of intent. No, what makes a COP so special is the whirlwind of side events, conferences, fora that take place around the formal UNFCCC process. All the best experts from academia, think tanks, NGOs are discussing, giving public presentations, circulating reports etc. In short, there is a tremendous amount of intellectual activity happening from dawn to dust in Durban. For instance, only today I had a very interesting discussion with a Chinese man from a very famous university in Beijing on French and Chinese nuclear porgrammes, and the EPR technology. Then, I went to a side event on climate change in Mexico in which IPCC's Dr Pachauri gave a very interesting presentation. 

Of course, all of this will not lead to a substantial international agreement on climate change, but it clearly demonstrates that there is a growing interest on these issues and that some of the best brains in the world are thinking about ways to tackle this issue. This, for once, is encouraging. But it should not lead us to forget that international climate negotiations are in a dangerous phase, ever since the COP15 disaster. It is becoming increasingly clear that the Kyoto Protocol, the only international legally-binding agreement that includes quantified emissions reduction targets, will have trouble surviving the bitter rivalry between energy-hungry BASIC countries and the politically-malfunctioning USA (and the naked blue helmets that have become the EU). All of this while the science is becoming increasingly clear on the fact that all hell is going to break loose if nothing is done at he international level to mitigate climate change.

Anyway, I had an exhausting but amazing first day at the COP. By the way, I'm there to conduct a survey on the international perception of climate change science. If you're from a BASIC country or France or the USA, take a minute to fill it, you'll see that's interesting stuff : www.nomadeis.com/climate-survey




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