01 décembre, 2011

COP17 - day 3

I am writing from the blogger's loft at COP17 Durban (and I am pretty sure I'm the only one blogging in here). I've been wondering what a COP looked like before laptops became cheap and before people from  grassroot Nepalese NGOs started live blogging on their ipads. People probably interacted more (not sure how this would be possible, I have the feeling that I spend my day talking to people), but the atmosphere was also probably less frantic and therefore less interesting.

So what's going on in terms of negotiations ? Well, to be honest, I don't really know. I've been busy conducting my survey and attending various fascinating side events (more on that in this article), and I have not paid sufficient attention to the formal negotiating process. What I know so far : 
  • COP18 will be held in Qatar,
  • Canada is considering pulling out of Kyoto, which is significantly harming the talks and jeopardizing the chances to get a meaningful agreement. Japan is apparently going to do the same.
  • African countries are once again sidelined even though they already are at the forefront of climate vulnerability and impacts.
  • The US wants to reopen the text on the Green Climate Fund, which would be a disaster considering that COP17 was supposed to operationalize the Fund, and not renegociate its very existence.
If I had to summarize from the very partial intel I have, things are not going well.

On the sidelines of the negotiations, things are pretty great ! As I was saying two days ago after my first day at the COP, the intelelctual frezny going on in this place is incredible. I attended today the Climate Communications Day, where people discussed how to effectively convey messages about climate change in the media or otherwise to a wide variety of audiences. I was particularly interested by two sessions in this seminar. The first was a panel of religious leaders discussing the link between religion and environmental protection. I am not a religious man, but I think that religion can be a very powerful agent of change or at least evolution. I wasn't expecting to see religious leaders so committed to the necessity of protecting the environment. I had a vision of the Judean-Christian paradigm being partly responsible for the disconnection between Man and Nature. Well, according to the Rabbi present there, this stems from a complete misunderstanding of the Scriptures, and especially Genesis, because Man is given dominion over Earth not as a master but as an administrator. The Anglican priest went on to say that it was an "extreme heresy" to preach against environmental protection because it is heretic to believe that Man is allowed to destroy God's creation. This might be standard speech from religious people, but I was not expecting that.

Another very interesting presentation came from Oxford's James Painter. He studied the reporting of climate change scepticism in the media of 6 countries (study here). Basically, the US and the UK have had a massive amount of scepticism reported in the press, and in some newspapers, reporting was not even remotely balanced (hello WSJ). It'd be too long to discuss all the finding, but it clearly demonstrates that the media have had a massive influence in the rise of climate scepticism.

The best thing about the COP is that, when you think your day is over, and are preparing to go back to your hotel, well you realize it ain't. For instance, by walking around the NGO booths I learnt that : organic cotton gron in California requires 60% more water than regular cotton. So all this talka bout organic clothing may well be utter bullshit. You have to know where the cotton comes from, and how it actually is cultivated. 

What keeps fascinating me is the amount of motivation and goodwill that you find in this place. I was expecting to find people coming to the COP only to network and/or sign contracts. There's a lot of that of course, but seriously, people here want to change things. Their intent is good, and they are seriously doing all they can to make a positive contribution to the fight against climate change. In terms of efficiency, it's not good, but there's definitely a base on which to build a strong international movement. And these guys seem to be the only ones to realize how urgent it is to act on the issue of climate change. One thing is sure though, negotiators don't.


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