Occupy Climate

One of the ruptures bubbling under the surface and threatening to tear negotiations apart every year at the climate talks is the divide between the have's and the have-nots.  In a formal way, this is one of the reasons why the biggest bloc of countries is the G77 and China representing about 130 countries falling into the broader UN category of "developing".  In many ways, this is simply a euphemism for "poor".  While individually the countries that make up the G77 (except perhaps China) have an equal voice in the UN process, they do not have the same sort of economic gravitas of countries like the United States, Germany, Japan, etc.  Speaking as a unified bloc ensures that they have some sort of coherence and influence beyond their GDP's.

In Durban, there have been some interesting challenges to the traditional north-south, rich-poor divide.  The BASIC countries (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) are a bloc of the largest economies of the developing world.  There have been rumblings that the normal unity that these countries share with the G77 is starting to fracture.  Because of their growing economic interests the BASIC countries seem to have a bit of an identity crisis. While they steadfastly hold to the position that the Annex I countries (the developed world) are historically responsible for the accumulation of Greenhouse Gasses in the atmosphere and therefore should be primarily responsible for funding any solution, they are also starting to realize the tangible benefits of becoming leading economic powers in their own right.  We now have rich, poor, and aspirational nations of the BASIC bloc. 

Many of these discussions come down to interpretations of fairness and justice. In many ways these same impulses are behind the Occupy movements that are occurring in various cities worldwide.  So it shouldn't be all that surprising perhaps that the two have been combined in Durban.  OccupyCOP17 has a presence outside the talks and is trying to link the broader Occupy movement more explicitly to the issue of using markets and the commodification of carbon to the processes of mass industrialization which generated this problem in the first place.With slogans like "keep the oil in the soil and the coal in the hole", OccupyCOP17 is another voice trying to maintain pressure on the industrialized countries to play fair. 


Carbon Markets: Trading with our Future from Occupy Cop17 on Vimeo.

Multilateralism and the UN: the Ghost of Copenhagen

Normally, today would be considered the one day during the two week period of negotiations where no formal business is conducted.  Normally, this would be an intermission where all parties involved would gather their collective breath for the final push expected to come next week for an agreement - whatever that agreement will look like.  So it was unusual and unexpected to wake up this morning and find a formal COP plenary scheduled for 11am. 

Repeating one of the themes of the discussions yesterday, one of the main issues the President of the negotiations addressed was the fact that there are to be no secret negotiations taking place in private that would bypass all the current discussions being held.  As she stated for at least the fourth time in 24 hours, "there is no hidden text and no secret negotiations".  The representative of the G77 (a group of developing countries) indicated that they will support the President in this process of negotiation as long as "there are no shadow ministerial process" taking place. 

Viewpoint of the Developing Countries

During my time in Copenhagen, I spoke to many delegates from developing country parties. The viewpoint from them is that the Developed country owes a debt to the developing country. They see any money from Copenhagen is part of a reparation and is not development or aid money. While the developed world is to blame for the situation that we find the globe in from the last 200 years of pollution, future growth in greenhouse gases will originate from the developing world. This issue has been the major fault line causing divisions and stopped major progress from happen in Copenhagen.