This isn’t the most immediate reaction to Copenhagen, but it was mostly written in direct reaction to the news coming out of the conclusion of the conference; it’s just taken a little while for me to have the time to post.

All throughout the Copenhagen Conference, I was trying to remind myself that a week or two before the whole thing started I answered a question in my economics class on whether anything seriously significant and actually useful would come from the Conference with a resolute “not a chance”. I was trying to remind myself of this to keep from getting my hopes up: Obamaesque rhetoric and the occasional positive news story from the Danish capital are too easy to grasp on when you think the need for a strong and binding agreement is as important as I think it is.

I’m glad I did this, because my conclusion after the leak of the ‘Danish text’ (though I can hardly claim the credit for this conclusion, I almost certainly copied it off some commentator in a newspaper or blog) that we’d mess around this time and procrastinate the decision to a comfortingly distant point—and one which naturally had nothing to do with four or five year electoral cycles—, seems to be fairly accurate. When I wrote the bulk of this post, I hadn’t had much time to digest the news from the COP15 (I was having an adventure by choosing the very best day to take the train from the Netherlands to Edinburgh), but I did see the following which I quote from the BBC News web-site,

“However, he added that the deal was not enough to prevent dangerous climate change in the future – but nonetheless was an important first move.”

Bali was the “important first move”; the EU’s Energy and Climate Package was preparatory legislation; Barcelona was the end stages of negotiation! Right now, all I can see is that when we finally get ‘round to having another set of negotiations for proper and legally-binding action to tackle climate change, we’ll come out of it saying that we have laid the groundwork for co-operation and further discussion.

If we talk because that is what is easy, then we are cowards.

I’m being cynical about human nature, but are we seriously going to wait until things get really bad before we even start to do anything to fix what is one of, if not the, biggest problem facing humanity right now? It’s almost enough to make me want to turn to revolutionary socialism just so that I have a political black hole to throw all my energy into; and anyone who knows me, knows that if something is driving me to the socialists, it must be getting to me a fair bit!

You know that you’re close to hurting powerful and not completely innocent interests when something that should otherwise be honest, scientific, and above board, takes on an air of sleaze. I am of course referring to the leaked emails I covered on this blog the other day, and the leaked draft ‘agreement’ from the Copenhagen Conference, aka the “Danish text”.

I had a read of the text (linked to below), and while I’m not certain where The Guardian got some of its claims from—clearly my abilities in reading international legal texts are not up to scratch, an especially fun thing to learn when I have a moot European Court of Justice on Friday—, the document is very far from what I would have hoped for from the Conference.

Dealing with just a couple of specific points: first, the document repeatedly uses the phrase, “poorest and most vulnerable countries”; what does this mean? It seems like either a recognition that those who will be hit hardest by climate change will be in the “poorest and most vulnerable countries”, and so deserve urgent and special assistance in their efforts at adaptation and mitigation; or alternatively, and rather more cynically, it could be a way for developed nations—foreseeing the inevitability of their assisting developing states—to keep the number of countries to which assistance must be afforded, to the bare minimum. Say I’m cynical about this if you want; I’ll explain why in my next post, though you can probably already guess.

The second thing I wanted to specifically pick out just now was the means by which this draft text came to light. The document wasn’t released into the open by its authors, it was leaked by someone. How can there be any form of trust between developed and developing nations at the Conference, if one side goes off to secretly write a draft text that it will try to force through with a smile from Obama and, no doubt, a generous helping of ‘diplomacy’ from all in “the circle of commitment” as The Guardian reports the authors are apparently called? As I recall the President of Brazil repeatedly stating in a report on climate change from sometime around 2004, and I paraphrase slightly here, “a tonne of carbon emitted in Bogota has the same impact as a tonne of carbon emitted in Chicago”. Yes, developed and developing countries will feel climate change in different ways, and both have different capacities for mitigation and adaptation; developed and developing countries have to meet as close to being equals as they can though: we’re all in this together.

I have a feeling I’ll be returning to the “Danish text” fairly soon.

Link to the Danish text

If the hacking of the University of East Anglia’s email system proves anything, it’s that public opinion, or at least the media’s opinion, is not ‘there’ yet, in terms of recognition of the reality and scientific basis of climate change.

I’m reminded of a quote from The West Wing, “you can’t sell science”. The allegations made against the scientists who sent the hacked emails seem to be quite inflated; the data gathered has been confirmed independently, several times, and at other institutions. This doesn’t placate angry climate sceptics though. Their stance is understandable, as are the reasons for public sympathy with their views: people don’t like change, especially if that change involves short-term pain, or the perception of it.

In my last post I suggested that the Copenhagen conference is a step towards a truly serious approach to tackling climate change, with more progress needed; I think the same goes for public opinion: the situation is getting better. The BBC published a poll today showing that public consideration of climate change as being “very serious” has risen from 44% in 1998, to an average of 64% now. The question is how long it will take for this to really filter through to political and business leaders?

I had mixed feelings when I watched the opening of the Copenhagen conference—dramatically broadcast in a ‘we interrupt normal programming’ format on BBC World News, cutting off a Turkish diplomat mid-sentence on HARDtalk. With a lack of any desire for a legally binding treaty to replace Kyoto in 2012, it is tempting to write off Copenhagen as a load of hot-air, but I think it still might serve some purpose. If an agreement on the rôle of developed and developing states in tackling climate change can be reached, then at the very least, we will be on the right road, and ready to take more urgent action once a few countries cease to exist, and the harsher effects begin to be felt.

It’s something, albeit not much, that we are where we are now; we are, after all, trying to change a fundamental aspect of modern global society, and people rarely like change.

I had a lecture today from the former foreign minister of the Netherlands, Bernard Bot. He’s a Christian democrat, so obviously to the centre-right of politics, and far from an insignificant figure. He was talking on the topic of the widening and deepening of Europe, but touched on energy policy, especially regarding our relations with our eastern neighbours. He seemed genuinely convinced that it won’t be possible to expand renewable generating capacity to a significant level; in short, he seemed to advocate the continued development of oil, gas, and nuclear generating capacity.

Being someone who is immersed in politics, I naturally have good friends in most parties across the political spectrum, and when it comes to matters such as this, they all seem—much as I am—firm in their convictions on renewables and energy policy, with the general consensus being that it isn’t enough and we need to develop nuclear and strengthen links to oil and gas producing regions (ie. Russia). Of course, greens can come up with a dozen arguments as to why this is the wrong approach, but seeing as we like to believe our views are firmly rooted in fact and the rigours of science, what possesses those of other political colours to hold firm to the views they advocate? More importantly, what does this mean for the chances of being able to tackle energy supply and demand issues, and of course, climate change? Unfortunately this question was a little too off topic for me to ask in the Q&A session at the end of his lecture, but it’d be interesting to hear if anyone has any thoughts on the matter.

Just listening to the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 which has a piece on geoengineering to tackle climate change, particularly that there is a report being produced into different technologies practicality. Now, if these technologies can work, then fantastic; go ahead and implement some of them.

The problem is, I don’t have enough faith in human nature. If people see that there is this wonder-technology which can pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, then why on earth are they going to be bothered to reduce emissions of it in the first place? As ever, the challenge of communicating the need for an array of solutions will probably be one of the harder things to do.

“Fix both!” is what I found myself yelling at the radio this morning, and it certainly was a cheerful piece for an environmentalist to wake up to: the One Planet programme on the BBC World Service had a piece on the economy vs. the environment, complete with vox pops from the streets of Detroit and Monrovia showing an unsurprising preference for more jobs, and the news that India had announced that it would be focussing on economic growth instead of committing to cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

I got into the green movement through a campaign on poverty in the developing world, so it always baffles me when people see poverty and the environment as mutually exclusive policy areas. The Green New Deal—our version, the UN’s version, or Obama’s version; take your pick—is a great example of how ideas straight from the green movement can provide practical solutions to complex inter-linked policy areas (by the way, can you tell I’ve just done a degree in politics?). But what chance is there of the Indian government realising that?