It was business at usual at the Copenhagen climate meet

Dec 22, 2009

OPIYO OLOYA<br><i>PERSPECTIVE OF A UGANDAN IN CANADA</i><br><br>The most depressing political trend was witnessed at Copenhagen last week where the world’s big and small nations gathered to hammer out an agreement to reduce carbon emissio

OPIYO OLOYA
PERSPECTIVE OF A UGANDAN IN CANADA

The most depressing political trend was witnessed at Copenhagen last week where the world’s big and small nations gathered to hammer out an agreement to reduce carbon emissions believed to cause climate change.

The sad part of the politics that played out at the summit can only be characterised as “dead signature politics”. Let me explain how this works using a hunting analogy. A hunt is called by the master of the hunt and everyone in the village shows up on the appointed day, spears in hand, looking ready to do some serious hunting. As the hunt gets underway, those slated to beat the bushes for game do so without actually getting into the bush. They shout and clap their hands rhythmically supposedly to scare the wild animals toward those with spears.

Meanwhile, those with spears are resting under the trees, waiting for the game that is not coming their way. At the end of the day, everyone goes home, satisfied that the hunt was good, but actually without anything to show for their day’s work. Sure they don’t have any meat, but then they also escaped being jabbed by sharp thorns, cut by razor-edged grass, and bitten by poisonous snakes hiding in the grass. It was a win-win for everyone.

At the summit in Copenhagen, the smaller nations came with moral persuasion to get big nations like America, China and India to do some serious work in reducing greenhouse emissions. They spoke eloquently about targets and goals. None spoke more eloquently than President Mohamed Nasheed of the Republic of Maldives in the Indian Ocean whose country is slowly sinking into the abyss due to rising ocean level. The ocean is rising because changing climate pattern appears to cause storm surges which in turn cause the ocean to swell. The president who has become a symbol of the fight against climate change had this to say:

“There are those who tell us that solving climate change is impossible. There are those who tell us taking radical action is too difficult. There are those who tell us to give up hope. Well, I am here to tell you that we refuse to give up hope. We refuse to be quiet.We refuse to believe that a better world isn’t possible.” His speech was greeted with a huge applause.

President Nasheed urged big nations to “give and take” and to reach tangible and concrete treaty. He spoke well, and everyone agreed he spoke well. But the big nations to whom he appealed were not really listening. They had other ideas. The big powers were on hand alright, the US, China, India, Canada, and so forth. But they were there to sign dead signatures that meant absolutely nothing or very little in the fight against global warming. They were there to protect their interests, to ensure that the other powers would not negotiate an agreement that could bind them to something they did not want in the first place.

China is not interested in reducing carbon emission because that would mean curtailing its phenomenal economic growth of the last decade. Despite President Obama’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions by a certain date, the US is not ready to move forward mainly because of its dysfunctional domestic politics. Anything proposed by Democrats is automatically shot down by the Republicans who are determined to see Obama remain president in name only. Obama, in other words, went to Copenhagen not to seek a binding treaty with other nations, just to show up to say, “Well, we were there.”

Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper did not even bother putting up a credible position on what Canada is willing to do to reduce carbon emissions.

Canada was voted worst country for grandstanding.

At the end, the world left Copenhagen the same way it had come, with nothing more than dead signatures that meant nothing in the fight against climate change. The sad reality though is that the big nations got what they wanted, which was to make sure nothing of substance was achieved. No targets were set, nothing that would bind them to curtailing emission.

It was business as usual, even as the world marched toward a definable, preventable and predictable disaster. Global warming may already be a disaster for some nations on earth, but for the bigwigs, it means nothing. Big business won the day, and profits rules. That is the beauty of dead signatures which have become a well crafted game in which you show up, ostensibly to achieve something, meanwhile, secretly, you hope to achieve nothing because it is not in your interest to achieve anything at all.

You feel good because the signature you sign is not worth the piece of paper it is signed on. Obama could afford to say, “… the world’s major economies have come together to accept their responsibility to take action on the threat of climate change”, when in fact the world’s major economies did no such thing.

Yes, they came together in Copenhagen but that was about it. Meanwhile, for the island nation of Maldives, well, there is that sinking feeling that things could get worst in a hurry.


Opiyo.oloya@sympatico.ca

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