COP15: Halfway up the mountain
COP15, or the UN Climate Conference, which has been taking place in Copenhagen this week and last has turned into a, not surprisingly, muddled affair.
“The cable car has made an unexpected stop,” said Yvo de Boer, the UN’s top climate official, at a press briefing Wednesday evening, referring to a statement he made on Monday.
The conference was about half way up the mountain at that point, everybody was queuing up for the cable car, and “the rest of the ride is going to be fast, smooth and relaxing”.
That was before the world leaders turned earlier this week and any chance of any kind of consensus that could be taken away from the Conference dissolved into another pipe dream as China took a back seat, not wishing to be forced into a major investment agreement on the back off their class-leading emissions record (!), the presidency of conference was switched at the last moment creating widespread confusion and the third world and emerging economies all complained the rich, developed nations should be offering more financial support… and will the USA ever ratify their agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, never mind make a significant contribution to what everyone agrees are ‘do-or-die’ talks?
Based on the events of the last week, I would have to admit that my previous scepticism was well founded; even Ed Miliband, who up to this point has only ever uttered relatively weak party-line platitudes, gave vent to his frustrations, commenting “It would be a tragedy if we failed to agree because of the substance but it would be a farce if we failed to agree because of the process.”
So what lessons are we to take away from COP15? Well, I don’t think its rocket science and I believe that all of us in the business community knew that this outcome was predictable, but in a nutshell:
· Whilst a substantial disparity continues to exist between the wealth of the ‘super nations’ and the rest, you will never get an agreement on funding… for whatever purpose.
· Whilst all nations still look at the planet in terms of a globally segregated resource allotment area, every nation will, in practice, ignore the needs of the whole until, and only until, they have stripped every last grain of nutrient out of their own soil. These are not business people; they are political animals who genuinely believe that their role is to argue for the perceived short-term desires of their own economies in order to secure re-election.
And
· Whilst there is even one small voice that challenges the credibility of the sums and the science, they will continue to talk but will never act.
The talks have ground to a stagnant impasse on a point of procedure, not substance, after all.
So where does this leave the business community? It leaves us exactly where we were before over 190 executive jets landed in Denmark and 100’s of 10 miles a gallon stretch limos ferried the high and mighty to and from a ‘climate conference’! If we’re going to safeguard our ability to manage the effects of climate, if we’re going to come up with a strategy to maximise our use of diminishing carbon-based energy resources, we’re going to have to do it ourselves, unilaterally.
In that respect, it’s sadly business-as usual!
