Succcess at Copenhagen

Ah well, all good things must come to an end, and the circus at Copenhagen too draws to a close with a grand declaration of success by none other than the illustrious Mr Obama.

He said "The US, China, Brasil, India and South Africa have agreed to set a mitigation target to limit warming to no more than 2 deg C and, importantly, to take action to meet this objective".

Well well well! What can anyone say to that? It just makes me fall on my knees in dazed awe at the brilliance of the achievement. Here is a group of politicians who have used scotch tape to cover the worlds wounds and made it all go away! Amazing.

Jokes apart, if you knit together the various vignettes - Australia fudging its emission figures to make them look good, the Dutch working behind the scenes to work out an alternate treaty to protect the interests of the developed world, the very crude $100 billion offer from the US with so many strings attached that it looked like the wooly mammoth, the insistence in wanting to do away with the Kyoto Protocol, all paint one simple picture. And that picture is as follows:

The world is now polarised into two - the developed part and the developing part.

The developed part is willing and able to move to a lower carbon footprint. But it does NOT want the developing world hanging around its neck.

It is also quite blase about the fact that its gross excesses in the past have created this problem. "Ok - so I raped the earth. So what? That was in the past, and you have no power over me to make me repent for it. But I promise to screw your happiness if you attempt to do what I did."

The developing part is uselessly and stupidly still shouting "Rape! Help, Please come and help us"

Grow up.

No one helps anyone else in today's dog eat dog world. People and countries just help themselves.

So to my mind this summit at Copenhagen has been a great success. Really - I mean it.

It has completely cleared the air.

The developing countries have been asking for assistance - money and technology from the developed countries in order to battle climate change, as a partial atonement for the creation of this mess.

The developed world has completely refused.

So at least that bit of the debate is settled.

Now the only reality is as that the world is still getting hotter, and each individual in each country has to do their bit to help cool it down.

The developing world needs to understand that only efficiency, innovation, reduced corruption and determination are going to see them through.

If they do not make progress in reducing their emissions, the developed world can and will impose sanctions and trade barriers on it to force it to do so.

If the developed world does not make similar progress, there is very little that can be done about it as the weak cannot force the strong. Simple law of nature.

So my advice to the developing world is to stop whimpering about the the injustice of it all and get down to work.

It is very unjust.

However, it is the only reality there is.

Climate of fear at Copenhagen

"Fear?" I hear you, the reader say with incredulity.
"Why fear? we think it is greed and self interest, not fear" You add.

However, I will stick to my guns - I will maintain that it is a climate of fear that is dictating the stalemate that has already happened after a mere 6 days of the Copenhagen climate change meet.

Why fear? Fear of what?

The oldest fear of "I'm willing to take specific action, but I'm afraid that others might not - therefore I will wait till everyone else agrees BEFORE taking any action"

You see what is happening?

The desire to take any action has been superseded by the desire to forge a consensus.

At this global summit nations should have been openly bringing out what they are doing or about to do to control climate change. They should be discussing the challenges that they are facing, political, financial, technological - all sorts of challenges. And therefore, this forum should be working towards creating a policy to help remove those challenges so that everyone can collaborate to a large extent.

Instead, another United Nations has been created with every nation having veto power.

Instead, all nations are rigidly arguing for the perceived interest of their people.

Forgetting that all citizens are facing this common threat, that no one is benefited by fine oratory, by political maneuvers that only increase the global gridlock.

Forgetting that the people that they claim to represent are willing to cooperate, willing to make changes, willing to make sacrifices.

Forgetting that the people sent them there for action - not for more talk.

So our global leaders are scared that they might make some stupid commitment that might cause them to loose power or the very fine administrative post that they hold.

Its OK to lose the world, but its not OK to lose power.

After all, the world is an intangible asset, whereas their positions of power are very very real.

I believe in simplicity.

I believe in the power of doing rather than talking.

I believe that if one or two brave leaders stand up and make specific, unilateral declarations, then it will act as a trigger for others to relinquish their hardened, narrow, self serving stands.

I believe that if some leaders put their mother earth above their nation, and far far above their own personal aspirations, the whole world will follow suit.