Stalling in flight.
The second week of the UN climate change summit kicked off on Monday in more ways than one. With only a few days to go until the end of the conference, the African group, supported by other developing nations stalled talks for five-hours. They were afraid that attempts were being made to kill off the Kyoto Protocol, alongside suggestions that the Danish hosts are biased towards advancing the interests of the developed countries. Many of this group – the G77-China bloc, are countries most vulnerable to climate change.Talks only resumed when they were split into two, as the G77 group demanded. But five hours is a long time in the highly pressurised arena of this summit, so there are also now worries about the speed of negotiations, and the hopes of reaching any kind of conclusion as leaders start to fly in from around the world.
There is also criticism of the fact that these talks will create more carbon emissions than any previous climate conference: an estimated 46,200 tonnes of CO2 – 40,500 of this from flights by delegates, observers, journalists and activists (Reuters). This is the same amount produced each year by 2,300 Americans (2006 figures), or 660,000 Ethiopians.
The popularity of the conference – about 18,000 visitors per day – has meant that temporary building have had to be put up. These are not well insulated and are being heated by oil heaters. Most of the energy used at the conference is generated by coal-fired power stations. It does make you wonder whether December in a cold climate is the best time and place for a conference on climate change and global warming.
As you can see, there is no shortage of material to debate. ‘Africa was right to walk out over fears the rich won’t renew Kyoto’ was started late on Monday evening and: ‘Delegates and leaders show their disregard for the issue of limiting emissions – by arriving by plane’, kicked-off at midday on Monday.
These two debates are still ongoing at the time of writing, however on the Africa walkout votes are currently split evenly – 35% each for ‘Yes’ and ‘No’. On the travelling by plane topic, most of our debaters don’t think that delegates and leaders have shown a disregard for limiting emissions – so far 78% have voted ‘No’, and 18% have voted ‘Yes’.
Comments in the travelling by plane debate include: Yes – “Many nations are sending large amounts of delegates. Australia for example is sending 95 delegates, Australian delegates undoubtedly need to fly to get to Copenhagen but does it really need all of them? could they not have a few negotiators - say 10 and then have most things handled back in Australia?” While on the ‘No’ side: “Delegates from Asia, Africa, Oceana and the Americas can't be expected to find greener means of travelling, they have come too far for there to be other realistic options. For a big meeting such as this there is no way they could be connected in by videolink and still keep abreast of all developments that affect their delegation”.
The question of why technology can’t play more of a part in the climate change summits must have crossed the minds of many of us. It’s something that must happen eventually – if not for the entire summit, then for the largest part of the initial period of negotiations. Who knows – in a couple of years we might even see them happening on Google Wave.