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Beijing, pick it up from Bangkok!

By You Nuo (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-10-13 07:46

Last Friday was a day of irony. US President Barack Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize partly for his fight against climate change, but the UN climate talks ended in a deadlock.

The latest round of UN climate talks in Bangkok ended with no signs of an agreement on a new global climate treaty. Developed nations insisted on a completely new agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, while developing countries wanted it to be extended.

The developing countries said the developed world should fulfill its obligation to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions till 2012, or the first commitment period, as laid out in the Kyoto Protocol. The required cuts, ratified by most developed countries in 1997, are bigger than their existing records.

The Kyoto Protocol does not impose any binding GHG cuts on developing countries. But China out of its own volition has adopted a year-by-year emission control program and is honoring its self-made commitment. China went a step further at the UN climate summit in New York in mid-September by announcing its emission cut goals till 2020.

Bangkok saw the failure of the developed countries to come up with any such initiative. Shyam Saran, head the Indian delegation, was quoted by the BBC as saying: "We have been dismayed by the lack of willingness by several of our developed country partners to move in this direction," because they are unlikely to meet their GHG emission cut obligations for the first commitment period.

What is complicating matters further is that the US has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, and it is hard to guess if any US legislation on mandatory emission cuts would be passed in the Senate before the decisive UN Copenhagen climate talks in December.

Environmental campaigners now accuse developed countries, except Norway, of using the lack of a firm US commitment as an excuse for dragging their feet on GHG emission cuts. Some conspiracy theorists even allege that it is the other way round: To avoid the burden of completing the work it did not do in all the years George W. Bush was the president and to save its face, the US is using the European Union (EU) countries to get the global climate treaty annulled completely. Capitalism is in crisis, you see, the conspiracy theorists say, so why should rich nations be willing to do any good for the world?

Soon enough, I think, ultra-leftist websites in China will be flooded with postings saying Beijing fell into a Western trap by pledging its cuts in mid-September and thus sold off its developing world brothers.

Irrespective of what people say about the result, or no result, in Bangkok, there is clearly a crisis. When Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN climate convention, urged all nations "to hold back self-interest and let the common interest prevail", their common interest seemed to get all the more shrouded by technicalities used for political gains.

The crisis is a crisis of leadership. "Time is running short," as De Boer put it straightly. "Bold steps are clearly needed from the world's leaders to break the deadlock." But the deadlock will not end if the US does not send a clear message to the world.

With the failure of the negotiators to reach a deal in Bangkok the distrust between the rich and developing countries will only get deeper. In today's world, civil society, too, has been globalized. There is no lack of people to speak for the poor. As Oxfam's senior climate adviser Antonio Hill was quoted by the British Morning Star as having said: "The millions of people facing greater floods, droughts and failed harvest after failed harvest will be the real losers if the US, Canada, the EU, Japan and Australia continue as blockers to the UN negotiations."

While the world awaits climate leadership and hopes for a last-minute breakthrough (another round of talks is scheduled for next month in Barcelona before Copenhagen), all I can say to my country is: Don't backtrack on your commitment and set a good climate example despite the verbal attacks you may face.

E-mail: younuo@chinadaily.com.cn