Seismic events in Bali already! (COP 13)

07 Dec 2007 – Geoff Lye

I left Heathrow late this morning for Bali via Bangkok. As the plane settled into its cruise altitude, I scanned the on-screen text news service and did a double take at the second headline: ‘Quake hits Indonesia’s Bali’. No, not a seismic shift in the U.S. position but rather a 5.4 scale quake under the sea 150 miles off the island (thankfully with minimal damage). Other headlines on the Bali climate conference reported, unsurprisingly, that only voluntary emissions reductions would be acceptable to the Bush administration if it is to support any Post-Kyoto treaty. The U.S. delegation is clearly facing mounting international pressure from pretty much the rest of the developed world in setting ambitious and binding emissions cuts in line with IPCC recommendations. Interestingly, however, Japan – home of the Kyoto Protocol – has taken the place of Australia in partnering the U.S. in their contrarian position: they too are arguing for the voluntary route. The case they and the U.S. make is that mandatory cuts will threaten the economic growth that generates the money to fund the technology needed to fight global warming.

If the Bush administration is coming under pressure in Bali, it’s not been a whole lot easier on home territory. I read that Congress is pushing ahead with a bill to require cuts of 70% from U.S. power generation, manufacturing and transport by 2050. Among other measures the bill effectively transfers tax breaks from Big Oil to Big Ethanol. As Nancy Pelosi put it, ‘We will send our energy dollars to the Midwest – not the Middle East’. If the bill gets that far, Bush has promised to veto it. The jury is out on whether ethanol can deliver climate benefits, but the odds are worsening as the true lifecycle impacts on biofuels are becoming clearer.

But back to Bali and the political games in play. It all seems uncannily like the negotiations which were under way when I flew into Rio for the Earth Summit in 1992. Then it was the Bush (Senior) administration holding out until the eleventh hour to extract the maximum concessions before signing up to the original U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. As we now know, even when the concessions had been given and a weaker Kyoto Protocol was signed later by the U.S., Bush (Junior) reneged and refused to ratify it. The lead negotiators are putting on a brave face, but it is depressing that power politics are taking precedence over a unified and creative global approach to avoiding the worst possibilities if we fail to start cutting emissions soon.

The 13th U.N. Conference of the Parties in Bali featured extensively in the in-flight news service though the adjacent headline – ‘Krispy Kreme Q3 losses narrow’ – put climate back into a real world perspective. In the Top News listings, three of the latest 25 stories were on Bali. On the one hand it was reported how China was praised for its active programmes to reduce the GHG intensity of its economy (though hopes of China and India accepting binding emissions reduction targets are already effectively off the table). On the other, the US was reported as ‘on the defensive’ and ‘under pressure’ as the negotiations move toward the end of their first week. Also singled out was the latest WWF report describing how climate change is putting the Amazon forests at risk and as a result increasing dramatically the likelihood of catastrophic climate change. The report is no doubt intended to secure the negotiators’ attention to the lack of serious economic incentive to protect existing forests in recognition of their massive positive role in avoiding climate change if saved – or massively accelerating it if lost.

I have also heard – and this surprised me – that there is little sympathy for including Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) as a recognised route to carbon credits. Much as we might all hope to stop high carbon fossil energy fuelling economic growth in the coming decades, it is hard, however optimistic the outlook for renewables, to see any solution which does not involve CCS (initially from the fossil fuels themselves and later extracting carbon directly from the atmosphere).

So, with another 12 hours to go, what do I expect to find when I arrive in Bali? Inevitable frustration with US intransigence. Serious debate on whether protecting forests and capturing and storing carbon could/should find a place in the post-Kyoto mechanisms. And perhaps a weak hope that the IPCC’s now unequivocal call for urgent action by governments can really cut through the political power games. Watch this space – but don’t hold your breath.