Winding up and winding down (COP 13)

14 Dec 2007 – Geoff Lye

Balinese massages beat sleeping tablets hands down (up, left right and centre). Nearly overslept, so a quick shower, breakfast and found myself sharing a taxi with one of the 45 TUNGOs (sorry, you’ll have to go to Sunday’s Blog). A delightful German who says that he and his colleagues are struggling to have the implications of climate change on workers around the world heard – let alone understood and integrated into the Bali process.

BINGO! As luck would have it, I had chosen to join the business group’s daily review session on the best day possible: Dr Rajendra Pachauri the IPCC head and recipient of the Nobel Prize two days ago, had agreed to talk about the report’s implications for business. He briefly summarised the core conclusions from the 4th Assessment reports: that ‘warming of the climate system was now unequivocal and is essentially the result of human actions’. He also noted that this assessment had a much higher level of confidence than past reports; contained more on regional impacts; and had more business community inputs than earlier reports. He endorsed the WBCSD position that ‘business cannot succeed if society fails’. He specifically suggested that corporations should prepare themselves for a low carbon economy and ‘climate proof’ their assets – points we at SustainAbility have long been making, but his articulation was particularly compelling. Pachauri was brought in to replace Bob Watson as head of the IPCC under US pressure believing that he would be more malleable to the US position: they will have been disappointed. He offered interesting final words: ‘When I was appointed, many said I was too close to industry. I can tell you now that I am proud to be close to industry!’

At the time of the opening of the High Level Segment, Pachauri was in Oslo collecting the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the 2,000 IPCC scientists sharing it with Al Gore. It is interesting to reflect on the fact that Climate Security is now being assessed in the context of world peace. We are already seeing conflict driven by climate such as water disputes and climate-related migrations. Since he could not attend the opening session, Pachauri made a 10 minute video which was shown to the assembly of heads of state and ministers. It should be available on the IPCC website soon and is a clear and simple summary of the science. Highly recommended.

The conference is in suspended animation as the negotiations go to the wire. The news late on Friday evening is that a watered down declaration is likely sometime during the night. It’s not looking good. As the conference winds up, the expectations wind down.

Quote of the day.

James Connaughton, Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality offered his view on the stalemate: “We will lead, we will continue to lead. But leadership also requires others to fall in line and follow.”