The Age of Global Warming: A History (47 page)

Before that came the conference highlight. The hall was packed and security tight. Many delegates were forced to watch the proceedings on TV. For a time, Rajendra Pachauri was locked out of the hall.
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‘Fresh from receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo alongside the IPCC, Academy-award winner, best-selling author, former Vice President, Senator and Congressman from the United States of America and climate change’s single most effective messenger to the world, I present to you Al Gore,’ Cathy Zoi – an employee of Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection – told the cheering hall as Gore strode across the platform.

‘We, the human species, face a planetary emergency,’ Gore intoned. ‘That phrase still sounds shrill to some ears but it is deadly accurate as a description of the situation that we now confront.’ He spoke of his shock as scientists had repeatedly brought forward estimates for the date when the entire north polar ice cap would disappear. Years ago, they had thought it might be gone towards the end of the twenty-first century. Only three years ago, they thought it could happen by 2050. ‘Now, this week, they tell us it could completely disappear in as little as five to seven years.’ 

He compared people who believed in the threat of climate change, but did nothing about it, to victims of Nazi death squads.

‘First they came for the Jews, and I was not a Jew, so I said nothing. Then, they came for the Gypsies, and I was not a Gypsy, so I said nothing,’ and he listed several other groups, and with each one he said nothing. Then, he said, they came for me.

Those who thought that the climate crisis would only affect their grandchildren – and, as the crisis got closer to them, their children – were wrong. It would get them too. ‘It is affecting us in the present generation, and it is up to us in this generation to solve this crisis.’ Quoting Churchill, most world leaders were like the appeasers of the 1930s and ‘decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity’.

Speaking ten years and four days after his appearance at the Kyoto conference where he had publicly instructed American negotiators to make concessions, Gore dropped a second COP bombshell. ‘I am not an official of the United States and I am not bound by the diplomatic niceties. So I am going to speak an inconvenient truth.’ His voice tightened as he wiped sweat from his face. ‘My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali.’ The hall went wild with applause and cheering. There were others, Gore said, who could also help move the process forward, but they weren’t named – and would the audience have cared? They had just heard what it was convenient to believe.

Those who had just applauded his ‘diplomatic truth’ had two choices. They could direct their anger and frustration at the United States. Or they could decide to move forward without the US; do all of the difficult work and save a large, blank space in the document and footnote it: ‘This document is incomplete, but we are going to move forward anyway.’ 

The negotiations would culminate in Copenhagen in two years’ time. ‘Over the next two years the United States is going to be somewhere it is not now,’ Gore told the delegates. ‘You must anticipate that.’ He could not guarantee that the next president would have the position he assumed – ‘but I can tell you that I believe it is quite likely’.

Gore spelt out the issues that needed to be decided in Bali. Targets and timetables, of course, together with that blank space for the next president of the United States to ink in; a plan for a fully-funded, ambitious adaptation fund (not a tough sell in a hall packed with delegates from countries who expected to be its beneficiaries); and a deforestation plan (‘it is difficult to forge such an agreement here’) – and not a word on the single biggest lesson from the Kyoto Protocol: its failure even to contemplate the prospect of major developing economies eventually being subject to a global agreement to limit their emissions. 

A global agreement was not going to work unless it included the world’s largest economies. Rather than use his standing to highlight the hole in the heart of the climate change treaties, Gore chose to isolate the US and the Bush administration as it attempted to fill the hole that the Clinton-Gore administration had bequeathed it. ‘We have everything we need,’ Gore bellowed, ‘save political will. But political will is a renewable resource.’ 

It was scarcely Gore’s finest hour.

New Scientist
environment blogger Catherine Brahic described what happened next:

The audience rises to its feet, cheers, whoops some more, Gore makes his way down the aisle, drenched in sweat, shakes the hands that are reaching towards him. The last one he shakes is that of a grinning government representative sitting just behind me – he’s from China. I ask him if political will really is a renewable resource. ‘We will see,’ he smiles.
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China’s answer came two days later. Ministers and officials had wrangled for much of the day over the precise wording that might – or might not – provide a basis for some form of construction to bridge the gaping divide in the climate treaties. A smaller group met until the early hours of Saturday morning, reaching apparent agreement on the most contentious issues.

Shortly after 8am, Rachmat Witoelar gavelled the resumed session to order. Even minor changes to the text would compromise the meeting’s ability to come to an agreement, Witoelar warned.
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He invited the COP to adopt the draft text. Portugal, on behalf of the EU, supported the text and called for all parties to do the same. Witoelar scanned the hall. ‘India, please come forward.’ 

At a small meeting mandated by Witoelar, the Indian delegate explained, the G77 plus China had agreed a modification of the text in respect of the scope of possible obligations placed on developing country parties: nationally appropriate mitigation actions by developing country parties in the context of sustainable development, supported by technology, financing and capacity building, in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner. The language hid a shift in emphasis. Measurable, reportable and verifiable now applied to what developed nations were to do for developing ones, de-emphasising the accountability of developing countries in meeting their mitigation commitments. ‘Mr President, this is our preference,’ the Indian delegate’s politeness indicating the strength of the hand India and its allies were playing.

Not so the Chinese delegation, whose intervention let the cat out of the bag. It was wrong to ask the meeting to adopt a text when the other meeting, convened by the Indonesian foreign minister and other members of the G77 plus China, was discussing this very matter. ‘At this moment, we cannot adopt this decision.’

Witoelar suspended the session.

When it resumed, the Chinese delegation intervened again. The Indonesian foreign minister was still in consultations. It was therefore still inappropriate for the matter to be discussed. A second member of the delegation took the microphone. In English, he accused the secretariat of intentionally holding the session in the hall when he knew that the G77 was still meeting the Indonesian foreign minister. To applause, he demanded apologies from the secretariat.

‘Yes, I have been offended,’ the microphone picked up de Boer telling Witoelar. ‘This is a process I was not aware of.’ 

Pakistan, on behalf of the G77, asked for a further suspension while negotiations continued outside the hall.

Witoelar began the resumed session with an apology; as chair of the conference, he had not been without faults. But he had brought heavy reinforcements. ‘I come before you very reluctantly,’ Ban Ki-moon told the delegates. ‘Frankly I’m disappointed at the lack of progress.’ Everyone (i.e., the US) should be ready to make compromises. ‘No one leaves this chamber fully satisfied.’

Witoelar made another apology, asking for delegates’ understanding and forgiveness for any unintentional mistakes (i.e., that the G77 plus China stitch-up had become public in such an embarrassing manner). The apology wasn’t enough for the Chinese delegation, who wanted to know from the executive secretary why China had needed to make two speeches on a point of order earlier in the day. 

Yvo de Boer switched on his microphone. The words didn’t come easily; two or three at a time before trailing off. Then a complete sentence. ‘The secretariat was not aware that parallel meetings were taking place and was not aware that text was being negotiated elsewhere.’ He switched off his microphone, closed his light blue UN folder and left the platform. China had made its point.

Take two. India took the floor. The G77 plus China had accepted ‘somewhat different’ language and read out the text again.* ‘This is our preference.’

Portugal expressed the EU’s support. Cheering and applause filled the hall.

Now it was the turn of the US. Dobriansky explained that the US had come to Bali with the hope of agreeing a strong statement about common global responsibility to address climate change, recognising differences among national circumstances. However, the formulation proposed by India was not one the US could accept as it represented a change in the balance that the parties had been working towards. 

She was met with boos and catcalls.

Japan, in a series of circumlocutions, avoided explicitly accepting or rejecting the proposal.

To applause and cheers, South Africa’s Marthinus van Schalkwyk said that the suggestion that developing countries were not willing to assume their full responsibilities was ‘most unwelcome and without any basis’. They were saying voluntarily they were willing to commit to measurable, verifiable mitigation actions. ‘It has not happened before.’ The US should reconsider its position.

Brazil said the text was a balanced and fair basis. 

More cheering.

US-born Kevin Conrad for Papua New Guinea unleashed more. The US should either lead or get out of the way, conference-speak for the US to do the opposite and fall into line and accede to the position of China, India and the rest of the G77.

The US was isolated. 

Dobriansky indicated she wished to speak again. ‘We’ve listened very closely to many of our colleagues here,’ she said. The US had come to Bali ‘very committed’ to developing a long-term, global greenhouse gas emission goal. It was also committed to giving very serious consideration to the views of Japan, Canada and the EU, to lead to a halving of global emissions by 2050. It had sought agreement on the principle that commitments should be measurable, reportable and verifiable, including emission reduction or limitation objectives in a way that ensures comparability between countries’ different circumstances. ‘We have all come a long way here,’ Dobriansky continued. The US just wanted to ensure that everyone acted together – ‘we will go forward and join consensus’.

Later that day, the White House released a statement welcoming the outcome of the talks. Many features of the decision were ‘quite positive’. But it also had ‘serious concerns’. The negotiations needed to proceed on the basis that emissions cuts solely by developed countries would be insufficient.

It is essential that the major developed and developing countries be prepared to negotiate commitments, consistent with their national circumstances, that will make a due contribution to the reduction of global emissions.
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Had Dobriansky been right to reverse her position and join the consensus? The result, as she indicated, fell short of what the US was seeking. In particular, there was no explicit recognition of the need to limit the rise or to reduce developing counties’ emissions. The effect of the Berlin Mandate had been to preclude any discussion of emissions limitations for non-Annex I countries. In this respect, Bali was a breakthrough. The principle of developing countries taking on commitments to limit or reduce their emissions was on the table.

No power on Earth was strong enough to compel China, India and the other major developing economies to accept commitments on emission reductions against their will. What Bali achieved was keeping the option on the table that they might do so voluntarily, avoiding a second Kyoto and an almost certain Senate rejection. If Dobriansky had not acceded, the US would have been blamed a second time for derailing the climate change negotiations. It was a gutsy call and a class performance.

The Bush administration would bequeath its successor a viable negotiating framework. At Copenhagen two years later, the world would discover just how far leading developing countries were willing to go.

On 15
th
September 2008 Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection.  

The impact on the Second Environmental Wave was similar to the Egyptian army smashing through the Bar Lev Line on the First. After Lehman, the language and the rhetoric were the same, but the intensity had gone. Saving the planet became less important than rescuing the banking system and staving off global economic collapse. 

There was an additional effect.  The West, specifically its governments, which seemed, or presumed, to have the answers to the world’s problems, were suddenly exposed. 

They didn’t.

*  It agreed on a twin-track approach, establishing a new Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action under the convention in addition to an existing Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties, under the Protocol.

*  Gore’s speech at the Bali conference on 13
th
December 2007 is one of the most significant he made on this or any other subject. At the time of writing there is no transcript on Gore’s website at http://blog.algore.com/2007/12/ but there are a number of websites with video of the speech and a fairly complete transcript, from which the quotes used in this chapter have been checked, can be found at http://www.irregulartimes.com/gorebalispeech.html 

*  It was adopted as 1 (b) (ii) of the Bali Action Plan. The placement of the word ‘enabled’ differed from the version read out in the morning session, but the two versions were functionally identical.