At the conference in Cancún they decided not to decide. Perhaps they couldn’t do otherwise in the face of national egoisms. A world agreement on climate is today impossible. They preferred a “Do It Yourself” approach whereby each nation has to decide whether and how to put in place actions to save the Earth. And like that, while the States are busy thinking up incentives for production and are creating debt at an unsustainable level, the planet’s temperature is going up. In the latest issue of the "Royal Scientist's journal" they forecast a probable increase of 4 degrees by the year 2060 if there is no global policy and the certainty that it is almost impossible to stop the raising of the temperature by 2 degrees according to the study published by the "UN Environment Programme".


...

The blog managed to make contact with Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, one of the people responsible for the Climate Conference in Cancún.

Telephone interview with Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff in Cancún. Thomas is the Senior Director of the Department for policy programs planning in GMFUS.

From Copenhagen to Cancún
“My name is Thomas Kleine Brockhoff. I am with the German Marshall Fund in Washington, DC, overseeing the transatlantic and globalization programs including climate change at the German Marshall Fund. The first issue is the question of how the so called Copenhagen Accord, that a group of countries agreed upon last year and that the U.N. conference only acknowledged, now becomes part of the official goals and the official documents of the U.N. convention. That is important because the midterm and long term mitigation goals will be enshrined in that, and with that the world would try to get to a pathway that would allow it to no more warming than two degrees centigrade. So, there is the first question about the Copenhagen Accord going forward. The second question is about the degree of intensity of verification and supervision of climate mitigation that the United Nations would be able to conduct in different countries. Here China is very skeptical. There are a couple of other bigger ones, but those two are probably at the forefront of the discussion. The first one is the question of how the so called Copenhagen Accord, that a group of countries agreed upon last year and that the U.N. conference only acknowledged, now becomes part of the official goals and the official documents of the U.N. convention. That is important because the midterm and long term mitigation goals will be enshrined in that, and with that the world would try to get to a pathway that would allow it to no more warming than two degrees centigrade. So, there is the first question about the Copenhagen Accord going forward. The second question is about the degree of intensity of verification and supervision of climate mitigation that the United Nations would be able to conduct in different countries. Here China is very skeptical. There are a couple of other bigger ones, but those two are probably at the forefront of the discussion.

The melting of the polar ice caps
What is necessary is a global transition to a clean energy industry and a clean energy way of life. The question now is how best to achieve that. For 20 years since Kyoto, the negotiations and the run up to Kyoto, folks were concentrated on the top down approach of a legally binding framework. Now that we can't have that, we have to realize that the voluntary commitments that countries are making from their self interest will not be sufficient to contain the warming of the earth and the scientifically defined acceptable level of 1.5 or maybe 2.0 degrees centigrade warming that the world probably could swallow without too great a damage. But even that is doubtful. So now, the question becomes how do you feel the gap between what people and countries are willing and able to do voluntarily to what is scientifically necessary. And that is the question that will be discussed over the next few years. How can international financial institutions channel funds to projects that help mitigate... The regional development banks of the UN system are doing that. The World Bank is doing that. The Inter American Development, to name just one example, is planning to change its whole lending capacity to emphasis energy and climate to a dramatically higher extent. They're about at 4% or 5%. They want to increase that lending for climate and energy to 25%. So, at conferences like this, these are catalytic moments for the world community to drive new ideas and new instruments, but it is unlikely to have a globally binding accord, anytime soon anyway. That's not because we don't have an agreement. If we had an agreement, people would break it. Just remember that the Kyoto Accord only pertains to three dozen countries, only five of which actually did what they said in the agreement. So, we need to step back from the insight that an agreement will save the world. We have seen that agreements are unattainable, and even if they are attainable, they probably are too weak to do anything. But, your question is more towards actual consequences. The most obvious one, of course, is the melting of the polar ice caps that we're seeing in front of our eyes going on, especially in the Arctic. The ice cap in the Himalayan is the next one that is underway. It's not quite as visible yet, but if continuing, it has dramatic consequences for a major part of the population that is dependent on these water sources. I think even if there is no globally binding agreement, if we do come to accept the fact that it will not be the near term achievable solution for things, I do believe that these climate summits every year have a huge importance. They are the only global events or conferences in global governance where science, business, the NGO community, think tanks, plus the states' negotiators come together in an osmotic process in which... This is the World's Fair of climate and energy. Everybody globally who has anything to say and think and do on these issues is here. So, these conferences have an enormous relevance to global capacity building and to the global change of mindset that we're seeing. When you just look at what has been happening over the last three or four or five global conferences that I have witnessed is the mainstreaming of the climate issue to other countries that weren't on the landscape with enormous movements towards a clean energy economy. Here, you can see the United Arab Emirates, who were just oil countries a few years ago, changing their approach to energy. Kazakhstan, I learned yesterday, is thinking about emissions trading, as are some Chinese provinces. Here, this is a huge transmission machine, and a huge ideas and project generator for mainstreaming climate and energy transformation in the world, and it is done through one yearly conference. A second element will be that, if and when you have a voluntary system in the future, you will need measurements and standards and some version of a voluntary oversight. I can't think of anybody who would be able to do this type of standardization of our approaches better than the United Nations. Now, that is a far cry and a big difference from the global negotiating that is being done now that in the future, that then would be a more technical approach to the global warming question that the United Nations would find a role for itself in. I'm not a natural scientist. I can just repeat what people say and I read. But, there seems to be a widespread agreement that once you have melted your ice cap, it is very hard and long term to freeze them again. It's not like your refrigerator. You turn if off one day and you can turn it on the next day and you will have ice cubes again. That is not the case. So, it seems, from what I understand from scientists, is that triggers a process that can be either irreversible or only reversible with major climate shifts back.