Image: www.enviromedia.com/enviroblog/
One of Ban Ki-Moon’s main priorities as Secretary General has been to construct an international consensus to fight global warming well ahead of the summit. But in the weeks running up to December 3rd, Mr. Moon is pulling out all the stops.
By now you’ve seen him on CNN talking to the cameras in Korean cadences against the blindingly white background of ‘Little America’. His message: “the world has reached a critical stage in its efforts to exercise responsible environmental stewardship."
Late in October, the United Nations Environmental Programme released its own GEO-4 report, ‘Environment for Development’, which culminates in a description of four scenarios for the future of the earth. The conclusion that GEO-4’s 388 researchers reach about climate change is unequivocal: all “scenarios” they write “point to the need to act quickly. Our common future depends on our actions today, not tomorrow”
In Spain, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which operates under the umbrella of the UN, met in mid-November to finalize the wording of its frightening fourth report. Shortly before this, former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan addressed a special panel on ‘Climate Change, Justice Beyond 2012’ in Portugal with these disturbing words: "environmental change and natural disasters already displace more people than armed conflict."
And, in the United States, a more alarming report not associated with the UN was released by two security think-tanks on November 5th. This document, called the Age of Consequences, paints a realistic and incredibly grim picture of the stakes involved at the Bali negotiations: “the most worrisome problems associated with rising temperatures and sea levels are from large-scale migrations of people -- both inside nations and across existing national borders…dramatic movements of people and the possible disruptions involved could easily trigger major security concerns and spike regional tensions….The more severe scenarios suggest the prospect of perhaps billions [my emphasis] of people…being forced to relocate. [This] possibility…poses an enormous challenge even if played out over the course of decades.”
Suddenly, we are no longer talking about polar bears drowning. Instead, it’s the habitability of the planet and the survival of mankind as a species that is up for grabs at the Bali Summit. These stakes also inform the frivolous refusal by Canada’s current Conservative government to adhere to our Kyoto commitments during the Throne Speech last October. In siding with Australia and the United States in opposing Kyoto, Canada now wilfully contributes to the certain degradation of the world’s environment.
Before the vote, Dr. David Suzuki sent a copy of his influential book Sacred Balance to each Member of Parliament urging them not "to ignore the...causes of our destruction of the planet and...[our] path to a sustainable future."
Instead, Stephen Harper chose the easy, free market path and, to Canada’s shame, he was aided in his choice by Stéphan Dion’s lackluster Liberals. Once responsible for commiting Canada to the Kyoto Protocol, the Liberals refused to vote against the Throne Speech out of fears of a general election.
All this is to say that self-interest and shortsighted politics could easily defeat Ban-Ki Moon’s efforts to establish meaningful emissions controls at the Bali Summit. If this happens we are condemning those who come after us to a much more inhospitable planet during what will be, after all, our children’s century.
Giles Slade is the author of the award winning book Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America. He is also a regular contributor to the Huffington Post.
Green Living Blogs
‘I saw that on the banks of the Indragiri river on the edge of the Kerumutan peatlands. Here, Kuala Cenaku, a community of 7000 people, has for centuries harvested rattan and honey, cut a few trees and planted rubber trees on what they regard as their lands. Then last year loggers arrived, claimed the land had been given to them by the government, and cut down the forest for 5 kilometres south of the river.
Kuala Cenaku’s forest is now a wasteland of charred wood on drying peat. In places the Duta Palma group has planted palm oil trees. Yet community head Mursyid Muhammad Ali said his people had scared off the planters and are determined to take the land back. At the jetty, I saw a boatful of new rubber seedlings for restoring the forest.’
More here http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg19626321.600-bog-barons-indonesias-carbon-catastrophe.html
or read my take http://another-green-world.blogspot.com/2007/12/forest-people-barred-from-bali-climate.html