Now we have the Copenhagen deniers. These are people who won't accept that the UN’s climate change process has been derailed. The highest emitting nations refuse to be bound by an enforceable treaty. Instead of bedding down a replacement for the near-defunct Kyoto Protocol, they asked for a rain check.
If the grandly named Copenhagen Accord is “a first step”, as President Obama put it, what were Rio (1992), Geneva (1996), Kyoto (1997), Buenos Aires (1998), Lyon (2000), The Hague (2000), Marrakech (2001), New Delhi (2002), Milan (2003), Buenos Aires (2004), Montreal (2005), Nairobi (2006), Vienna (2007), Bali (2007), Bangkok (2008), Ghana (2008), Poznan (2008), Bangkok (2009) and Barcelona (2009)?
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Copenhagen wasn’t a first step; it was the last step. It marked the end point in a long cycle of top-down, bureaucratic, multilateralism launched at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. This all came unstuck in the very different world of 2009.
The geo-political rifts on display at Copenhagen can’t be papered over with the diplomatic equivalent of a Hallmark greeting card. Essentially, the UN process is hostage to a standoff between the two largest emitters and their respective camps.
On the one hand there’s China (for which read "the Communist Party, whose grip on power depends on high rates of carbon-spewing growth") and so-called rapidly industrialising countries like India, Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia. On the other there’s the United States (for which read "representatives of energy-producing regions in Congress, which must ratify any treaty negotiated by the President") and most of the developed world.
Negotiations are rarely successful when both parties can only lose. Climate talks are about the apportionment of pain and blame, with benefits flowing to a third category of poorer countries, so the prospect of a workable compromise between the major camps is remote. Expect emissions to go on rising.
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On a practical level, [John Humphreys of the Centre for Independent Studies] estimates that if activists were to organise a system of voluntary “workplace giving”, whereby people could opt to allow 0.5 per cent (or more) of their income to go directly into a “climate fighting fund“, more that $1 billion would be raised if only one third of Australians participated.
These funds could be used to buy low-emission energy from alternative energy producers for sale to into the power grid at the going market price. For one thing, this would spur investment in alternative energy technologies without inefficient meddling from government.
This is one of many courses open to those who profess to be alarmed about the coming cataclysm. We’re often told they’re in the majority. Since the future of the planet is at stake, why should higher contributions matter?
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