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Is it warm in here or is it just me?
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So…I've just spent the last two days at the The United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change in Bonn, Germany. And the best way to sum up the proceedings, is that it makes herding cats look easy.
You've got 192 countries…who knows how many Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and a smattering of really intense environmentalists with weird hair. And everyone has an opinion. And oh, everyone shares their opinion. Even if you don't want them to. And when you walk down the main corridor on the way to the hall where everyone meets, you are confronted with the inevitability of environmental disaster on a scale unimagined even by Hollywood standards. Trees disappearing, deserts taking over, oceans rising, flooding, catastrophe.
And they may be right. And they want all the delegates on their way to the Plenary Hall…. (that's where everyone sits in front of a sign with their country's name on it) to see this while they work on paragraphs like this:
13. Emission pathways towards the long-term global goal for
emission reductions require that global GHG emissions peak
{between 2010 and 2013}{by 2015}{by 2020 at the latest}{in the
next 10-15 years}{in the next 10-20 years} and decrease
thereafter.
The stuff in brackets is what everybody who has a different opinion adds. And most everyone adds something. And by the time you're done, a 21-page original document has become a 135 page single spaced monster. And then they sit there and debate each line and each phrase.
But before they get to that paragraph above….they come up with hundreds of paragraphs like these….
21, At the same session, in response to decision 1/CP.10, the
SBI held a round table as part of the assessment of the status of
implementation of Article 4, paragraph 8, of the Convention and
decisions 5/CP.7 and 1/CP.10. Participants at the round table
exchanged views on experiences, lessons learned and best
practices identified in planning and implementing adaptation
actions and activities to address the adverse effects of climate
change and the impact of the implementation of response
measures.
And that folks is the job of your climate negotiator. So don't be too hard on them. They have an impossible job. Progress is slow. How slow? Let’s just say that in comparison, those glaciers in Greenland are suffering from wind-burn.
And this is all about getting a document that they can sign in Copenhagen in December. But not before they have a couple of more meetings. This one lasted two weeks. There's another one in August for another week or so. And then one in Italy for a day. And then the BIG one in Copenhagen.
If you want my opinion….I'd invest in some water wings.
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