BeFriending Creation
Upstairs / downstairs at the United Nations—
Witnessing a major disconnect on climate change
Many people assume that the United Nations has been paying a lot of attention lately to climate change and other development-related issues. But in reality the UN's priorities on these vital matters can be described in the same terms as where the meetings have been held—in the basement.
Since the spring of 2000 I've been attending annual sessions of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) at the UN in New York City, in order to report back to QEW what's going on internationally with regard to Earthcare.
This year for the first time I was able to get to the February Intergovernmental Preparatory Meeting (IPM), which precedes the regular May CSD meeting. An IPM is held so that the chair can compile a summary of what participating nations and other parties have to say about any year's cluster of issues. This year the cluster includes air pollution, energy, industrial development and climate change. The chair's report will provide a starting point for the actual negotiating in May.
CSD doings are all held down in the basement. During the week there was a press conference for the release of a new scientific report on global warming, held right next to the Delegates' Dining Room on the 4th floor.
I can't help but feel that the contrast between the two settings tells the story. One was below ground, a windowless warren where the living world of day and night doesn't penetrate and everyone's view is limited by walls. The other was up where light poured through floor-to-ceiling windows that give a broad view of the world… or at least of Queens.
The mood at the press conference was serious but hopeful. There are things that can be done—if we do them together and right now. The report, Confronting Climate Change: Avoiding the unmanageable and managing the unavoidable, was issued jointly by the United Nations Foundation and Sigma Xi, a scientific research society <www.sigmaxi.org>. (At their website you can find a good summary of the report and a link to download the full report.) It is intended as a complement to the report released last November by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). It presents a "road map" of how the world can act together to mitigate the impact of climate change and adapt as best we can.
The report recommends that the nations of the world agree on a goal of not allowing global temperatures to rise more than 2 to 2.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. It seems we are now at about .8 degrees C above pre-industrial, but that greenhouse gasses and black dust already released into the atmosphere will bring the rise to about 1.5 degrees C.
It says we need "a new global policy framework" and specifies what that should entail. The last sentences of the official summary, in bold, state, "Humanity must act collectively and urgently to change course through leadership at all levels of society. There is no more time for delay."
Meanwhile, down in the basement, there was no discussion of a new global policy framework. From listening, one would conclude that market mechanisms are the only answer. The OPEC nations are calling for billions of dollars for research and development to make petroleum use cleaner, since we all know that's what we're going to rely on for the foreseeable future.
The United States trotted out small success stories about cleaner energy projects, accomplished through the workings of the market, that the U.S. wants copied around the world to make things all better.
The European Union is serious about developing technologies for more efficient energy use, and about increasing solar and wind power, and they are going about doing it on their own. Pleas from the Small Island Developing States (SIDS), who are at risk from rising sea levels, went unheard.
At the end of the week, the Chair's summary was not encouraging. On the last day of the IPM, the headline on an in-house NGO daily called Taking Issue, (on line at <www.sdissues.net/SDIN/>) read "Chair's Text Rings Death Knell for the CSD." The article found no strong commitment to a real change in unsustainable production and consumption patterns, or to using environmentally sustainable energy sources.
It can be hard to know what is going on with delegates. Those who speak on the floor can say only what they have been instructed to say by their home governments; "on stage" they can't depart from their pre-determined scripts.
But a lot goes on "backstage," among allied blocs of nations as well as between delegates and their governments back home. Although not many nations were present at the 4th floor press conference, the report will be circulated, and there will definitely be discussion within voting blocs. Delegates from around the world will inform their governments, and perhaps come back in May with slightly different scripts, more open to real negotiation. One can hope.
Janet Frieswyk, who also attended the Intergovernmental Preparatory Meeting on behalf of QEW, and I expect to attend CSD sessions in May. We will let you know how it goes.•
