India Environment Portal | News, reports, documents, blogs, data, analysis on environment & development | India, South Asia

 

“And the riot squad they’re restless

Obama will grace COP15. And that is the biggest story out here. The story is so big that negotiators are forced to take this fact into their negotiating account. Why? It is because Obama cannot afford to lose a game. It does not really matter if the atmosphere or the planet goes to hell. Bottom line is that Obama must be able to claim a victory.

Mr Todd Stern, the US special envoy on Climate Change, decided to make public certain things he just

realised

I thought of staying away from climate change completely. I thought any sort of engagement with climate change negotiation was nothing but lending my support to a corrupt process. But a few incidents at home just before the ‘epic’ meeting at Copenhagen forced me to say something.

At l’aquila in Italy, during a meeting of the world’s major boys and girls, India agreed to cap its carbon emissions. The agreement proclaimed the signatory countries would work together to limit global temperature rise to 2ºC from pre-industrial time. It was as if they were writing off bad debt.

The north may renege again and again but the south must go on fuelling their growth

Poznan is cold, a little less than it was expected.

And the delegates are to be kept warm

While it seems easy to draw attention to climate change by showing iconic one polar bear on a thin sheet of ice, the politics of such communication is questionable. Polar bears do not have union to voice their vulnerability. It is a noble duty of mankind to make their plight heard by others.

The word ‘Change’ was recently made popular by Mr. Obama. In his campaign period, the ‘change’ almost sounded revolutionary. Taking cue from his campaign, climate activists have also picked up the word. UN is not far away with its stale slogan like: ‘It is time to change the climate change”. A mannequin at the conference lobby.