Bangkok Post
Business
Saturday December 22, 2007

ASIA FOCUS : DEVELOPMENT WATCH
How Europe misread the Bali debate

ALAN OXLEY
The outcome of the Bali climate change meeting shows that most countries in the world do not favour radical action to reduce greenhouse gases. Yet in the lead-up to the meeting, the world's media were full of stories about how it is necessary to take dramatic action. The consequences would be serious if we did not. Who got it wrong? The governments at Bali or the media?

The four-page communique' adopted at Bali shows what governments wanted. It reflected agreement to start negotiating to aim for conclusion of a new global strategy by the end of 2009.

It stated that it would include strategies to mitigate emissions, to adapt to change, to provide mechanisms to finance these measures in developing countries, including acquisition of technology.

The casual observer would ask, "Isn't that about the same as the Kyoto Protocol that this new arrangement is supposed to replace?" In fact, it does even less. It does not call for nations to adopt agreed targets to reduce emissions and does even mention Kyoto.

George Monbiot, the left-leaning commentator in The Guardian, criticised it for that and called the British Environment Minster Hilary Benn "an idiot" for commending the communique'. But Mr Benn was right and Mr Monbiot wrong.

Perhaps Mr Benn was being diplomatic. The communique' was a defeat for the European Union and the British and German governments. They want a new agreement based on the elements of Kyoto, with reference to the need for deep cuts in global emission of between 50% and 60% by 2050, interim cuts ranging between 25% and 40% by 2020 and ultimate acceptance by developing countries of such cuts.

The Europeans can console themselves that they have two years to push this and that a Democrat administration may be elected in the United States in 2008 and that it may join their cause, like Bill Clinton and Al Gore did when the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated.

But it is usual at the beginnings of negotiations such as this for there to be reference in the negotiating mandate to the key goals of the main players. So who refused to allow reference to the preferred concepts of the EU, even in a non-binding way, in the communique'?

The Greens blamed the US. The real answer extends to Russia, Canada, China, India and the developing countries as well; virtually everyone except the EU.

Did the Europeans misread the developing country positions? Bali did not represent much of a change in them. They did agree that they should develop and adopt "measurable and verifiable" measure to reduce greenhouse gases, but they clearly did not mean that to cover mandatory targets to cut emissions.

"Disregard" or even "discount" might better describe the European perspective, if the position of the Italian environment minister, also head of the Italian Green Party showed why.

In a high-level panel discussion conducted in Bali alongside the conference, he stated that the international community had to ensure developing countries did not make the same mistakes as the industrialised world. Did he mean despoil the environment or raise living standards? To European Greens it is one and the same.

Environmental groups such as Greenpeace and European delegations, particularly the Germans who consider the Kyoto Protocol their baby, were busy briefing the media before and after the conference that unless there was agreement to early, deep cuts in emissions, temperatures would rise even more dramatically.

They recited the British Stern report which contended poor countries would suffer most unless this happened. The media wrote that up as fact instead of asking developing countries what they thought.

Clearly delegations in both the developed and developing world had done their homework about what deep cuts meant. In short, it is a costly increase in electricity which would reduce growth. They were not going to be rushed into committing to targets or dates until they had assessed the impacts of various scenarios.

Singapore's Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong made a very considered statement observing that on climate change, one size does not fit all, and each country should develop its own strategy that best suits its circumstances.

The presumption of the Europeans clearly irritated leading developing country delegations. There was noticeable edge in statements and presentations by developing countries. India and Brazil criticised the UN Human Development report, released just before the conference, for calling for developing countries to commit to targets to reduce Greenhouse gas emissions. It had been prepared by a British consultant.

And in a moment of high drama in the closing stages of the conference, the Chinese delegation heavily criticised the Dutch secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change which had organised the Bali Summit and preparations beforehand.

While European Greens complained about the result of Bali, it is a good start. The concept laid out by Prime Minister Lee is the only basis on which an effective global strategy to address climate change can be built.

It is the Europeans who will have to show flexibility if the process established at Bali can succeed.

Alan Oxley is Chairman of the pro-growth NGO, World Growth and was an NGO observer at the Bali meeting.