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Unscripted confrontation enlivens Bonn climate media workshop

by NO_AUTHOR | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Wednesday, 29 April 2009 13:24 GMT

By Jeremy Lovell

BONN, Germany – The 23 participants in last week’s UNFCCC’s media workshop had not expected much from the main climate negotiating meeting taking place around them, and they were not disappointed when their expectations were met in full.

This, after all, was the start of the proper negotiating phase to agree a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol on fighting climate change at a meeting in Copenhagen by the end of the year and, as usual in such instances, attitudes tend to harden on all sides. Instead it was the workshops themselves that provided the focus with clear and succinct briefings from a few selected presenters and one brief, unscripted but revealing interaction between two of them that illustrated directly the depth of the divisions and some of the emotions behind them.

The goal of the workshops is to school a group of reporters from the developing world in the complexities of climate change and the process of international climate negotiations so that by the time that same group arrives in Copenhagen in early December they will be fully versed in what is going on around them, allowing them to ask informed questions of their own and other delegates.

Developing world reporters are a small fraction of those covering international climate talks yet their countries will, and in some cases already do, suffer some of the worst consequences of climate change.

“It has been a tactical two weeks with people establishing their positions,” said Michael Zammit Cutajar, the Maltese head of the negotiating group trying to establish a blueprint for long-term global cooperative action on the climate, as he summed up the 10-day meeting in Bonn.

The workshop highlight began when Elliot Diringer from America’s Pew Centre environment think-tank gave his analysis of the key issues and what might be the end result in December, concluding that it would be better to have no quick deal in Copenhagen than one which let either the developed or the major developing nations off the hook.

Sitting next to him taking notes was Indian negotiator Surya Sethi who had asked at the last minute to take part in the session on mitigation – how to cut carbon emissions to curb climate change. Sethi  told the workshop that India was doing all it could within strict budget constraints but that as it was the developed world that had caused the problem they had to lead the way and foot was is certainly going to be a very large bill.

The vehemence of his tone and the fact that he was using Diringer’s own presentation to make frequently contradictory points provided participants with some real meat for what otherwise could have been very programmatic stories of the proceedings of the conference itself.

The sparks flew in particular over two emotive issues – embedded carbon, that is carbon emissions in major developing economies such as China and India to produce goods for export to the developed nations that in the past produce the goods themselves. These emissions are counted in the exporting country’s total and not those of the importing country – a sore point with both China and India but a very complex one at the same time.

There was also the very sensitive issue of climate mitigation and adaptation projects using foreign money. Developing nations insist they do not want a Big Brother staring over their shoulders checking that they are doing what they said they would, while donor nations insist that if international money is involved then there must also be international verification.

These were both new issues for the workshop participants that were brought to life by the exchanges in front of them and in an explanatory session afterwards. When asked in the wrap-up at the end of the conference what they would like more of in future workshops, almost all of the participants said they wanted more of that type of session.

Another powerful presentation came from Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute who reported on the latest climate science showing that things were getting worse faster than predicted two years ago in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report.

This report forms the basis of the political negotiations but is now outdated in some respects, prompting calls from some people for it to be replaced by the latest information.

This triggered a lively debate among the workshop participants on the complexities of junking the old science in favour of the new and the danger that some countries might take that as an excuse to do nothing because of the renewed uncertainty such a change would bring.

It is an issue that will certainly crop up again at the next UNFCCC negotiating meeting and climate media workshop in Bonn in early June and is likely to be a recurring theme for the rest of the year up to and including Copenhagen.

(The workshops are sponsored by Com+ and run by the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change with training provided by Jeremy Lovell, Thomson Reuters Foundation instructor)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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