Reporting Development Network Africa (Grahamstown)
Steven Lang
1 December 2011
opinion
Dozens of small and large companies as well as creative NGOs are producing a considerable amount of innovative thinking that appears to be sadly lacking in the official negotiations taking place here at the climate change talks in Durban.
At the massive COP17 exhibition centre, delegates can visit a vast array of stands where exhibitors show new ways of harnessing renewable forms of energy to make our daily lives more comfortable without damaging the environment. The ingenuity of the business and non-governmental organisation sectors is quite astounding as they put on display everything from an electric Porsche, several electric motorcycles and bicycles all the way to solar powered lanterns for night markets. The private sector has come up with new ways of planting crops, of boiling kettles and protecting the oceans.
In stark contrast to the energy and lateral thinking displayed by the entrepreneurial sector, government negotiators are making precious little progress in their quest to achieve some kind of agreement to replace or extend the Kyoto Protocol. When the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires next year, there will be no legal instruments in place obliging countries to restrain their emissions of greenhouse gases. Activists, supported by extensive scientific research, argue that unless all countries dramatically cut back their emissions, the world could face catastrophic runaway global warming with unimaginable consequences.
Government delegations appear to be stuck in immutable ruts that will never change until our leaders understand that any damage caused to the environment in one country can have consequences in other parts of the planet.
The two biggest polluters on planet earth are also the most intransigent. The United States and China have made it clear that they will not sign any agreement unless it is done strictly on their own terms – and if this means destroying life on earth – they are both quite ready to take this risk. The industrialised powers are playing a game of chicken – who will blink first, and who will back down?
African governments are also patently short of ideas. The sole line of argument of African negotiators is simple and self-serving: the industrialised world has done the most to damage the environment therefore they should give Africa obscene amounts of money.
The problem is that hierarchically, the unimaginative, stubborn government negotiators have precedence over everyone else. They stay in luxury suites and get driven around in multi-vehicle, screaming convoys while the people who are seriously committed to combatting climate change are treated like obstreperous rabble.
AllAfrica – All the Time