Even at the best of times the UNFCCC process is a challenge for business and civil society. After all, it is an intergovernmental negotiation and there is no formal role for anybody else other than governments. But we all head to the negotiations anyway, in part to try and follow the process but also to talk to the various participants. The UN oversees all this and on a regular basis, this time being no exception, the UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer encourages non-government parties at the conference to “contribute to the process” or “explain what is needed” or even “offer negotiating text”. Of course it isn’t just business trying to get thinking across, there are also a vast array of environmental, political, religious and civil society representatives there all trying to share their perspectives with the delegations. But the process itself isn’t really designed for such interaction.
At each UNFCCC meeting one or two major business organisations are given an opportunity to address the plenary and on every occasion that I can remember this seems to get reduced to one or two minutes as the time approaches – so the carefully worded business statement that didn’t say a whole lot anyway suddenly gets trimmed from a couple of pages to a few bullet points and that is it. But the process roles on and through painstaking repetition and endless hallway discussions the messages on levels of investment needed to achieve the needed emission goals, the capital flows, technology, intellectual property, competitiveness, carbon markets and so on sink in. We all know that many people aren’t happy with even this level of influence in the process, but the reality is that business is an important part of the way our economies function and that any new constraints placed on the economy, such as emissions limitations, need to be able to work and deliver within the system that we have.
The new reality, at least for this week, is that this is a now closed shop. Whereas last week anybody that turned up with accreditation could enter the Bella Centre, on Tuesday just 7000 non-government people were allowed in. By Friday it will be literally a handful of NGOs allowed in the centre as over 100 heads of government and many more ministers arrive for the final showdown. After many years of participating in this process it’s a pity to miss the last hurrah, but given how it is all going, there will be plenty more opportunity in 2010 (and beyond I suspect). So it is time to leave Copenhagen to the government and media and watch it all on CNN at home . . . .
David, Thank you for your balanced statements. But in the present situation of future lethal threat on our whole civilisation, citizenship comes before business. Technology will be needed, but first we need the mobilisation of the citizens, forcing our governments to sign a bold and real deal to cut our CO2 emissions and put a halt on global warming. We need to cut by 4 or 5 or even more our CO2 emissions. Technology will help but is clearly not enough. We (rich country citizen) need to completly change our way of life: we need to cut by 4 or 5 our air travels, our car journeys, our use of energy for heating, our purchase of electronic goods, our consumption of red meat, to single some important sources of green house gas.
This is a project of society change.
Shell can be part of it according to your prospective study (12 2008) Blue Print. You have the money and the power to walk your talk.
Just do it.
The spectacle of so many racing about the Bella Centre last week was, for me, an invidious sight. The UN can corrale the world community to act in response to a major threat to peace yet appears impotent to drive meaningful change in this context….
David: I don’t believe that the people can afford to sit back and just watch it all on CNN. I’m sure that it’s what Shell’s ideal situation would be. Unfortunately, it’s the people who are living with the realities of Climate Change and having no voice in the process is very disturbing to someone who lives with it and whose life is affected by it. It would be dangerous for us who live at the ground level of climate change to leave it up to the likes of Shell and other oil companies to have all the influence. No, it’s absolutely necessary for civil society to be involved in trying to get our message across, unless of course Shell is willing to pay for adaptation. Our goal is to have the governments involved in the negotiations include mitigation and adaptation in the agreements. Obviously, neither the governments nor the big rich companies have succeeded in stopping the devastation caused by climate change. What makes you think they can now considering how the indecision of the governments and the impacts caused by big business companies are the cause of our situation now? And Shell wants us to step back and just watch CNN? Is that Shell’s solution in answer to civil society’s concerns?