BALI SUMMIT ENDS WITH DEAL TO DO SOMETHING, SOMEDAY

by Stephen Leahy

(IPS) -- A tiny step was taken Saturday in meeting the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced.

But it was nearly a step backward as the crucial climate talks in Bali almost collapsed when the United States refused to join the global consensus. However, after Kevin Conrad representing Papua New Guinea told the U.S. delegation if they weren't going to be leaders, to please get out of the way, the U.S. reversed its position and accepted what is called the "Bali roadmap."

But before considering this new political roadmap on climate change, what route did the scientific roadmap tell us to take?

A month ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, issued urgent warnings that global emissions of greenhouse gases must peak and begin to decline within 10 to 15 years. Many of world's leading climate scientists have said that failure is not an option because it will irreversibly destabilise the planet's climate system.

The millions of people already being affected by climate change will rapidly become hundreds of millions without major reductions. And there is a high risk that unique ecosystems that sustain life, such as coral reefs, will collapse.

Climate science says the first important step on our journey to prevent dangerous climate change is for industrialized countries to reduce their emissions by 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. Representatives from industrialized countries actually agreed with the scientists at a UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting last August in Vienna.

And throughout the two-week Bali climate change talks, Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UNFCCC, often reiterated this was the route that climate science had clearly laid out.

So where does the Bali roadmap lead us?

There is no mention of the 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. Canada, the U.S. and Japan had steadfastly opposed any specific reduction targets for industrialized countries. This was bitterly opposed by the European Union and many developing nations.

For the sake of reaching an agreement, they eventually compromised and there are no specific emissions targets in the final agreement. It does acknowledge that "deep cuts in global emissions will be required to achieve the ultimate objective" of avoiding dangerous climate change.

The Bali roadmap is essentially an agreement to start a two-year process of negotiations designed to agree on a new set of emissions targets to replace those in the Kyoto Protocol. While this may not seem like much progress, there had been serious debate about a longer negotiation period which would postpone action well into the future.

And until the last, the U.S. -- which alone which accounts for about a quarter of the world's global warming emissions -- objected to a specific declaration that "deep cuts in global emissions" were needed, saying the science remains uncertain.

"The [George W.] Bush administration has unscrupulously taken a monkey wrench to the level of action on climate change that the science demands," said Gerd Leipold, executive director of Greenpeace International.

"They've relegated the science to a footnote," said Leipold in a statement.

Without reduction targets, what was achieved in Bali?

"We've created incentives to make it attractive for countries to act on climate change," said de Boer at the meeting's final press conference. "We're creating carrots here, and maybe, if need be, later on we'll make sticks to encourage people."

The biggest carrot is to allow rich countries to buy carbon credits from countries that preserve their existing tropical forests. Deforestation is responsible for 20 to 25 percent of global carbon emissions.

Those carrots left some in the NGO sector fuming.

"It's all about how to make a profit out of the climate crisis," said Simone Lovera of the Global Forest Coalition, an environmental NGO based in Paraguay.

"Corporate interests are dominating and taking over this conference," Lovera told IPS from Nusa Dua, Bali.

Rather than buying credits to pollute, rich countries should be reducing their emissions at source, she said. The UNFCCC has made a big mistake by encouraging the business sector to become heavily involved in the process. The survival of entire countries are at stake and it's absolutely impossible for them to participate, said Lovera, who has attended many climate conferences.

While the principles of sustainable development were largely being ignored in Bali, Lovera said there were still hopeful signs, such as the Dutch agreement to stop subsidising oil palm for use as biodiesel and Norway's 2.8-billion-dollar commitment to help developing countries that preserve their forests. And Germany announced it would cut its emissions by 40 percent by 2020.

Most NGOs issued statements congratulating delegates on achieving an agreement but saying the Bali roadmap is vague, and lacking ambition. And everyone is waiting for the Bush administration to leave office, setting up enormous expectations for the country's new president.

"Politicians can no longer say they didn't know climate change is a serious and urgent issue," Hans Verolme, director of WWF's Global Climate Change Program, said a month ago at the formal release of the IPCC Synthesis Report.

"Bali will show the world what they are ready to do," Verolme told IPS.

At the moment, just a small step forward.