| The challenge of the century |
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| Monday, 04 June 2007 00:00 |
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Meera Atkinson Climate change is the topic de jour and like other matters of grave and pressing concern that have no immediate end in sight such as poverty and war the danger of our becoming overwhelmed by the enormity of it, fatigued by the effort to address it, and numb in response to over-exposure is ever present. And yet the failure to take seriously and engage with the problem would, most scientists and citizens now concede, have a devastating impact on the future of humanity. The term “climate change” is slowly replacing “global warming” because it better conveys the variety of changes taking place which are not limited to warming temperature. The World Environment Day website reports that the earth has warmed by approximately 0.75 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times. At this stage of the game few dispute the rising conventional wisdom that this is due to emissions of greenhouse gasses from fossil fuels. The US Environmental Protection Agency states that the warmest global average temperatures on record have all occurred within the last 15 years. Climate change is already having a dramatic effect on ecology and the animal kingdom; sea levels are rising, glaciers are shrinking, seasons are altering, and whole species are endangered. Poor communities that are directly dependent on stable climate and the developing world are most likely to be negatively affected by drastic changes in weather patterns. Dangerous climate change then must be seen not only as a grave environmental reality but as an urgent human rights issue. Organisations around the globe are working on the problem at various levels, but the most central, international, and influential forum addressing climate change today is without question the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The first major intergovernmental meeting to recognise climate change as a serious threat was held in 1979, and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the first binding international treaty and legal instrument on climate change, took centre stage in 1994. 191 countries, including Australia, are convention members. In 1997 the Kyoto Protocol, which commits eligible parties to individual, legally-binding targets to limit or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, was born, and 173 countries, not including Australia, have ratified the protocol. The most recent Convention, which met to negotiate a strategy for the post-2012 Kyoto agreements, was held in Bonn, Germany, in May. Mark Zirnsak, Director of the Justice and International Mission Unit of the Uniting Church Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, was among the 1,800 participants of the two week conference. His experience offers a valuable insight into the high level discussion around this pressing issue, giving a sense of just where the critical international dialogue stands at this point in time. Attending this conference can’t have come cheap — there must have been a conviction this would make a significant contribution to the Church. Climate change is one of the biggest issues we deal with in the Unit. Its impact will be in terms of hundreds of millions of people. Climate change will increase global poverty. It has the potential to fuel conflicts. These are not isolated issues. The trip to Bonn was to see how Australia performs in those negotiations and what Australia’s position is. It was also a chance to meet with NGOs internationally and to pick up resources that are not available elsewhere. There were a range of good reasons for being in Bonn. It’s such an enormous topic. Where does the discussion begin when a couple of thousand people get together? In terms of the structure you have two streams: discussions on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and discussion in regards to the Kyoto Protocol, which is the protocol attached to the convention itself. Within those you have discussions about what will happen after 2012, which is the end of the first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol. Countries have committed to certain production targets in the period between 2008-2012. The main concern internationally and from global business is that we’ll end up with a gap — that the first commitment period will end and there will be nothing else in place. So there’s a lot of angst around trying to avoid there being a gap in those commitments. Another issue is countries being willing to take on further emissions reductions and whether they are willing to take on emissions reductions equal to what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is saying is needed to avoid dangerous climate change. At the moment the Europeans are leading that position. They’ve already said they’ll take a 20% cut across the board regardless of what others do, that they’re willing to lead by example and take that up to 30% if other countries come on board. The Framework Convention itself basically says that developed countries, having created the problem largely and historically, need to bear the greatest responsibility for fixing it and to assist developing countries in dealing with the problem while allowing those countries to undertake the kind of development they need to meet the basic needs of their people. The Europeans are saying they need developing countries to start making commitments as well. Isn’t one of the big problems that the US and Australia haven’t committed? In his interview with Andrew Denton, Al Gore called the US and Australia the “Bonnie and Clyde of the global community on the climate crisis.” That is certainly a major problem. People were talking about the need to wait for the next US President before we see anything serious coming out of the US in terms of agreeing to some sort of mitigation target. They say it would be harmful for their economy. This is the whole way this could fall apart — everybody waits to try and do the minimum they possibly can while seeking to make sure others do the maximum they can squeeze out. If everyone takes that attitude what you end with is stalemates. We’ve seen this in other UN forums, a stalemate because each country acts out of its own selfish national interest and it ends up with the common good falling by the wayside because what needs to happen doesn’t happen. And we give the same excuse? Yes, we have refused to ratify Kyoto. But Australia is still pretty much on target to meet its target, so you can say it’s a reasonable performance, it’s meeting the commitment, but it is a generous target compared to others. We negotiated a target that allows us to grow our emissions where other countries have taken cuts. The other thing Kyoto allows for is what’s called the clean development mechanism. What that says is you can buy offsets so by a country funding emission cuts in developing countries, say a place like China; you get a credit against your own emissions to help you meet your target. By Australia not ratifying it makes it harder to meet its targets. If it was part of Kyoto it could be purchasing offsets. Al Gore also suggested in that same interview that Australia ratifying Kyoto would force the hand of the US. Australia and the US have different positions on some issues and clearly Australia taking a position doesn’t necessarily shift the US position. For example, Australia is an active and committed party to the treaty that bans anti-personnel landmines, and has publicly criticised the US over its failure to ratify that treaty, yet it hasn’t made any difference at all to the US position. Australia takes a position that globally nuclear disarmament is desirable and has put pressure on the US to work toward nuclear disarmament. This suggests that just because Australia comes on board and does the right thing that you can’t expect the US to necessarily follow. But obviously if the US was the only country that hadn’t ratified Kyoto the pressure would be stronger. So, what’s the word on Kyoto? The main discussion was where we go after 2012. Global business was saying they need the certainty of knowing where things are going to go after this first commitment period. If governments don’t reach agreements and we end up with a gap it will stuff up their ability to make investments and have certainty about where carbon markets will go. Did you come away feeling hopeful or tentative and uncertain? It feels tentative and uncertain and my big concern was that government delegations didn’t seem to share the anxiety and the sense of priority and the need for urgent action that I think is in the wider community. The authors of the reports were saying the reports need to be seen as conservative. Where does all this leave average members of the church and the church’s ability to influence the outcome? We need to be part of a broader movement. This is a major issue and we need to get on board with other organisations who are concerned about climate change and working with them to put pressure on government to change its position at the international level. Australia needs to be able to play a role like the Europeans have done, to be willing to take on a decent cut in domestic emissions, recognising that we have a greater responsibility based on the fact that historically we are more responsible for climate change and allowing developing countries to develop. We get a lot of “China needs to pull its weight”. Yes China does need to take reasonable steps but it also needs assistance from outside. They can say their emissions are less than 5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person. Australia’s are over 27 tonnes per person. What do you see as the theological underpinning of this issue? This is an environmental issue but also a humanitarian one so it’s very much within the basic theology of the church. This issue will exacerbate poverty, that will harm the poor and vulnerable, particularly the rural community. Then there’s our theology around the care of the planet and creation and the need to preserve that for future generations. This issue is uncontroversial from a theological point of view. If we accept climate change is happening, and the science overwhelmingly says it is, and if we accept that change is due to human influence, and again the science says it is, then the issue is what we need to do about it. In the wake of Mark’s visit to Bonn the US have announced their plan for a new global framework slated to come into force when the Kyoto Protocol lapses. It is expected the US will urge 14 other major industrialised nations, including Australia, to commit to long-term targets to reduce dangerous climate change. While federal Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Malcolm Turnbull is reported to have called the US proposal a “wise plan”, scepticism is understandable given the position of the US to date. The international forum on climate change needs heroes, countries bold and brave enough to lead the way toward a healthier and ultimately sustainable planet for the sake of the generations to come. And the citizens of each and every nation can play a part in sending a message to their governments about climate change. It’s something to think about as we head to the polls later this year.
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