Out to save the world

Next week the cream of the world’s best negotiators will converge on the tropical paradise of Bali to discuss how to save the world. They are not likely to be dressed in superman capes, but may be wearing Armani suits in the tropical heat and their weapons of choice will be briefcases packed with their countries’ position papers.

And the enemy? Climate change, which has already led to wide-scale destruction across the globe as mother nature spins out of control because of rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. An Oxfam report released this week revealed that climate-driven natural disasters had quadrupled from 120 a year in the 1980s to 500 this year.

The UN’s top climate change official told the Mail & Guardian in an exclusive interview that Bali would not be the last attempt at saving our planet. That will be reserved for the conference in 2009.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN framework convention on climate change, said instead that it would be the birth of a route that would lead to a final solution.

‘Bali is about the beginning of a political process to put a solution in place to combat climate change,” he said, though he added that the world would be in deep trouble if the Bali negotiations failed to deliver any significant outcome.

De Boer emphasised that three minimum targets had to be reached in Bali if a solution was to be found in two years.

‘Firstly Bali needs to launch a negotiating agenda where negotiations need to begin on a post-2012 climate change policy. Secondly they should decide what the main elements that need to be negotiated are, and thirdly set an end date for the negotiations,” De Boer said.

De Boer said South Africa would be one of the critical negotiators in Bali.

‘South Africa is big and important developing country, and through your minister [Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk] the country is a frontrunner in climate change negotiations,” he said. ‘Along with Brazil, South Africa is taking the lead in finding solutions for developing countries to grow their economies and fight climate change at the same time.”

This is no easy task. Developing countries and developed countries have been at each other’s throats over how much greenhouse gas different countries should be allowed to emit.

Under the Kyoto protocol, only developed countries, which include Europe, Japan, the United States, Canada and Russia, have caps on their emissions. Developing countries, with huge emissions, such as China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, have none.

The developing countries’ argument is that the developed world had the room to grow their economies when there were no caps in place. The developing world should be allowed to do the same, they say.

The US, however, feels that the developing world should at least take on some caps and have used this as one of its excuses not to ratify Kyoto. China refuses to even consider emission caps if the US is not coming to the party.

‘It is a bit like the chicken and egg situation,” De Boer summed up the deadlock. ‘But an important process is being set up in Bali that will continue after the negotiations there, and which will solve this dilemma.”

He said this year both China and the US had made huge strides in solving the deadlock.

‘The US has indicated that it wants to resolve the problem and [US] President [George W] Bush said in his state of the union address that climate change is a global problem which needed a negotiated solution.”

He added that China also had an impressive climate change strategy. But China, like South Africa, still had a coal-dependent economy, which it would not be able to ditch soon.

Almost 90% of South Africa’s electricity needs come from coal and with almost 200 years worth of coal still in the ground, coal will be a big part of South Africa’s energy future. But De Boer said South Africa would have to invest in more clean energies for its coal power plants.

‘It is also critical for South Africa to develop carbon capture and storage, where the emissions from coal are captured and stored underground.”

South Africa’s emissions were growing fast because of the country’s growing economy, but he said a big step would be for South Africa to become more energy efficient.

‘South Africa will be heavily impacted by climate change — your coastal cities will be affected, you will have more floods while other parts of the country will become drier. That is why it is in South Africa’s interest to solve this climate crisis.”