Ken Cloke's Diary - Day 5

Copenhagen Diary:
Reflections from Inside the Climate Change Conference
by Ken Cloke

Entry 5: Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Today is my last day at the UN conference, and my last diary entry from the United Nations proceedings. Tomorrow and Friday, over 60 mediators from 20 countries will gather in a seminar MBB is co-hosting with Nordic Mediators to develop a multi-year strategy for promoting mediation and supporting its use in resolving climate change disputes.

This morning began with a bang. The Guardian in England leaked a copy of a secret Danish government memorandum promoting an agreement that seemed to many delegates to promote US global interests and to take several steps backwards from what they had hoped would emerge from the conference. The G 77 nations are quite upset and talking about a walkout. Nonetheless, several of our members had a lengthy, very useful conversation with the Sudanese leader of their delegation about the possible uses of mediation to resolve climate change disputes.

The architecture, in this regard, is worth noting. The U.S. has a posh pavilion inside the delegates’ area advertising all the things it is doing to promote environmental practices. Next to it, the E.U. has a beautiful, tastefully decorated common area with a large eating area and café. Sandwiched in a corner a few feet away are two tiny, utilitarian, undecorated rooms that serve as headquarters for both China and the G 77.

I did two televised interviews today, both of which went pretty well. Our basic position is simple and unassailable, so most of the questions revolved around how mediation works and how the conference might have been organized more effectively.

This caused me to reflect on the fact that large political meetings like this one are often arranged hierarchically, bureaucratically and autocratically (even when they adopt a formally democratic official language); around narrow, technical topics that make it difficult for anyone to have authentic, meaningful conversations; entirely in large groups that do not allow for honest inter-personal dialogue; based on formal, arcane procedures that tie conversations in knots; and are increasingly pointless, ineffective, and unnecessary.

I’m sure the idea of breaking up into small groups to discuss problems in diverse teams; or participate in open and honest dialogue; or collectively brainstorm solutions; or use professional facilitators, negotiators, conflict coaches, mediators, conflict resolution consultants and systems designers, never occurred to them.

The difficulty, unfortunately, is not only that the process being used is outmoded and ineffective from the perspective of experienced professional mediators, facilitators and process designers, but that adopting an adversarial, competitive style of negotiations, as countless cases demonstrate, can only lead to agreements that are half-hearted, uninspiring, and insufficient to solve the problem.

As a result, here is where I believe we stand, one-third of the way through what can only be regarded, on the basis on hard scientific data, as the most important meeting – not merely of this decade, or this century, but in the history of the entire human race:

It is abundantly clear to all the delegates that imaginable and unimaginable disasters of immense proportions will occur if they allow greenhouse gas concentrations to exceed 350 parts per billion. It is equally clear that most of the proposals being advanced by the major players as the basis for an agreement, including the Danish proposal, do not come close to what is necessary to keep us from exceeding that limit.

This was most movingly apparent in conversations I had yesterday and today with representatives of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), who put up a stiff fight today against “business as usual” conversations that will end up with most of them sinking slowly into the sea, perhaps within decades. They spoke passionately today about the complete destruction of their homelands and ways of life, and there was hope today that they will be able to mobilize sufficient support to strengthen the outcome.

Possibly the least understood element in the negotiations that also poses the greatest threat, in my view, to successful efforts to curb global warming, is carbon trading, or what is sometimes referred to as “cap and trade.” As the Third World Network rightly points out, carbon trading is actually a form of derivatives trading, like those that led to the current financial crisis. These markets are small today, but if the U.S. government and Wall Street investors have their way, they may well turn into a trillion dollar industry.

Not only are derivatives poorly regulated, especially internationally, and prone to corruption, they are plagued with widespread conflicts of interest, their markets are dominated by speculators who are more interested in short-term profits than genuine environmental outcomes, and they are likely to produce “subprime” carbon and financial bubbles that could jeopardize years of progress.

Carbon trading benefits only bankers, speculators, and polluters, who would like to see as little regulation as possible. In my view, they are more likely to create an excuse to profit from the problem, than a real reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Having said this, I want to be clear that these are my personal views. MBB has not taken a position on any of these issues, in hopes of convincing delegates that mediation can be useful in securing and enforcing agreements.

So here is the bottom line. As H. G. Wells noted over a century ago, “Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.” We have little time left to make a difference. On one hand, there is ample cause for hope. Never before have so many people around the world been mobilized so broadly, effectively, and passionately about this issue. On the other, we are confronted with outmoded problem solving styles, institutions and attitudes that are keeping us from moving forward. The choice is now ours. We can either join together to make a difference -- all of us, working together, and systematically transform these styles, institutions and attitudes -- or we will lose, and that is not an option you or I should be willing to accept. So do something, and do it now. Join MBB, or any other active organization, and help tip the balance.

Love to all,

Ken