Refleksi : Menurut Anda kira-kira apa yang akan diucapkan oleh SBY di Copenhagen?
Ataukah SBY tidak bisa mengatakan lebih dari apa yang telah dikemukakan
sebelumnya oleh delegasi-delegasi lain, jadi cuma persetujuan dengan disertai
sedikit tambahan chilaf lidah bahwa di negeri yang diperintahnya juga
terus-menerus dilakukan pembabatan hutan karena yang melakukan adalah
konco-konconya sendiri, jadi tolong dibantu dengan fulus agar bisa tulus diurus
guna bersama-sama menghindari "global warming". Bravo Mr President! Good job!
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/its-the-poor-who-will-pay-for-copenhagens-circus/story-e6frg6zo-1225809976343
It's the poor who will pay for Copenhagen's circus
a.. Tom Wilson
b.. From: The Australian
c.. December 14, 2009 12:00AM
MORE people attend UN conferences than make a meaningful contribution, but even
by UN standards delegates are describing the Copenhagen climate conference as a
circus.
Twenty-odd thousand green activists predominantly from developed countries are
overwhelming the 8000 government officials and demanding meetings with
delegations so they can push their proposals into any final agreement.
A handful of green, anti-capitalist activists has even infiltrated official
negotiations and are representing countries in some negotiating streams.
While public attention is focused on debates about emissions reduction targets
and peak emissions years, it is in second-tier negotiations that green groups
are having the greatest influence.
A motley crew of negotiators representing Bangladesh, Bolivia, Ghana and India
have put into technology transfer negotiating texts the scrapping of
intellectual property rights necessary to attract private investment in the
development of climate-friendly technologies that are needed to cut emissions.
In deforestation discussions, greens are attempting to limit developing country
conversion of forest lands to agriculture use that could achieve the dual
purpose of carbon sequestration and poverty alleviation. And when they're not
thrusting themselves into negotiations they're providing spectacles for the
media such as last week's Greenpeace resuscitation of a giant inflatable globe
dying from a high temperature.
The solution was for some activists dressed up as doctors to give needles to
the globe injected with "adaptation finance", "technology transfer" and
"political will" wrapped up with some "international binding" in the form of
bandages.
On Tuesday an "angry mermaid" will award a business group the honour of being
the most aggressive at "lobbying to block effective action to tackle the
(climate change) problem".
But if there are businesses trying to stop an agreement they're being awfully
quiet.
Text book multilateral institution conferences generally involve governments
wanting negotiations to head in one direction, business in another and
non-government organisations in a third.
But in the Copenhagen conference all are swimming up the same stream because
climate change provides the perfect marriage of the interests of big, green,
non-governmental organisations, big government and big business.
Over the weekend that bridged the fortnight's negotiations, the Confederation
of Danish Industry organised the Bright Green Expo that includes a trade show
for companies to spruik their technology to reduce emissions.
Wind farm manufacturers Vestas and Siemens have advertised in train stations
used by the delegates to get to the conference centre.
Big business isn't fighting an agreement, it's trying to find ways to explain
why they are part of the climate solution so they can coax governments to
regulate in their interests and attract subsidies for otherwise unviable
commercial products.
Not that big government minds because they can use climate change as an excuse
to rein in the free hand of private enterprise and swell bureaucracy.
The fact that the Australian government has 114 registered delegates, exceeding
the size of India and Britain's delegations, shows the bureaucratic regulatory
threat of a Copenhagen agreement and policy instruments like an emissions
trading scheme.
The biggest opponents of a broad, sweeping international agreement aren't
business but poor countries because they know they cannot afford the green
man's burden.
It is why attempts to get the Indian and Chinese governments to take on
significant emissions reduction targets will fail because there's no choice
between two weeks of criticism from the 20-strong Australian Youth Climate
Coalition delegates, against a lifetime of criticism from the billions of
people who have to live with the consequences.
The tragedy of Copenhagen is that the impact of any agreement on the world's
poor has largely been lost among the self-indulgent circus caused by rich
country green activists who'd rather see themselves on television back home.
Not that it should be a surprise. By comparison to the 21,000 Copenhagen
observers,
last week's comparable World Trade Organisation Ministerial Conference in
Geneva only attracted 500 observers who were broadly committed to securing an
inter-national trade deal to promote poverty-alleviating free trade.
The irony is that if there were as many people who cared about cutting poverty,
the world's poor would be better able to adapt to the consequences of climate
change and there'd also be the economic resources to cut emissions and deliver
a binding agreement at Copenhagen.
Tim Wilson is director of the climate and trade unit at the institute of public
affairs and is blogging from copenhagen at www.sustainabledev.org
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