I am headed to Copenhagen in December for the UN Climate Change Conference known as COP15. I'm going with an NGO called Mediators Beyond Borders who has been asked to participate. Our primary goal is to insert a mediation clause in the agreement that will hopefully come out of this world climate meeting. This mediation clause, if inserted, will provide countries and others governing bodies with a way to deal with issues and opportunities as they will undoubtedly arise as the world looks to solve the global warming dilemma.
In preparation for my going to Copenhagen, I have been reading a great deal. I just finished a report called the "2009 State of the World--Into a Warming World" by the Worldwatch Institute. Within that report was an article by Aliferti Tawakeand and Jaun Hoffmaister on small island adaptive management. Specifically, they have focused on Fiji and other small countries in the area with something they call LMMA or Locally Managed Marine Areas. It is a community based network where locals share knowledge among traditional elders, community leaders, NGO's, educators and stakeholders. They do not exclude government but rather use them as partners as opposed to commanders. It is a bottom up model as opposed to top down. They are empowered on how to best use their limited resources in light of the predicted climate change. The islands are the canary in the mine so to speak. We should be watching, listening, learning and acting from their example.
Which brings me to the Nobel Prize for Economics. Elinor Ostrom, a political scientist at Indiana University, won the Nobel Prize for Economics yesterday on a theory that caught my ear and sounded familiar. She basically showed how common resources -- forests, fisheries, oil fields or grazing lands -- can be managed successfully by the people who use them, rather than by governments or private companies. She said to reporters after she won that "what we have ignored is what citizens can do and the importance of real involvement of the people involved -- versus just having somebody in Washington ... make a rule."
So the road to Copenhagen starts with you, the individual. As the Dali Lama points out, "We and they no longer exist. This planet is just us. The destruction of one area is the destruction of yourself. That is the new reality." (From Dr. Kenneth Cloke's new book: "Conflict Revolution") It seems apparent that mediation needs to be in place once the parties to the convention in Copenhagen sign the new agreement that replaces the one from Kyoto that expires in 2012. Without this method to solve conflict, global problems will be more difficult to negotiate and more time consuming. Based upon what I have studied, time is not something we have much of if we are to effectuate the change that is needed.
I will endeavor to blog about what I learn and what we achieve as I prepare and go onto Copenhagen and beyond.
