Negotiating Copenhagen

This is a piece written by a colleague of mine that describes the situation in Copenhagen well:

Thursday 17 December 2009
Copenhagen deal will require more than a little give
and take
JOHN STURROCK
LAST week, I found myself in the Bella Centre in Copenhagen, the location for the
negotiations on climate change.
It is a vast cavern, with scores of rooms serving as the location for talks, presentations,
media activity and lobbying. I was struck by the sheer mass of people, with laptops, leaflets,
cameras and TV screens, milling around in the hope of influencing discussions.
That image has stayed with me as we hear daily of the difficulties facing negotiations. The
sheer complexity of the treaty arrangements under discussion, the fact that nearly 200
countries are participating, and the energetic presence of hundreds of non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) and other international bodies, must make the talks almost
unmanageable. Add to that the diversity of positions on the main issues and the challenge is
great indeed.
Senior diplomats would acknowledge that the process could be done differently. In
conventional negotiations, with a large number of participants, efforts would probably be
made to create smaller working groups to report back to a larger body. The trouble in
Copenhagen seems to be that small groups are working in secret, and exclusion creates
hostility and fear. In the absence of trust, nations fear being taken advantage of by those
whose interests they perceive to be different.
Lack of trust at international level is not surprising, but it makes negotiation difficult. It leads
to the leaking of drafts, a more hectoring tone, hardening into threats and walkouts. Often,
these are carefully orchestrated moves in a game of chess where much else is happening. It
is understandable in negotiation to hear people say: "If you do this, we'll do that…" or "If you
don't give us X, we will not agree to Y". But parties can then find themselves with much less
room for manoeuvre than they need when negotiations reach crisis point. Backing yourself
or the other party into a corner makes it more difficult for crucial concessions to be made.
In Copenhagen, the risk is that some countries will fear losing face even when they know
that, to get an overall deal, they should move. Whatever diplomatic skills leaders such as
Gordon Brown and Barack Obama can bring could be crucial. Can they help others to
change position with dignity and make concessions themselves which are game-changing?
A heroic move to break the impasse may be needed.
In difficult negotiations, all can seem lost until very late in the day. Sometimes, it needs
people to go to look over the precipice and consider again the Big Picture, to realise that the
alternative to a deal is worse than what is on the table. For the rich nations, this may be the
knowledge that, if they don't help the developing nations to tackle climate change seriously
now, emissions will spin out of control so that by 2030 there will be no way back – for
anyone. For the developing countries, the knowledge that, unless global warming is
controlled, the Himalayan glaciers will recede still further, threatening water supplies to
billions of people, and the desertification of large parts of Africa will be hastened, should
provide a strong incentive to reach a conclusion.
While we cannot escape responsibility for what we have done, there may be a time when
letting go of the past is essential if we are to grasp a workable future. Forgiveness is a
sensitive subject with which we may need to wrestle. We can now see that human progress
has come at a great cost. Mistakes have been made. There comes a point when it is futile to
seek to find fault. The reality is that we are all in this together and the only way forward is to
recognise the mutuality of our interests. If we don't, there is a very serious risk that by 2050,
we will have deep regrets.

Canary in the Ocean is Singing--COP15

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.