No friends of the earth

The UN convention in Poznan won't achieve progress on climate change. Why are environmental groups supporting it?

Muhammad Cohen
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 11 December 2008 21.30 GMT
Delegates from nearly 200 countries are gathered in Poznan, Poland this week to craft a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. Last year, the mass meeting – officially known as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – took place in Bali and gave the climate change issue incredible momentum. But there are no guarantees that the UNFCCC will benefit the environment, since its approach puts no limits on developing countries, including some of the world's top greenhouse gas producers.
Developed countries that signed the Kyoto agreement were required to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 5% below 1990 levels. However, only 40 out of 192 countries participating in the UN climate change process are categorised as developed and therefore subject to restrictions. Two of the top four greenhouse gas emitting nations – China and India – remain in the developing category and exempt from any emission controls. (By some counts, Indonesia makes it three of the top five emitters allowed unrestricted emissions under the UN regime.) The UN considers developing countries' exemption a matter of "climate justice" to ensure every nation has its equal opportunity to poison the earth.
Giving developing countries unrestricted rights to spew carbon may or may not be the best way to fight global warming, but the UN has closed debate on the matter. Developing countries cannot be subject to emission controls, according to the UNFCC, and that position is non-negotiable. That position also guarantees that the US won't join Kyoto or its successor. So the UNFCCC mechanism fails to cover at least three of the top four greenhouse gas emitting countries. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the World Meteorological Organisation's latest figures show that carbon dioxide and methane soared to record levels in 2007. Rather than the Kyoto mandate of a 5% reduction in greenhouse gas levels from 1990, there's been a 20.7% increase under the UNFCCC regime.
Despite the UNFCCC's failures, environmental NGOs remain nearly unanimous that it is the only legitimate global mechanism to combat climate change. Few challenge the UN orthodoxy, perhaps because George Bush did. Under Bush, the US tried to find an alternative to the UNFCCC that would put controls on all major emitters. While the top 16 emitters showed up for the Major Economies Meeting (also known as the Major Emitters Meeting or MEM) in Washington last year, Greenpeace dismissed it (pdf) as "absurd theatre". If they really want to save the earth, however, they might question following the UN's lead.
The Nature Conservancy's director of international government relations, Andrew Deutz, thinks that the ultimate solution to cut emissions will come from a variety of processes, including UNFCCC, MEM, G20 and bilateral talks between key players, such as regular high-level economic meetings between the US and China. But he understands why many green groups see the UNFCCC as the only legitimate forum for climate negotiations.
"There's an ideological issue among environmental groups that the UNFCCC is the only legitimate forum for negotiations," Deutz explains. "It's a matter of simple democracy. These rules are for the whole planet. Why should the G8 or G20 decide for everyone? The UN is legitimate because everyone has a vote."
Still, it's hard to understand why some many environmental NGOs remain exclusively committed to a process that isn't working. Sure, the UN lets them set up booths and soapboxes at these annual climate change confabs, demonstrating that the UN is running an inclusive process. Along with their place near the table, the green groups get a shot at funding now, and more down the road. Perhaps more important in practical terms, environmental groups get publicity while providing comic relief and appealing visuals at otherwise deadly dull meetings. You don't see pictures of the (overwhelmingly hardworking and dedicated) UNFCCC delegates debating carbon sequestration methodology because the NGOs supply officially sanctioned protestors in penguin or polar bear suits that make much better video for news shows.
Whatever their reasons, backing a losing side fits into the green group's losing streak stretching back to the first Earth Day in 1970. The issues are the same now as they were nearly 40 years ago, even if terminology has changed from, say, air pollution to greenhouse gas emissions, and meaningful progress remains just as elusive. Despite their ineffectiveness, some of these NGOs rank among the best known brands on earth. The current global economic slump has governments and voters debating the merits of saving some of most famous industrial and banking names or letting them get swept away in capitalism's wave of creative destruction. Let's have the same debate about our environmental stewards that have repeatedly succeeded in proving themselves to be no friends of the earth.