A discordant accord

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Mahmudur Rahman
Agreements rarely see fruitful conclusion unless the discordant elements are thrashed out beforehand. True diplomacy requires that such discords are presented at the negotiating table with a list of options to fall back upon. It would appear that the UN World Climate Change Conference in Denmark will go down as a summit of discord rather than one of accord. Obviously the years of fairly fruitless discussion on world trade had not been learnt from.
On the positive side the description of this being "a station on a long and winding road" is fairly apt. Eyes will now be on Mexico in June next year where, hopefully, discordant factors will have been whittled down and horse-trading will have taken place to achieve something meaningful. For the Copenhagen could not agree on mandatory carbon emission levels or a legally binding framework.
The blame game has already begun with Britain accusing China and some African states of playing the rogue game. China had made its stance quite clear when it engaged in a war of words with the US on what was reasonable or not. India stuck to its position of not accepting "unreasonable positions" and stressing "no support to dilution". Environmentalists are struggling to come out of the shock of a no-agreement by trying to piece together whatever positives came out of the conference.
But the rude fact was that this summit was doomed before it began. There was a clear divide between the developed world consisting mainly the US, UK, France, Germany and the EU and the developing world led by India, China, South Africa, Brazil and the island states. The divergent positions had been stated well before and out rightly rejected by both groups. And while the groups had had discussions among themselves, they didn't really talk to each other.
The crux appears to be an unwillingness to be charitable. Everyone talked in veiled terms about not compromising national interests. How any agreement for the survival of the human race could ever be reached without such compromise is hard to see. The developed world having reached a stage of high industrialisation, the quality of life for their citizens would require significant investments to change their way of life for such an accord to work. They have the technology and the funds. The developing world may be the "future" of the world economy but have gaping holes in both industrialization and quality of life for their people. Nor do they have the funds and the level of technology required. As for the island states they are just caught between a rock and a hard place.
The proposition was therefore, cutting emissions, funding adaptation measures to face the effects of climate change and ensuring accountability. In terms of cutting emissions the debate was the basis of such cuts i.e. on per capita or on something else. This was opposed by the developing world as they clearly had huge populations and therefore larger cuts to consider. Inspite of this, India and China did commit to up to 25% cuts based on the base levels. The developed word could not agree on the numbers. In terms of funding, there as a proposal of $ 3.0 billion per year till 2020, a figures scoffed by the developing world as 'ridiculous". Matters eased when the US re-proposed the number to $ 100 billion by 2020 without specifying where it would come from. The sticking bloc was the monitoring issue. India and China were against a legally binding treaty and the developed world argued that they were unwilling to release funds unless they knew where it was being spent i.e. accountability.
In between the small island states were incensed by the final agreement-brokered by a handful of world leaders-that suggested limiting temperature increases to 2.0% against an absolute ceiling of 1.5% by the island states.
Bangladesh's stand had been that the developed world needed to give more since they were the main culprits in contributing to global warming and has expressed its disappointment. India, China, Brazil and South Africa had drawn up their strategy before the summit and appear to be reasonably happy with the outcome. The message could well be that they now have the platform for further homework and negotiations.
For now, the small island states will continue to watch the seas slowly devouring their land; the developing world will continue to see a surge in natural calamities hitting them left right and centre; and the world will watch on in disbelief as nature punishes it in the way only she can. (The writer is a former head of corporate and regulatory affairs of British-American Tobacco Bangladesh and former CEO of Bangladesh Cricket Board. He can be reached at mahmudrahman@gmail.com)