Flawed first step forward
Saturday, 26 December 2009
Nerun Yakub
The Copenhagen Climate summit ended last Saturday after thirteen days of heated debate and drama in the Danish capital, leaving many participants, and observers around the world, deeply disillusioned. It was denounced as an 'abject failure' by some, while Kumi Naidoo, the new head of Greenpeace International, declared that, except for the science, 'everything else is a fraud'. Indeed, the draft deal, crafted by a core group of only two dozen powerful countries ----- the most vulnerable ones remaining outside ---- is no way close to what is necessary to save the planet from the onslaughts of climate change in the not-so-distant future. But disappointing though the outcome has been, pragmatic participants say it should serve as a 'wake-up call' for civil society, particularly on the need to 'put our leaders under much more pressure than they have been.' This was Kumi Naidoo's determined stance soon after the draft deal ----'full of loopholes'----- was announced.
However, one of Bangladesh's most articulate climate change experts, Dr Saleemul Huq, like the Maldivian leader Mohammad Nasheed, was found reacting more positively. The proponents of the Copenhagen Accord themselves have admitted that the deal is a flawed one, but it is a first step forward, conceded Huq. The UN chief Ban Ki-moon calls it ' an essential beginning'. Dubbed the ' springboard to a worldwide pact on tackling climate change' it has the following provisions:
--- Global warming 'should be kept below two degrees Celsius'. But it omits the year by which carbon emissions should peak
--- Rich countries have pledged 10 billion dollars in the next three years, from 2010 to 2012, to help poor countries cope with and tackle climate change. They also promise to mobilize a 100 billion dollars a year by 2020 from a wide variety of sources. The US, it may be mentioned, has pledged the lowest, only $3.6 billion, over the 2010-2012 period, while Japan has committed $11 billion and the European Union $10.6 billion.
--- These pledges would be subjected to 'rigorous, robust and transparent' scrutiny under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Developing countries would also submit national reports on their emission pledges. But no deadline has been given for transforming these draft objectives into a legally binding treaty, nor does the deal endorse the goal of halving the global output of carbon pollution by mid century.
Climate change politics is by no means simple. Although Bangladesh and other 'most vulnerable' countries had made their presence felt at the COP15, it would be naive to presume our needs would be met without continued cooperative action. Cooperation is the key, let us make no mistake. Even the supposed champion of 'survival of the fittest' doctrine, Charles Darwin, was compelled to revise it in his mature years. In his later work, 'The Descent of Man' (1871) he rectified his earlier position and strongly emphasized the principle of cooperation above anything else. It is through cooperation that 'man advances in civilization'. The climate change crisis, optimists believe, is going to get human beings cooperating once again, this time for the survival not only of our own species but all other flora and fauna and Mother Earth itself.
The powerful everywhere, the industrialized West in the main, had chosen 'the Hobbesian war of each against all ……….the so-called civilized man of the Western world has befuddled and endangered himself to such a degree that he stands today on the very brink of destruction ----- self destruction', says Ashley Montagu, the anthropologist, in his 1950s classic 'On Being Human'. Indeed, isn't our one and only planet at the mercy of the industrialized world's frenzied over-exploitation and over-consumption of resources ? This suicidal model of development has unfortunately been replicated throughout the world as the best way to create wealth and well-being. And at what cost ?
The biologist Ernst Mayr says there have been 50 billion or so species that have evolved here since the origin of life on this planet. But only one, homo sapiens, has achieved the kind of intelligence needed to establish a civilization. And it did so only recently, perhaps a hundred thousand years ago ------ the time span equivalent to the average life expectancy of a whole species on Earth. And how have we humans been using our allotted 100,000 years ? By and large, homo sapiens have been bent on using their intelligence ' to destroy themselves and, in the process, much else, 'says Mayr.
This suicidal trend must be reversed through a sea-change in the attitudes of the rich and powerful, their consumption patterns, development goals, and their relations with the least consuming populations of this habitat. The US is reported to have said a couple of months ago that in the event of upheavals in Asia due to climate change, it might have to come in with humanitarian as well as military intervention ! One dreads to think what the latter plan would be ---- if the report was not planted by some neo-con, racist mischief- monger.
Lest such elements get the better of policy makers in the North, and lobby for military intervention (ethnic cleansing through CBWs may be ?!) instead of compensation for the teeming mass of environmental refugees, what would be the scenario for Bangladesh ? At least 20 million of our citizens are likely to be displaced by 2030 as a consequence of climate change. And it has been suggested that we go for serious negotiations with European, North American, and other land-rich, birth-dearth countries, so that these victims of global warming can migrate there in good time. Australia is said to have already piloted a bill in parliament to admit a large number from the Maldives. That is the right thing to do for fellow human beings. Mind you, human beings are all decendents of only one small breeding group, whose origins so far have been traced to Kenya. The Human Genome Project over the past decade has proved it beyond doubt.
Many fundamental discoveries concerning humanity have, in fact, been made, long before the HGP, which show that there is no such thing as 'race'. Yet apartheids of class, colour, casteism, religion, gender and what not, persist. Conflict and competitiveness between individuals and nations, rather than principles of cooperation and ethics, are considered natural. High time Montagu's views on the human race were revived and popularised. Mankind needs all the cooperation it can muster to reverse the destructive trends let loose on earth by a few centuries of mindless, soul-less plunder.
The Copenhagen Climate summit ended last Saturday after thirteen days of heated debate and drama in the Danish capital, leaving many participants, and observers around the world, deeply disillusioned. It was denounced as an 'abject failure' by some, while Kumi Naidoo, the new head of Greenpeace International, declared that, except for the science, 'everything else is a fraud'. Indeed, the draft deal, crafted by a core group of only two dozen powerful countries ----- the most vulnerable ones remaining outside ---- is no way close to what is necessary to save the planet from the onslaughts of climate change in the not-so-distant future. But disappointing though the outcome has been, pragmatic participants say it should serve as a 'wake-up call' for civil society, particularly on the need to 'put our leaders under much more pressure than they have been.' This was Kumi Naidoo's determined stance soon after the draft deal ----'full of loopholes'----- was announced.
However, one of Bangladesh's most articulate climate change experts, Dr Saleemul Huq, like the Maldivian leader Mohammad Nasheed, was found reacting more positively. The proponents of the Copenhagen Accord themselves have admitted that the deal is a flawed one, but it is a first step forward, conceded Huq. The UN chief Ban Ki-moon calls it ' an essential beginning'. Dubbed the ' springboard to a worldwide pact on tackling climate change' it has the following provisions:
--- Global warming 'should be kept below two degrees Celsius'. But it omits the year by which carbon emissions should peak
--- Rich countries have pledged 10 billion dollars in the next three years, from 2010 to 2012, to help poor countries cope with and tackle climate change. They also promise to mobilize a 100 billion dollars a year by 2020 from a wide variety of sources. The US, it may be mentioned, has pledged the lowest, only $3.6 billion, over the 2010-2012 period, while Japan has committed $11 billion and the European Union $10.6 billion.
--- These pledges would be subjected to 'rigorous, robust and transparent' scrutiny under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Developing countries would also submit national reports on their emission pledges. But no deadline has been given for transforming these draft objectives into a legally binding treaty, nor does the deal endorse the goal of halving the global output of carbon pollution by mid century.
Climate change politics is by no means simple. Although Bangladesh and other 'most vulnerable' countries had made their presence felt at the COP15, it would be naive to presume our needs would be met without continued cooperative action. Cooperation is the key, let us make no mistake. Even the supposed champion of 'survival of the fittest' doctrine, Charles Darwin, was compelled to revise it in his mature years. In his later work, 'The Descent of Man' (1871) he rectified his earlier position and strongly emphasized the principle of cooperation above anything else. It is through cooperation that 'man advances in civilization'. The climate change crisis, optimists believe, is going to get human beings cooperating once again, this time for the survival not only of our own species but all other flora and fauna and Mother Earth itself.
The powerful everywhere, the industrialized West in the main, had chosen 'the Hobbesian war of each against all ……….the so-called civilized man of the Western world has befuddled and endangered himself to such a degree that he stands today on the very brink of destruction ----- self destruction', says Ashley Montagu, the anthropologist, in his 1950s classic 'On Being Human'. Indeed, isn't our one and only planet at the mercy of the industrialized world's frenzied over-exploitation and over-consumption of resources ? This suicidal model of development has unfortunately been replicated throughout the world as the best way to create wealth and well-being. And at what cost ?
The biologist Ernst Mayr says there have been 50 billion or so species that have evolved here since the origin of life on this planet. But only one, homo sapiens, has achieved the kind of intelligence needed to establish a civilization. And it did so only recently, perhaps a hundred thousand years ago ------ the time span equivalent to the average life expectancy of a whole species on Earth. And how have we humans been using our allotted 100,000 years ? By and large, homo sapiens have been bent on using their intelligence ' to destroy themselves and, in the process, much else, 'says Mayr.
This suicidal trend must be reversed through a sea-change in the attitudes of the rich and powerful, their consumption patterns, development goals, and their relations with the least consuming populations of this habitat. The US is reported to have said a couple of months ago that in the event of upheavals in Asia due to climate change, it might have to come in with humanitarian as well as military intervention ! One dreads to think what the latter plan would be ---- if the report was not planted by some neo-con, racist mischief- monger.
Lest such elements get the better of policy makers in the North, and lobby for military intervention (ethnic cleansing through CBWs may be ?!) instead of compensation for the teeming mass of environmental refugees, what would be the scenario for Bangladesh ? At least 20 million of our citizens are likely to be displaced by 2030 as a consequence of climate change. And it has been suggested that we go for serious negotiations with European, North American, and other land-rich, birth-dearth countries, so that these victims of global warming can migrate there in good time. Australia is said to have already piloted a bill in parliament to admit a large number from the Maldives. That is the right thing to do for fellow human beings. Mind you, human beings are all decendents of only one small breeding group, whose origins so far have been traced to Kenya. The Human Genome Project over the past decade has proved it beyond doubt.
Many fundamental discoveries concerning humanity have, in fact, been made, long before the HGP, which show that there is no such thing as 'race'. Yet apartheids of class, colour, casteism, religion, gender and what not, persist. Conflict and competitiveness between individuals and nations, rather than principles of cooperation and ethics, are considered natural. High time Montagu's views on the human race were revived and popularised. Mankind needs all the cooperation it can muster to reverse the destructive trends let loose on earth by a few centuries of mindless, soul-less plunder.