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NOPENHAGEN
How No Deal
Is Being Sold As Deal
WSN Network
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Copenhagen was hardly a democratic exercise. If it was to decide how
we will will survive, it went about that decision making the worst
way. The decision was also to impact who will survive. In the
corporatized media, the truth of what happened at Copenhagen has
been either papered over or muffled. We bring you the inside story
of how the poorer world’s leaders were humiliated as deals were cut
behind their backs, and how India was a party to such humiliation.
The truth is that there was no deal. |
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 COPENHAGEN/NEW
DELHI: India has given up the struggle to prevent the terrible
consequences of climate change.
Now that it is
becoming clear by the hour that
India
entered into a secret behind-the-doors near conspiratorial deal
stitching at Copenhagen with a select group of countries, and
Manmohan Singh government was preparing to face Parliament on the
Copenhagen Accord, the move has clearly isolated India from the rest
of the underdeveloped world.
The way India
sidestepped the G-77 group of developing countries to agree to the
deal with a select group of nations has reinforced the view that the
UN might no longer be the most appropriate forum to take big
decisions on climate change. But what is also emerging is that
decision making is set to move again towards the powerful. Thus, a
smaller group of major stakeholders — something like the G-20 on
economic matters — would start directing which way the world will go
from here.
Clearly, the
climate summit was far from being a democratic exercise. Copenhagen
was about more than climate. It was about the kind of society we
would have, the kind that can survive. In the corporatised media,
the truth of what happened at Copenhagen has been either papered
over or muffled.
World leaders
are not humiliated by denying them dinner or a cruise over the
river, but by cutting deals behind their back. In that sense, there
was humiliating treatment accorded to heads of states or
governments, ministers and thousands of representatives of social
movements and institutions who had travelled to the Summit’s venue
in Copenhagen with some hope.
No one could
have thought that on December 18, 2009, the last day of the Summit,
this would be suspended by the Danish government — a NATO ally
associated with the carnage in Afghanistan — to offer the
conference’s plenary hall to President Obama for a meeting where
only he and a selected group of guests, 16 in all, would have the
exclusive right to speak.
Even as Prez
Obama failed to involve a binding commitment and ignored the Kyoto
Framework Convention, and then left the room shortly after listening
to a few other speakers. The leaders and representatives of over 170
countries were only allowed to listen.
 At the end of
the speeches of the 16 chosen, Evo Morales of Bolivia requested the
floor. The Danish president had no choice but to yield to the
insistence of the other delegations. When Evo had concluded his wise
and deep observations, the Danish had to give the floor to Hugo
Chavez. Both speeches will be registered by history as examples of
short and timely remarks. Then, with their mission duly
accomplished, they both left for their respective countries. But
when Obama disappeared, he had yet to fulfill his task in the host
country.
From the evening
of the 17th and the early morning hours of the 18th, the Prime
Minister of Denmark and senior representatives of the United States
had been meeting with the Chairman of the European Commission and
the leaders of 27 nations to introduce to them — on behalf of Obama
— a draft agreement in whose elaboration none of the other leaders
of the rest of the world had taken part. It was an anti-democratic
and practically clandestine initiative that disregarded the
thousands of representatives of social movements, scientific and
religious institutions, and other participants in the
Summit.
Through the
night of the 18th and until
3:00 a.m.
of the 19th, when many heads of states had already departed, the
representatives of the countries waited for the resumption of the
sessions and the conclusion of the event. Throughout the 18th, Obama
held meetings and press conferences, and the same did the European
leaders. Then they left. Something unexpected happened then: at
three in the morning of the 19th, the Prime Minister of Denmark
convened a meeting to conclude the
Summit. By then,
the countries were represented by ministers, officials, ambassadors,
and technical staff.
However, an
amazing battle was waged that morning by a group of representatives
of third world countries challenging the attempt by Obama and the
wealthiest on the planet to introduce a document imposed by the
United States as one agreed by consensus in the Summit. The Minister
of Foreign Affairs of Cuba [Bruno Rodriguez] made a vigorous speech.
Here are some excerpts:
“The document
that you, Mister Chairman, repeatedly claimed that did not exist
shows up now…we have seen drafts circulating surreptitiously and
being discussed in secret meetings…Cuba considers the text of this
apocryphal draft extremely inadequate and inadmissible. The goal of
2 degrees centigrade is unacceptable and it would have incalculable
catastrophic consequences…The document that you are unfortunately
introducing is not binding in any way with respect to the reduction
of the greenhouse effect gas emissions…I am aware of the previous
drafts, which also through questionable and clandestine procedures,
were negotiated by small groups of people…The document you are
introducing now fails to include the already meager key phrases
contained in that draft…it is incompatible with the universally
recognized scientific view that it is urgent and inescapable to
ensure the reduction of at least 45 per cent of the emissions by the
year 2020, and of no less than 80 per cent or 90 per cent by 2050.
“Any argument on
the continuation of the negotiations to reach agreement in the
future to cut down emissions must inevitably include the concept of
the validity of the Kyoto Protocol … Your paper, Mister Chairman, is
a death certificate of the Kyoto Protocol ... (It does not include)
pre-eminence of the principle of ‘common by differentiated
responsibilities' as the core of the future process of
negotiations.”
“This draft
declaration fails to mention concrete financial commitments and the
transfer of technologies to developing countries, which are part of
the obligations contracted by the developed countries under the U.N.
Framework Convention on Climate Change … Mister Chairman, by
imposing their interests through your document, the developed
nations are avoiding any concrete commitment…”
The
representatives of the countries had been given only one hour to
present their views. This led to complicated, shameful, and
embarrassing situations. Then a lengthy debate ensued where the
delegations from the developed countries put heavy pressure on the
rest to make the conference adopt the above-mentioned document as
the final result of their deliberations. A small number of countries
insisted on the grave omissions and ambiguities of the document
promoted by the United States, particularly the absence of a
commitment by the developed countries on the reduction of carbon
emissions and on the financing.
After a long and
extremely tense discussion, the position of the ALBA [Bolivarian
Alliance for the Peoples of Our America] countries and Sudan, as
President of the G-77, that the document was unacceptable to the
conference and could not be adopted, prevailed. In view of the
absence of consensus, the Conference could only “take note” of the
existence of that document representing the position of a group of
about 25 countries.
India kept away
from such resistance.
After that
decision was made, Bruno [Rodriguez], together with other ALBA
representatives, had a friendly discussion with the U.N.
Secretary-General to whom they expressed their willingness to
continue struggling alongside the United Nations to prevent the
terrible consequences of climate change.
Later that
afternoon, both, those involved in the elaboration of the document
and those like the President of the United States who anticipated
its adoption by the conference as they could not disregard the
decision to simply ‘take note’ of the alleged ‘Copenhagen
Agreement,’ tried to introduce a procedure allowing the other COP
countries that had not been a part of the shady deal to adhere to
it, and make it public, the intention being to pretend such an
agreement was legal, something that could precondition the results
of the negotiations that should carry on.
Such belated
attempt, backed by India also, was firmly opposed by G-77,
particularly by
Cuba,
Venezuela, and Bolivia. Clearly, a document which had not been
adopted by the Convention could not be considered legal. The fact is
that there was no COP document; therefore, no regulations could be
established for its alleged adoption.
The world must
know that the fact is that this was how the meeting in Copenhagen
came to an end, without a document.
23
December 2009
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