nathandoha

Doha Deception: Youth intervention to COP opening plenary

by nathan thanki

This afternoon I had the honour of delivering the following statement on behalf of the youth constituency (YOUNGO). A night’s sleep had to be given up, and many ideas, comments, concerns, and demands had to be somehow moulded into a coherent, concise statement. We worked on the assumption that, inshallah, we’d get 2 minutes after all the needless ceremony and backslapping that make up COP openings. There was difficulty getting into the plenary, more difficulty getting a seat with a microphone, and even further difficulty in cutting the speech in half to after being told very late on that the Secretariat’s time restriction was just 1 minute. However, we delivered it and afterwards were approached by Al Jazeera to provide some follow up interviews. Many thanks to the YOUNGO focal point and the people who contributed to drafting; the strength of the youth constituency comes from our ability to work together in a true spirit of compromise and trust, imbued as it is with a burning, life affirming desire for justice. Here’s to you.

Statement to COP opening plenary on behalf of YOUNGO:

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What do countries think about the Durban Platform for enhanced action?

by nathan thanki

Welcome to the first COP of the rest of your lives. Though Copenhagen will forever remain the most widely observed, undermined, devastated, ruinous UNFCCC meeting, it wasn’t until Durban that the sea change became official. US lead negotiator Todd Stern’s famous “if equity is in, we’re out” sneer epitomised the new paradigm that is being cemented in the climate negotiations. Justice, both inter- and intra-generational, is out the window. Decision 1/CP.17, which established the ad-hoc working group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP), blew the negotiations wide open (as you will recall from my previous entry). While this doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing—indeed we are all of course depressed that there hasn’t been a meaningful emissions reductions legal instrument—it depends on how the ADP approaches its work of creating a new legal outcome by 2015. Will it support and complement the Convention and its provisions and principles, or will it undermine them and undercut justice? As this is a country driven process, it is all up to the Parties to direct proceedings…so it is worthwhile to have a look at some of their thoughts regarding the ADP.

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How did we get to Doha

A brief(ish) history of the UNFCCC and a peek into the future

by nathan thanki

People ask us “what’s going to come out of Doha” as if these negotiations were disconnected from prior negotiations on climate change. A clue is in the name: it is the 18th Conference of the Parties (COP18). In order to know what to expect in Doha, we must therefore see it in context; this requires both a historical understanding and an understanding of the current political landscape. Developments at COP17 last year in Durban marked a new chapter in the unfolding saga of the climate regime, and we are still trying to decipher what the long term legal and political implications could be. This blog entry will look briefly at the main ‘big picture’ developments, attempt to unpack the outcome of Durban, and offer some outlook for Doha and beyond.

If you’re really rushed for time, my basic conclusion is that while advocates of climate justice might see some wins and many losses on a more technical level in Doha, in terms of the bigger picture we are dangerously close to seeing a double travesty of justice—with not enough being done to avert a climate catastrophe AND the responsibility for that inaction being handed off to the developing world, in spite of historical responsibilities and their need for poverty alleviation. But hopefully you will read on…

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An effective environmental treaty? Montreal Protocol.

by nathan thanki (march 2011)

When astronauts first looked out the window of their spacecraft onto the only planet they had ever known, what they would have seen is a thin blue layer enveloping the globe. Without this layer, life on earth would probably not exist. The stratospheric ozone layer contains 90% of the world’s known ozone (Chasek et al 164), and is life giving because it absorbs ultraviolet radiation, large amounts of which damage all forms of life. Alarm was raised in the 1970s about the state of this protective layer when scientists such as Mario Molina and F. Sherwood Rowland discovered that chemicals, including chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were destroying ozone molecules (Chasek et al 164) (Mossos 1). The discovery that CFCs – as well as halons, carbon tetrachloride, methyl chloride, methyl chloroform, and methyl bromides (collectively grouped as ozone depleting substances [ODS]) – were so damaging to the ozone, made worldwide headlines. Not all the reactions to this new environmental problem were reactions born of concern. CFCs are important to various industries; as “refrigerants, propellants, insulators, and solvents” (Thoms 2), and so industries that provided or used CFCs grouped themselves together in The Alliance for Responsible CFC Policy, in an attempt to prevent or delay CFC regulation (Thoms 2). However, all the governments of the world were forced to act in 1986, after further scientific research revealed that a hole had been forming in the ozone layer over Antarctica: the result of which is the much celebrated Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. It is usually hailed as a “giant step forward” (Thoms 3) because the global community identified a problem, and agreed to reduce the causes (in this case CFCs – reduced by 50% below 1986 levels by 2000), making it one of only two multilateral environmental agreements – the other being CITES – that have “functioning and active compliance mechanisms” (Victor 14). It also has a mechanism for FTA that has been the model for many environmental regimes since.

An effective treaty is one that: many (ideally all) actors are party to, has timetables for achieving goals, has a mechanism to ensure compliance, has a financial tool that allows Parties which wish to comply to do so without damaging their economy, and perhaps most importantly and effective treaty is one which is able to evolve alongside the problem is wishes to solve. To understand how effective the ozone regime has been, and how it could be more so, we must take a closer look at the history and details – especially measures for compliance and FTA – of the Montreal Protocol.  

 

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