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It was obvious to
observers that the climate negotiations at Cancun were wired to support
commerce rather than tackling the climate crisis that the world is
confronted with. This trend took solid steps a year earlier at the
summit in Copenhagen when a handful of nations sidestepped the
multilateral tradition of the United Nations and working through “green
rooms” away from the conference floor concocted the so-called
Copenhagen Accord instead.

The Copenhagen
Accord could not be adopted at the end of the 2009 conference for the
basic reason that majority of country delegations did not know how it
was crafted and on what basis. Countries like Bolivia and Venezuela
stood resolutely against it and that conference only agreed to take
note that such a document existed.

The fact that the
Accord was not adopted as a conference outcome did not deter its
authors, principally the United States, from working behind the scenes,
bilaterally, to get several countries to endorse it. Some analysts have
said that the endorsement was achieved through arm-twisting tactics and
promises of financial and other aids. Those who refused to yield were
sanctioned by way of having climate or environment assistance cut.

From the beginning
of the Cancun negotiations, signals were sent that its essence was to
elevate the Copenhagen Accord to the level of being the conference
outcome. The first salvo was fired by the delegation of Papua New
Guinea who declared that a few nations with divergent votes from the
majority must not prevent the conference from reaching a decision. They
suggested that if a consensus became impossible a decision should be
made by a vote. This position, as noted in an earlier article on
Cancun, was immediately objected to by the delegations of Bolivia,
India, Saudi Arabia and others.

At the end of the
Cancun summit, with the Copenhagen Accord now dressed in new garbs,
there was no consensus for its adoption. Not to be deterred, the
Mexican presidency of the conference banged the gavel repeatedly on her
table and rammed the document through, after redefining consensus as
not necessarily meaning unanimity.

Empty promises

Nations yelped and
cheered. Cancun had delivered; they enthused and backslapped each
other. But what did Cancun deliver and how will the planet fare under
the scenario set by what has been termed Copenhagen Accord 2?

The conference
outcome avoided legally binding emissions reduction targets for the
main polluting nations – the rich industrialised countries – and rather
urges a voluntary pledge based system with no monitoring mechanisms.
From recent WikiLeaks regarding discussions in France, it is clear that
the rich countries are determined not to make binding commitments to
act for the safety of the planet.

Looking for
something to celebrate, some countries latched on the promise to create
a Climate Fund within the United Nations climate change framework but
having the World Bank as a trustee. The promised climate fund did not
specify how the funds would be sourced.

The agreement did
not review subsisting intellectual property regime that does not freely
allow the exchange of green technology. It took big steps in paving the
way for new market based mechanisms that would allow for speculation
and avoidance of actions to reduce emissions at source and generally
position the planet at great risks of catastrophic climate change.

Teresa Andersen of
the Gaia Foundation, who wrote about the manner the Cancun conference
ended, captures the disbelief of critical observers:

“We sat in
disbelief as the crowds leapt to their feet, cheering, applauding,
whooping and whistling the Mexican chair of the Cancun climate
negotiations. Mexico’s foreign secretary, Patricia Espinosa, graciously
bowed her head, her hands crossed over her heart in an authoritarian
simulation of modesty, as we shook our heads, open-mouthed, at the
eerie frenzy taking place around us. In the last hours of the Cancun
climate negotiations, the world’s deluded leaders were cheering as they
tossed the planet onto the bonfire.

According to
Teresa, “The Cancun Agreement, we are told, has “saved
multilateralism”. What it has not done though, is offer any meaningful
solution to climate change. As it stands, the Cancun Agreement could
mean global temperature rises of up to 5 degrees centigrade, and a
possible 6.5 degrees in Africa.”

An initial analysis
of the Cancun outcome by Friends of the Earth International (FOEI) saw
the prospects of opening new market mechanisms as potentially creating
practices that are more harmful to the climate than current ones.

According to FoEI,
“the establishment of one or more market-based mechanisms over the
course of the next year is to be considered, with a view to taking a
decision to adopt these new mechanisms at COP 17 in South Africa. The
new mechanisms could include a number of different types of
instruments, some of which would be more destructive than others.”

Little gains

All was not lost in
Cancun. Social movements pushed the path of climate justice in various
venues in Cancun. The government of Bolivia, which had facilitated a
Peoples Conference on climate change and the Rights of Mother Earth in
April 2010, stood with the people, pushing the right analysis and
solutions, right to the end of the conference.

Social and climate
justice movements clearly stated that the causes of climate change are
systemic and that the only way to tackle the climate crisis is through
a change of the capitalist and patriarchal system that caused it.

With the clear
indication that rich nations are not keen to tackle climate change, but
would rather make bogus promises that poor vulnerable nations
unfortunately lap up, it is doubtful if the 2011 conference to be
hosted in Durban, South Africa, will produce anything different from
Copenhagen and Cancun.

The South African
government has dubbed COP17 the Peoples COP. It will be seen whether
the voices of the people will prevail or if corporations and their
surrogate politicians will hold sway in their market-based chariots.