The Christmas lesson from Copenhagen

BY COLIN JAMES

OPINION: Let's hope they had a nice Christmas in Copenhagen once they had cleaned up the mess left by sleep- deprived bureaucrats, slippery politicians and sempiternal protesters. Christmas, after all, is for humans, not planets.

The politicians in the end did what politicians are good at: they wrapped some words around air. Now the bureaucrats are supposed to spin the air into actionable programmes.

Actually, that is what they were supposed to do after the Bali meeting in 2007. There was a "road map". They were to fill in destinations, directions and due diligence.

This road map had two tracks. One was for rich countries, which were supposed to have already taken a "first step" under the Kyoto protocol. (United States President Barack Obama could call the Copenhagen "accord" a "first step" because his country studiously stayed out of Kyoto.) This track was supposed to lead to a tightening of the Kyoto screws.

The second track was for not-rich countries. Most are actually not-rich and many are very poor. Some are enriching fast and are big greenhouse gas emitters. Some, like hypocritical Singapore, are rich but claim they aren't on a historical technicality. These actual and allegedly not-rich countries either need do nothing or just reduce their emissions per unit of their expanding production.

Copenhagen split on these lines. Both tracks are in the "accord", with some language that talks of taking action, measuring it and having it verified but without numbers and only very general indications of how verification might work. Neither the United States nor China will brook international oversight, which is what the language implies. Some daft Australians have got very agitated at the spectre of "world government". Some New Zealanders once said that of the International Monetary Fund.

The one Copenhagen number is the US$100 billion a year aspiration for transfers by rich countries to poor countries to adapt to climate change and do some mitigation. New Zealand's share would be a bit below $200 million.

Despite the accord, after this "first step" the bureaucrats will apparently be formally back on their two tracks. If that is where the climate change train goes, the conspiracy-theorist Australians can sleep easy because agreement won't come easy.

Experienced diplomats shook their heads in dismay at the shambles of 193 nations "negotiating". The "accord" was the last-minute work of a gang of five: Brazil, China, India, South Africa and the United States.

That points towards a smallish negotiating group doing the spadework in future - 30 of the biggest polluters is one mooted number. That might make it harder for New Zealand to get heard and get concessions.

Does it matter? A legal, binding agreement is very unlikely in 2010 and even 2011 may well be a stretch. And if there is one then, it is likely to fall short of what the United Nations scientists say is needed to stop the warming. Then, judging by Kyoto, there will be much sleight of hand and cheating.

Roll on two degrees warming and more (if the scientists are right). If there is to be a real agreement to slash greenhouse gas emissions, internationally policed and enforced, it is probably 10 years or more away.

Meantime, we - meaning we humans - will start adapting to the changes and start inventing technologies to enable that adaptation. There may be famines, wars and other mayhem in the interim but that is only human - if you doubt that, look back at the 20th century.

Which brings us to the Christmas story from Copenhagen (without the snow).

* * *

Greens often talk of protecting or saving the planet. That is misplaced concern. Long after humans have done our dash, the planet will be here. It will be here when the sun goes out in 5 billion years or so.

And it's a fair bet that, if humans wipe themselves out in the next few dozen centuries or earlier, other species will still be around. We're exterminating species quite fast but a fair number will outlast us.

The issue at Copenhagen was not the planet or those other species. It was humans - maintaining conditions in which humans can live and propagate.

And critical to that is Copenhagen's subliminal Christmas message, almost but not quite lost in the chaos: the ennobling of the self in promoting the wellbeing of everyone.

That is the lesson of all good religions and of all good gods. The human capacity for destruction is offset by the human construct of love. For every selfish gene there is an unselfish one.

That has enabled households, tribes, communities and nations in turn to make of themselves more than the sum of their parts. The challenge now, which the original, but missed, Copenhagen goal encapsulated, is to scale that technique up to the global level to manage the big issues crowding in on our increasingly crowded and connected habitat: food and water, disease and the many faces of terror, besides climate change.

The Christmas lesson is that that is possible. It is a lesson of hope.

ColinJames@synapsis.co.nz

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