Green Options

What makes a protest worthwhile? Does it have to change policy, or achieve the reversal of a specific decision? Recent protests in the environmental arena seem to have educative as well as practical purposes.

In case you missed them the first time around, here are the top 10 international environmental headlines that made news in the blogosphere for the week of March 31 - April 6.

1. Asia — United Nations Climate Change Talks: “Kyoto II” climate talks open in Bangkok

“The first formal talks in the long process of drawing up a replacement for the Kyoto climate change pact opened in Thailand on Monday with appeals to a common human purpose to defeat global warming.

‘The world is waiting for a solution that is long-term and economically viable,’ U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon said in a video address to the 1,000 delegates from 190 nations gathered in Bangkok.

For the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia, Oxfam asked young people to draw pictures showing the effect of climate change on their communities in developing countries.

Emmanuel Tonggun of Uganda, age 15, described how heavy rainfall and too much sun destroy vegetation and decrease soil fertility.

The US decade-long boycott of international progress on climate change has finally come to an end. For ten years, the United States has sent diplomats to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change Conferences (UNFCCC) with the single goal of preventing progress.

At each meeting, US delegates historically demand that the convention abandon mandatory carbon emission caps and then make a big show of walking out of the convention when this doesn’t seem likely.

In Bali, it was starting to look like more of the same. With the US demanding that it be given weaker emissions targets than the other 186 countries at the table, time was running out and another stalemate looked likely. The scene was tense and in extreme frustration Yvo de Boer, UN Climate Chief, left the table in tears.

But finally the US felt the heat. Under intense pressure from the international community and US citizens themselves, the United States agreed to move ahead with the rest of the world.

The left-leaning Die Tageszeitung writes:

“Sigmar Gabriel is actively fighting at the climate conference to make industrialized countries commit to ambitious climate targets. But as much as he makes an effort, his credibility is thwarted in other places.”

(more on this at Indonesia News Blog.)

(Image also courtesy of Indonesia News Blog.)

Environmental News: Al Gore last night urged a climate conference to be ambitious in its attempts to check global warming and to ignore US objections because President Bush would soon be out of office.

US youth delegation angry over reports that the State Department may be trying to torpedo mandatory emissions cuts in back-channel negotiations with China and India. (via Solve Climate)

If you’re followed the news at all over the last two days, it’s hard to escape that the UN’s Climate Conference in Bali started yesterday… and that there’s already good news out of it. Yet, I’ve already come across a couple of op-ed pieces from around the world (and not from climate change skeptics) claiming that whatever agreements come out of the Bali conference won’t make a huge difference. German member of parliament and president of the EUROSOLAR organization Hermann Scheer, for instance, told Deustche Welle:

For many governments, these meetings take the place of doing something, according to the unwritten motto: “Speak globally, delay nationally.” Everything is put off until the conference, even though they know that no real break-through decisions will happen there. The question has to be asked: Is this the right level to be solving these problems at? …

These conferences do have significance, which is why they should be held — that is, raising awareness of the problem and creating public pressure on the countries to act. Their value is in keeping the topic up high on the political agenda. But you can’t expect the necessary, practical solutions here. Action has to happen later, in the individual countries themselves.

Deloitte’s head of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Practice Valerie Chort doesn’t use quite such strong language in her Globe & Mail op-ed, but she does note that “Forward thinking organizations realize they can’t sit back and wait for world governments to provide targets and direction if they are to remain competitive in a global economy.” The bottom-line case for companies to address and reduce their carbon footprints already exists; an international (or even national) standard will help companies with targeting and planning, but won’t necessarily create more urgency on the issue.

UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer discusses today’s highlights from the conference. (via Solve Climate)

Australia ratifies the Kyoto Protocol.

UN-sponsored conference will negotiate post-Kyoto climate treaty, and try to bring the US on board with international greenhouse gas reduction efforts.

Follow developments from the conference at Bali Buzz…