What is the relevance of the Copenhagen negotiations to the Pacific?

The Copenhagen Conference of Parties will be where world leaders will try and negotiate a new deal to tackle Climate Change and this will be by way of binding green house gas emission reduction targets. The negotiations will focus on amongst other things “who reduces how much” (voluntary reductions vs. polluter pays), and “how these reductions are achieved?”(Clean development mechanism, REDD projects, carbon credits/trading etc)

Copenhagen is in earnest the “where to now” point for the world. In 1997 when the Kyoto protocol was agreed upon, leaders were very much sceptical about climate change (at that time global warming) and hence their hesitance to ratify the protocol. In fact it took a good 8 years for the Kyoto Protocol to come into force and till February 2009 only 184 countries had signed on and ratified the protocol. The most notable exclusion from the countries that have ratified the protocol is the Unites States of the America.

However Copenhagen is being looked at with renewed spirit. America has a new leader in power that has during his term seen to the passing of the Climate Change bill in the House of Representatives and the clean air act certifying carbon dioxide as a pollutant by law. Looking to Scandinavia, Norway has announced 40% reductions in GHG’s by 2020 and to the East and South-East, both India and Indonesia have softened their stance on emission reduction targets.

Hence the future of this region can still be salvaged if enough pressure is applied during the negotiations and the “tragedy of commons” is avoided. Tragedy of commons is an analogy used to describe how independent individuals acting out of self-interest contributes to the eventual destruction of a shared limited resource. In this case how anthropogenic actions (GHG Emissions) have contributed to the phenomenon we now know as Global Climate Change. Any change in the global climate change puts at risk the livelihoods of small island developing states including the Pacific Island Countries (PIC’s).

PIC’s have been the most vulnerable to these changes. Rising sea level rises and tides cause salt water intrusion, spoiling the already limited supply of freshwater for consumption, wash away shorelines, causeerosions and infrastructural damage to .low lying islands and the unpredictable weather conditions (flash flooding, depressions in the weather systems, alternating extremes of hot and cold climates and earthquakes-yes even earthquakes are now being attributed to climate change) If sea levels continue to rise, some of the low lying PIC’s will disappear while others yet will become uninhabitable.

Apart from the economic loses; there will be a high environmental and social cost for this. While our island people may be relocated, their culture, song and traditions will be lost. There is an intrinsic value associated with this that can not be measured in economic terms. The flora and fauna endemic to our islands can never be replaced or brought back to life after this catastrophe comes to pass. This is a big price to pay for being a region that contributes to only 0.03 per cent of the global emissions (Hay 1999)

The islands have real, living, breathing people living on them; we are not poker chips in international trade relations. Our voices have to be heard, need to be heard and our concerns recognised. For if Copenhagen does not deliver an equitable deal that will stabilize the atmospheric concentration to safe levels (below current levels to 350ppm), and if our islands disappear and become uninhabitable then is this not a crime against humanity? To reiterate the point, the lives and lifestyles of the people of the Pacific does not come with a price tag attached and our concerns can not be bought. Our lives and the ways of our people are just as important as anyone else’s in the world and fair consideration must be given to the dangers that our island nations face in light of climate change.

So yes Copenhagen will give birth to the International agreement that will determine the emission reduction targets for the world. This deal can either protect or neglect or future. We need to get the message across that neglect is not an option. All in all Copenhagen represents the power of democracy in action, with the hope that the deal it brokers will be equitable and will provide equal access to adaptation technology and funds. The survival of the pacific as we know it hinges on what direction negotiations take in Copenhagen.