Tiempo Climate Newswatch

The Bangkok Climate Change Talks have resulted in a commitment to a further seven rounds of negotiations over the coming 18 months to resolve what happens when the Kyoto Protocol lapses in the year 2012. "Not only do we have the certainty that critical issues will be addressed next year, we now have bit-sized chunks which will allow us to negotiate in an effective manner," commented Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The next meeting will be held in Germany in June and will focus on funding and on technology to mitigate climate change. The Bangkok meeting backed developing country calls to make climate-friendly technology and financial assistance a priority. The third meeting this year, in August, will take place in Ghana and will address issues related to enhanced action on mitigation, including reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries. The fourth session will be held at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poznań, Poland, in December. There, the focus will be on risk management and risk reduction strategies, technology and the key elements of a shared long-term vision for joint action in combating climate change, including a long-term emissions reduction target. Japan's proposal for sectoral, rather than national, targets was the subject of fierce debate in Bangkok, with further discussion pended till later in the year.

The World Bank was heavily criticized in Bangkok over a perceived attempt, in promoting its own funding proposals, to seize control of climate aid. "The World Bank's foray into climate change has gone down like a lead balloon," commented Tom Picken of Friends of the Earth. "Many countries and civil society have expressed outrage at the World Bank's attempted hijacking of real efforts to fund climate change efforts," he continued. "Generally we have been unpleasantly surprised by the funds [proposed by the World Bank]," said Ana Maria Kleymeyer, Argentina's lead negotiator. "This is a way for the World Bank and its donor members to get credit back home for putting money into climate change in a way that's not transparent, that doesn't involve developing countries and that ignores the UNFCCC process," she added.

"Indigenous peoples regard themselves as the mercury in the world’s climate change barometer," says A H Zakri, director of the United Nations University's Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS) in Tokyo, Japan. "They have not benefited, in any significant manner, from climate change-related funding, whether for adaptation and mitigation, nor from emissions trading schemes." UNU-IAS co-organized the International Expert Meeting on Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples, held in Darwin, Australia, in early April 2008.

In a paper prepared for the meeting, Rolf Gerritsen of Charles Darwin University, Alice Springs, Australia, argues that "if the Aboriginal people of Southeast Arnhem Land are to be able to adaptively and sustainably combat impending climate change through their traditional processes of managing country, they need to have mechanisms - such as access to carbon credit trading - that enhance their capacity to manage their own affairs." Gerritsen considers that governments, at all levels, are unwittingly the major obstacles to achieving this objective. Part of the problem is the governmental desire to centralize, but there are also serious questions about governmental capacity.

Al Gore has launched a US$300 million campaign, WE, to mobilize Americans to fight climate change. "We can solve the climate crisis, but it will require a major shift in public opinion and engagement," said Gore. "The technologies exist, but our elected leaders don't yet have the political will to take the bold actions required. When politicians hear the American people calling loud and clear for change, they'll listen," he continued.

The Alliance for Climate Protection, campaign organizer, will invest in an ad campaign and on-line support and will work with partners such as the United Steelworkers union and the Girl Scouts. The Girl Scout's 2.7 million members will be able to take a climate action pledge and will be provided kits offering suggestions for projects. "The resources are completely unprecedented in American politics," commented Philip Clapp of the Pew Environment Group.