Copenhagen was a bust because the principal players wanted to retain their status quo

Dec 21, 2009 Letters

Dear Editor,

In my November 26 letter, “Copenhagen or bust,” I referenced a Mr. Nigel Lawson, writing in a TimesOnline article on November 23, 2009, with a caption that read, “Copenhagen will fail – and quite right too,” and I also chipped in that leading up to the confab the worlds’ principal leaders lacked unanimity on setting attainable targets for slowing climate change, and now the results are in, not only is Mr. Lawson correct, but for President Bharrat Jagdeo, who pinned Guyana’s LCDS-based economic future on Copenhagen’s success, the LCDS bubble has burst!

UN chief, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, perhaps echoing President Barack Obama’s sentiment that the conference ended on a successful note, has every reason to want to sound optimistic, because if he openly accepts – as the general consensus seems to have accepted – that the conference was a failure, it would reflect rather badly on his leadership. After all, the conference was organised by the United Nations to address what most believe is a genuine climate crisis facing our world.

Whatever the details of the deal reached among the world’s leading economies, it has not filtered down in a beneficial way to lesser developed or developing countries, and so there remains a huge chasm that separates the rich from the poor. Poor countries, in particular, have no idea what the exact monetary figure is that the rich countries will put up to help them preserve their rain forests, even though varying amounts have been bandied about. It is almost like back to square one for these poor countries, where they have been made to wait on the rich to issue monetary checks with conditions attached.

But no developing country that is a candidate for financial assistance from rich countries towards slowing climate change matches Guyana for sheer desperation as its President spent the past several months personally globetrotting and preaching his heart out about the urgency of the issue. To the world observing him, he appeared as a champion of the environment. Someone even reportedly nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in this matter. But to Guyanese, at home and abroad, he appeared as a truly desperate man in search of Guyana’s El Dorado under the guise of a huge financial windfall for LCDS.

That he is returning to Guyana an obviously disappointed and weary man, is testimony to the fact that he really did not understand the political dynamics behind the world’s apparent concern about Global Warming. Global Warming, assuming it is man-made, is the price the world is paying for making giant strides from the industrial age to the technological age. Many of the products we enjoy or depend on today – from vehicles to televisions to microwaves to phones to exploitation of natural resources to cutting down trees to make way for developmental and residential projects – have their genesis in factories and plants that have contributed in some way to the pollution of the atmosphere. Guyana is no different.

And the countries that benefitted the most financially and materially from these achievements are today known as the industrialized nations.

The word ‘industrialization’ alone should tell us therefore, that these countries are not going to easily give up their hard earned global standing to appease concerns of developing countries. This explains why the leaders of the industrialized nations can’t reach any binding agreement.

And China, reportedly the worst polluter right now, is finally on to the secret to being an industrialized nation and so it refuses to comply with demands for greater cuts. U.S. Secretary of State, Mrs. Hillary Clinton called on to be transparent in its commitments and actual targets achieved, but China retains an element of communism that bars it from being open or transparent, so other players in the climate change game won’t even know if it is playing by the rules.

So, it is within the context of this particular dynamic of pretending to care about the environment but really caring more about retaining or achieving global standing as an industrialized group, that President Jagdeo needed to recognise that his slowing climate change crusade meant he was preaching to an audience of his peers among developing nations and not an audience of leaders from the rich nations.

They were never listening to him. In fact, they will not listen to him, and, if anything, they will more likely make him listen to them.

What they are saying and what they are doing, meanwhile, are two different things. They said they have committed, in a non-binding deal, for all countries to limit global temperature rise to below two degrees Celsius. The key word here is ‘non-binding’, which means talks will likely continue into the next conference with no hard decisions.

They also talked about raising US$10 billion a year for poor countries to play their part in slowing climate change, and then they upped the figure to US$100 billion a year by the year 2020. Does anyone get the impression poor countries, including Guyana (even though Guyana is said to be a notch above poor), are going to get anything huge anytime soon for their role here?

A promise is always a comfort to a fool, and Guyanese will be foolish to rely on Norway to pony up US$30 million year and think LCDS will benefit them!

This is why I have been saying all along that LCDS is a huge gamble, just like the Jagdeo presidency. Unfortunately, it is the Guyanese people who have been paying and will pay for the foreseeable future, because if the President does decide to actually quit in 2011, he has a princely pension and benefits awaiting him, while Guyanese will be left holding the flaky enamel cup he bequeaths to them.

I can only hope and pray that the next government – hopefully not those that tried and failed – will take a more pragmatic approach to economic recovery and development, resorting to the tried and proved FDI approach, supported by a viable incentive-laden plan that would attract investments from overseas-based Guyanese with finances or access thereto, and whatever other financial support is available via preserving our forests. Other wise, the horses will continue to starve while the grass (and in an odd sense, the trees) continue to grow.

I close on a related note. The Copenhagen confab was not only attended by leaders of rich, capitalist nations, but socialists and dictatorships who used the forum to attack capitalism. Much abuse was hurled at the United States for the conference’s failure while nothing bad was said of China, the world’s lead polluter.

As a result, I won’t be surprised if the rabid anti-capitalists use the failure of Copenhagen to ramp up efforts to prey on poor countries to wean themselves off the West.

While the capitalist system has not delivered globally, it has still done reasonably well in various countries, much unlike what the socialist system did under the leadership of the defunct USSR. People may be frustrated to the point of wanting change, but change to what?

They say better the devil you know rather than the devil you don’t know, and I don’t see any system replacing the capitalist system without doing worse to mankind and the world. Just look at the type of people who are presenting themselves as representatives of change from capitalism and you’ll have an idea what to expect.

Emile Mervin