by Alex Evans | Jun 25, 2007 | Climate and resource scarcity, Influence and networks
Quote of the day so far: Mutsuyoshi Nishimura, Japan’s Ambassador for Global Environment, who opines that:
“If [UNFCCC Conferences of Parties] were televised live, people would be aghast!”
Amen to that. And it raises the interesting question, so far not really explored at today’s conference: where will the real deal-making be done? Of course, we all agree that the deal will be signed at a UNFCCC summit; even President Bush said so, at Heiligendamm.
Yet even some environment ministers are increasingly wondering privately whether the real deal-making needs to be done in some other forum, probably at head of state level.
But where?
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by Alex Evans | Apr 24, 2007 | Climate and resource scarcity, Economics and development
Last week’s UK-sponsored debate on climate change in the Security Council this week was always going to be contentious, as the Guardian and the Times of India reported (see also a letter to the FT yesterday from UK special representative on climate change John Ashton). As China put it: “The developing countries believe that Security Council has neither the professional competence in handling climate change — nor is it the right decision-making place for extensive participation leading up to widely acceptable proposals.”
The G77 group of developing countries, together with China, have long been acutely sensitive to any perceived encroachment of the Security Council into non-security areas. ‘Soft’ issues like climate change, they argue, belong in the UN’s Economic and Social Council, or indeed in the full General Assembly; but emphatically not in the Security Council, which is seen as an exclusive great powers’ club.
From the perspective of the Foreign Office in London, by contrast, the Security Council debate was an example of ‘disruptive political action’ that could highlight the extent to which climate change is becoming a security issue. As Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett put it, “an unstable climate will exacerbate some of the core drivers of conflict — such as migratory pressures and competition for resources”.
Both China and the UK have a point. For last week’s squabble illustrates a crucial point: that just because climate change doesn’t belong in the Security Council, isn’t to say that it sits any more comfortably anywhere else.
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