Friday, December 10, 2010

A RUTHLESS GAME



Rosalba y los llaveros



ROSALBA.- ¡Por fin! (Rosalba ataca el piano, briosamente la 7a. sonata de Prokofieff, mientras Aurora sigue viendo y reconociendo retratos. Aurora es una jamona guapa y coquetamente arreglada. Lleva un traje tropical y una mascada en el pelo.)
AURORA.- (Gritando para dominar el piano.) Y aquí está mi abuela, cuando era joven. Éste es Lazarito, haciendo su primera comunión. Y ésta es Rita, con su traje de 15, qué cursi. ¡Y aqui estas tú, encueradilla! ¡Mira nada más! ¡Y Lola cuando soltera!

...

ROSALBA.- Y usted es...
LUZ.- Yo soy Luz...
ROSALBA.- Ah, Luz.
LORENZO.- (Secamente) Es la criada.
LUZ.- (Se da las grandes mecidas en el sillón.) Sí, soy yo. ¿Y usted quién es?
AURORA.- ¿Yo?
LUZ.- Sí, usted.
AURORA.- Yo soy la hermana de él, de Lorenzo.
LUZ.- Ah, vaya. ¿Y ella?
AURORA.- Pues, pues es mi hija.
RITA.- ¿No tienes nada que hacer allá adentro?
LUZ.- No, nada. ¿Y usted?
RITA.- No, yo tampoco.




CARBALLIDO, E. Lecturas Mexicanas: Rosalba y los llaveros y otras obras de teatro. Fondo de Cultura Económica. Primera Edición. 1984. México, D.F.




Mientras la temperatura del aire atmosférico sigue descendiendo en la capirucha, el sur de la República se mantiene calientito.



Bueno, pues. Quedamos en que uno (se) queda calientito cuando usted no solo le ha dado un buen llegue a su contricante, sino definitivamente lo ha dejado fuera de combate en esa pelea en particular, and they take them all (ABBA - The Winner Takes It All Subtitulada En Español, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NknFalv-iss) as if nothing really had happened, and we haven't had played fair.




...

Obviamente, ¿cuál es lo primero por lo que habríamos que comenzar sino con la elección presidencial de 2006? Mirujeamos a quienes se autoengañaban con la ínfima probabilidad del triunfo inobjetable en las urnas, that even in those days just but a few stupids would dare to accept, thanks God I didn't share one drink or two (Good Will Hunting complete bar scene, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4PiVMasO6s) with one of the brilliant in-laws (los verdaderos autores intelectuales del presente desastre en nuestra amada nación, some say) at the Grads Bar in Norwich. Después vimos a sus valientes (http://contralinea.info/archivo-revista/index.php/2010/11/28/miente-vicente-fox-sobre-irak/)defensores "rogando" que dejaramos a nuestro competente (y a la vez repudiado por la mayoría de la poblacion -esa si que sería una interesante encuesta levantada (http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/726313.html, Diego está libre y sano: familia) en las calles de todos los minicipios del país y no sólo por la vía telefónica, no es cierto-, aún el día de hoy pulula por las calles sin contacto alguno con el populacho -Andrés Gómez Emilsson, el joven que grito espurio a FECAL, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRTMA1RxMvM) protegido por inmensas vallas, ver para creer) mandatario "hacer su trabajo". Observamos diariamente con mucha atención, al ejercito de funcionarios federales, que no sólo devengan estratosféricos sueldos (http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2010/12/07/index.php?section=opinion&article=010o1eco, El discreto encanto de presidir la Suprema Corte), sino que aún más se enriquecen -conforme al pacto secreto (http://proceso.com.mx/rv/modHome/detalleExclusiva/86222, Designan a Cecilia Romero secretaria general del PAN) or the first-hand learning, sepa Dios qué- un día sí y otro también a costa de las arcas nacionales, i.e., de todos los habitantes mexicas. Hemos atestiguado igualmente como sus "supuestos" rivales políticos y detractores al final transan a nuestras espaldas, con el fin de no dejar al pais paralizado (¿qué opinarian realmente los electores de estas muy civilizadas prácticas?, ¿corresponden estos "mesurados" acuerdos a sus mandatos en las urnas?) as they say: gasolinazos, presupuestos "consensuados", aval legal a los contratos de extracción incentivados, y la larga lista de los "convenios legislativos" que faltan por aprobar durante el resto del sexenio -operativamente pa los intereses nacionales, el actual período presidencial terminó el primero de diciembre de 2006- cuyos beneficios económicos (ni soñar de colgarle el adjetivo socioeconomicos, that's all that I work for, en voz baja (EL LADO MUY OSCURO DE JOSÉ ISAAC WOLDENBERG KARAKOWSKY:”RON BACARDÍ”, http://www.alfredojalife.com/Articulos/exclusivas/el-lado-muy-oscuro-de-jos%C3%89-isaac-woldenberg-karakowsky%E2%80%9Dron-bacard%C3%8D%E2%80%9D-y-A85.html) se escucha en los pasillos de la camara de senadores) se agotan instantáneamente al tener forma de embudo invertido (Demanda Beltrones ejercer con responsabilidad el Presupuesto 2011, http://www.excelsior.com.mx/index.php?m=nota&id_nota=687033).


Crónica de la toma de posesión de Felipe Calderón

The wildest dreams of all our rivals would be that we'd play the game with the rules they set (http://www.ct.gov/opm/cwp/view.asp?a=2974&q=435318). Por todos los juguetitos (Games People Play, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8q3VWHi8_0) con los que cuentan, de ser costales de mañas, además de versados en el engaño vil, si compitieramos en tales condiciones seríamos PAN comido pa' nuestros contrincantes. ¿Sería usted capaz de cometer uno que otro pecadillo (La verdad siempre vencerá, http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2010/12/08/index.php?section=opinion&article=004a1pol) con tal de "salvar a la humanidad", o preferiría primero conservar su pellejito intacto (Al Pacino Speech, Scent of a Woman, Long version, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4y5QTSMGpc)?

A estas horas (en) que se ha logrado un acuerdo ambiental en Cancún (acorde al tamano de nuestro minimato mexicano), es inevitable que reflexione sobre lo que algunos camaradas consideran (las definiciones no son lo suyo, de hecho) HOPE. Cuando a mediados de 2006, the so called left-wingers hacían apuestas sobre la posición que habrían de tomar para después del proceso "volar sobre el pantano" (CARLOS CUAUHTÉMOC SÁNCHEZ - Programa piloto Cuauhtémoc, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMDFcA3XaQ0), un avezado analista puntualizaba más o menos lo siguiente: "los cismas revolucionarios también son hechos por hombres y mujeres comunes, no por monjas o hermanitas de la caridad...". Un cura mujeriego convoca desde su búnker religioso (http://www.milenio.com/node/596665, Cecilia Romero, nueva secretaria general del PAN) a una revuelta social que culmina en nuestra independencia de la Corona Española (http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2010/12/11/index.php?section=mundo&article=028n1mun, Para España, líderes de AL son "payasos, locos o causas perdidas"), un ex abigeo (PANCHO VILLA AQUI Y ALLI: ESPECIALES HISTORY (1/7), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUbdPQc_G00) encabeza una legión de inconformes (http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2010/12/09/index.php?section=politica&article=002n1pol, Cibernautas bloquean consorcios que intentan ahogar a Wikileaks) y planta un nuevo esquema socioeconómico en las tierras (http://revistacontratiempo.wordpress.com/2010/11/25/enfoque-sociologico-centenario-de-la-revolucion-mexicana/) que rodean al Paso del Norte (Antonio Aguilar--Paso del Norte, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr7jaeNcdVs). Poco, sin embargo, representan esos esfuerzos si se comparan con aquellos que, desde las plumas (http://marcosalas.blogspot.com/2007/12/hunger-for-books-last-night-doris.html), concretaron los cambios verdaderos. Supongo que cualquier renegado promedio, como usted o como yo, desearía ser una pequeña caja de resonancia de las ideas que han transformado a nuestro pais, moduladas por un período cuasicentenario. Espero (en el sentido primigenio, y no sus pervertidas acepciones) que pronto, cuando las condiciones se adecúen un poco a nuestros sueños, alguno de nosotros, a pesar de sus tropiezos, tenga la estatura necesaria, y cual si fuera diapasón encantado (The Red Violin: Kaspar Weiss, Musical Prodigy (HD), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu6Y_jpA6d4), traduzca, así sea imperfectamente, los ideales de un Ignacio Rámirez o un Flores Magón, que transformen la vida del obrero, del campesino, del ama de casa, y del escolapio por igual. En ese juego siempre hemos sido ganadores y pronto triunfaremos una vez más, hermanos míos. AL TIEMPO.




M@RCOrdal;

Huamantla, Tlaxcala.;

10/12/10;


PREGUNTAS SIN RESPUESTA:


An early outbreak of Encuestitis aguda:

¿Quién "realmente" encabeza las preferencias -BODAS GAYS (AHORA OPINA EL PRESIDENTE PAN)), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nND0XvsQKWI-?

a) El tándem Atlacomulco Team* - Televisa
b) La Santa Alianza (Sí, Chucha... )
c) El "pastorcito" tropical (sin sus losers estrategas al mando)
d) El candidato desconocido (a) The Independent (http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article3867767.ece, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim builds stake in The Independent)
e) Los encuestadore$, really...

* Con el bola de billar como jefe de "la tiendita" (Miguel de la Madrid habla con Aristeguí de la relación de Carlos Salinas con el narcotráfico, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TltTTnQbLMg) de Campaña. ¡Ah, por cierto!, ahora que lo menciono, si "el copetín" quiere llenar la Gran Plaza (anteriormente conocida como Macroplaza) le recomiendo mejor hacerse acompañar del "Chicharito" que de su padrino ayunador.


MEMORY SHOTS:












TAMPICO HERMOSO - HOROSCOPOS


http://marcosalas.blogspot.com/2010/12/ruthless-game-rosalba-y-los-llaveros.html
http://creatividadsocialmentecomprometida.blogspot.com/2010/12/ruthless-game-rosalba-y-los-llaveros.html


ñÑáéíóúÁÉÍÓÚ¿?¡!

China Faces International Criticism at Nobel Ceremony in Oslo and Climate Talks in Cancún

Lxb-protester The Nobel Committee’s decision to award Liu Xiaobo has enraged the Chinese government. In Cancún, Chinese climate negotiators reportedly refused to talk with their Norwegian counterparts. We discuss China’s reaction to Xiaobo’s award and its role at the climate talks with Lucia Green-Weiskel of the Beijing-based Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/10/china_faces_international_criticism_at_nobel



Bolivian President Evo Morales at Cancún Climate Summit: WikiLeaks Cables Reveal "Diplomacy of Empire"

Morales

Speaking at the U.N. Climate Change Conference, Bolivian President Evo Morales warned against throwing out the Kyoto Protocol, saying such a move could result in ecocide or genocide. Bolivia has become a leading critic of how the climate talks have developed and of last year’s U.S.-backed Copenhagen Accord. At a news conference, Morales also talked about U.S. dispatches on Bolivia unearthed by WikiLeaks and his response to recent criticism from Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/10/bolivian_president_evo_morales_on_wikileaks


Guardian Reporter John Vidal: With Climate Talks on Verge of Collapse "You Could Argue that America Has Done Very Well Out of This"

Cop16

On the final scheduled day of the U.N. Climate Change Conference, negotiations remain deadlocked, and negotiators are scrambling to come up with some form of agreement to prevent the talks from collapsing. We speak to John Vidal, the environment editor at The Guardian newspaper.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/10/while_climate_talks_falter_behind_tight





COP16 aún tiene temas sin consenso

Entre los temas en donde existe mayor tensión son: mitigación y transparencia. Este último tiene que ver con el monitoreo, reporte y verificación de los planes nacionales de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero

Cancún, Quintana Roo | Viernes 10 de diciembre de 2010

Thelma Gómez y Silvia Otero, enviadas | El Universal
11:20

En el último día de las negociaciones en la Cumbre de las Naciones Unidas sobre Cambio Climático son pocos los temas en donde existe consenso, por lo que los delegados de las 194 naciones se preparan para una jornada de trabajos que podría terminar hasta las primeras horas del sábado.

Entre los temas en donde existe mayor tensión son: mitigación y transparencia. Este último tiene que ver con el monitoreo, reporte y verificación de los planes nacionales de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero.

"Son horas cruciales", reconoció en conferencia de prensa Joke Schauvliege, de la Unión Europea. "Estamos aquí para salvar el proceso y salvar el clima. Si no combatimos el cambio climático va a ser difícil salvar el proceso, tener un paquete equilibrado", dijo en referencia a los pocos avances en el tema de mitigación.

También continúa la expectativa sobre el futuro del Protocolo de Kioto. Sobre todo, porque países como Japón y Rusia no ceden en su posición de firmar un segundo periodo de compromisos para este acuerdo.

Japón y Rusia coinciden en que el Protocolo de Kioto es insuficiente para combatir el cambio climático.

Conni Hedegaard, de la Unión Europea, explicó que uno de los puntos en donde aún no se llega a un acuerdo es en reconocer que es necesario aumentar los compromisos de los países para evitar que la temperatura del planeta se incremente en dos grados centígrados.

Los temas en donde ya existen más avances, de acuerdo con algunos delegados, son en adaptación, tecnología y el mecanismo de Reducción de Emisiones por Deforestación y Degradación (REDD).

Tal es el ambiente de incertidumbre que se vive en la conferencia, que a las primeras horas de la mañana, el vocero de la secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores de México, Rodrigo Brand, ofreció un breve mensaje para aclarar que la presidencia de la COP16, que recae en México, no ha distribuido ningún documento alterno a los textos que se negocian en los grupos de trabajo.

Y es que esta mañana comenzaron a circular borradores de los documentos que se llevarán a pleno.


After the cop-out in Copenhagen, it's chaos in Cancun

The latest climate talks are at risk of achieving nothing

By Michael McCarthy

Friday, 10 December 2010


The UN climate change talks in Cancun are "poised on a knife edge" as they enter their final day this morning, with the possibility of success, but also the possibility of "a car crash," according to Britain's Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Chris Huhne.

Mr Huhne, who is leading a special group of ministers tackling the meeting's key problem – how to replace the current international climate treaty, the Kyoto Protocol – gave a solemn warning last night that the conference could very possibly end in outright failure, as happened at Copenhagen last year.

Such an outcome would be "very very serious" not only for the issue of global warming, but also for the whole UN process which has been set up to deal with it, he said, and it would risk turning future talks into a "zombie conference", at which there would nobody of sufficient seniority in attendance to take any serious decisions.


Mr Huhne is leading a group which includes ministers from Brazil, New Zealand and Indonesia on tackling the Cancun's most intractable problem – how to resolve the split between rich countries and poor countries over Kyoto, which runs out at the end of 2012.

For two weeks at Cancun's luxury Moon Palace hotel complex, while 15,000 delegates from nearly 200 nations have been discussing all aspects of a new climate deal, from a treaty to prevent deforestation to a new global Green Fund which could give developing countries billions of dollars annually in climate aid, Kyoto has remained the central question, threatening to undermine everything else.

Signed in the Japanese city in 1997, the treaty makes the rich industrialised countries take on legally-binding commitments to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases, while imposing no such commitment on the poorer developing nations.

The developing countries are fiercely attached to it, not only for self-interest – although that is clearly part of it – but also because they see it as an earnest sign of the rich countries' continuing good intent in tackling the climate problem and they want there to be a so-called "second commitment period" of the protocol, binding the industrialised nations to new and tougher targets for cutting their emissions, while they themselves are still legally obliged to do nothing.

The rich countries want a new treaty which binds everybody to cut their CO2 and it was essentially over this difference that Copenhagen collapsed.

It was hoped that a compromise could be found in Mexico – Britain and the European Union would now accept a renewed Kyoto, as long as there is a separate, parallel agreement which binds everybody – but on the opening day the Japanese electrified the conference by asserting in unusually strong language that "under no circumstances" would they consent to renewing the treaty signed in their historic city.

They were joined in their stance by Russia and Canada, who are also refusing to sign up again.

They were met with a fierce response from the conference's most radical grouping, the "Alba" group of socialist Latin American states, who insisted that without a new Kyoto, there would be no deal.

These positions have become entrenched and Mr Huhne has spent the last three days leading the special group set up to try to bring them together, but yesterday he said that in essence the two sides were still far apart and unless people gave ground, the conference would end in deadlock.

"The issue is whether countries that are on the extremes about this are prepared to recognise that they're not going to get what they want in its entirety here in Cancun," he said.

There was "a deal to be had", on many aspects of climate change, but it could would not be done without some sort of resolution of the question of Kyoto and a future parallel treaty binding everyone.

He disclosed that David Cameron was seeking to be in direct contact with the Japanese Prime Minister, Mr Naoto Kan, as was the Mexican President, Felipe Calderon, to see if the Japanese position could be softened.

Referring more than once to the possibility of a "car crash" at the end of today, Mr Huhne said: "I think the consequences would be very very serious and very worrying. "Obviously the science on climate change is getting more worrying, not less; the evidence over the last year has got stronger for anthropogenic climate change, and we really do have a very limited window in which we have to move forward globally to get emissions down – if we don't do that, we are going to lose any real prospect of holding temperatures to below two degrees above pre-industrial levels." [regarded as the danger threshold for the world.]

He went on: "I think the other element which is very worrying, is that if there is a failure here, the whole question of the effectiveness of the United Nations process at coming up with solutions to global problems, is going to get called into question. And the worrying scenario there will be that this process becomes a sort of zombie conference, where there won't actually be anybody able to be at a senior enough level to take any serious decisions at all. So the stakes are extremely high here, both for climate change, because this is the pre-eminent global problem, and for our existing means of dealing with global problems – the UN process."

The reason why Kyoto is no longer acceptable to some nations now, when it was signed by all the world community in 1997, lies in changing circumstances. The agreed basis on which it was constructed was that "parties should protect the climate system ... in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities".

What "common but differentiated responsibilities" means is that we're all in this global warming business together, but some of us have done, and are doing, a lot more to cause it than some others, and on that basis, we should bear the lion's share of putting it right. We, of course, are the industrialised countries. Most of the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which is causing climate change was put there by us, in the two fossil-fuel-burning centuries since the Industrial Revolution began in Britain, and when the original UN Climate Convention was being drawn up, between 1990 and 1992, not only did we have the historical responsibility, we had the present responsibility.

If you look at the left-hand side of the graph on this page you can see how CO2 emissions were divided up in 1990: America, the blue chunk at the bottom of the graph, was overwhelmingly the world's biggest single polluter, emitting 25 per cent of the world's CO2 for less than five per cent of the world's population. The major, OECD countries of Europe were next, with something approaching 20 per cent, and the industrialised world as a whole, which ends with the green band, was emitting between two-thirds and three-quarters of the total; the developing countries were far, far behind, and even the emissions of China, the largest, were less than half those of the US.

Under these circumstances, who could argue against common but differentiated responsibilities? Who could gainsay the fact that we in the industrialised world had not only done most to cause the problem, we were still doing it and therefore should do most to put things right? And if you go back to the graph and use a ruler or a sheet of paper to see where countries were in 1997, you can see that it was still the case, as the Kyoto deal was being negotiated in the city of a thousand temples, that the industrialised world was emitting far more than the developing world was.

But then the graph starts to change radically: developing world emissions begin to shoot up, those of China above all. Chinese carbon emissions doubled, from three to six billion tones from 1996 to 2006, and in 2007 they overtook the US, the biggest polluter of all. Now go back to the graph and look at this year, 2010: the industrialised world and developing country emissions are nearly equal (and they will be soon); then look at the projections for 2030: the developing world is well ahead, and its emissions are shooting away from those of the industrialised nations, growing far faster. This colossal, historical shift has thrown a spanner in the works of the UN climate mechanism, because it undermines the idea of common but differentiated responsibilities, as the key organising principle. It may not undermine the principle itself, but it certainly undermines its universal acceptance, in so far as it means that the industrialised world should do everything and the developing world should do nothing. For even if the historical responsibility of the rich world remains – as it does – what are we to do about the present?

Are the huge developing country emissions simply to be ignored?

Some countries such as Japan will no longer accept this, and the split has become a fault line which now bisects the world's climate change machinery, and which, if agreement cannot be reached in Cancun by tonight, will become unmistakeably visible.


Cancún climate change summit: Final day live blog

Get the latest updates from the final day of the UN talks, as 193 countries try to move forward a deal tackling climate change

Send us your news:
@adamvaughan_uk
adam.vaughan@guardian.co.uk


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COP16 Cancun : A woman looks at a globe model in the climate village
Cancún climate change summit: A woman looks at a globe model in the climate village during the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-16). Photograph: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images

3.23pm: John Ashe, who is chairing talks on the future of the Kyoto protocol, tells Reuters it is "hard to say" whether there will be progress today, despite last minute efforts by Mexico:

At least there's confidence that she [Mexican foreign minister Patricia Espinosa] could put something for them [governments] to consider. This was not the case in Copenhagen. If there's one thing that we've learned in Cancun is that trust has been restored


Overall, the mood music coming out of Cancún is pretty hard to interpret. The general consensus, put forward by Chris Huhne yesterday, seems to be that they're on a knife-edge and could go either way, though Russia's unequivocal statement last night opposing an extension of the Kyoto protocol has certainly cast a cloud on today's talks.

3.02pm: Here's some good video footage of yesterday's speeches by ministers at the summit, including Japan on its Kyoto protocol stance, Saudi Arabia's oil minister saying the outcome must not affect petroleum products (no big surprise there), as well as statements from Russia, Spain, Canada and more.

Link to this video

Australia's climate minister explicitly drew the link between today's result and the future of the UN talks:

it is imperative for the credibiltity of this process [at the UNFCCC negotiations] that we are able to make progress here at this conference.

Todd Stern, the US lead negotiator, had little to offer beyond promises that America would continue to work towards domestic policies to cut emissions. But prospects don't look too bright there - after the US mid-term elections, our US correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg wrote that Obama's green agenda had been "crushed" due to the presence of several new Republican members of Congress who deny the existence of man-made climate change.

2.45pm: Okay, so that opening meeting has been postponed for another 50 minutes. In the meantime, the Canadian member of the Adopt a Negotiator site has just posted this forceful blogpost about deferring action (see also the YouTube video further down this live blog):

Cancún should not be a stepping stone! This year's conference in Cancún should be doing what Copenhagen was supposed to do last year: establish a fair, ambitious, and legally binding agreement. Short-sighted politics, disconnected from climate science, disconnected from those whose lives will be affected by climate change (read: all of us), and disconnected from principles of justice or equity, are driving these negotiations, and driving those who are happy to call Cancún a stepping stone. Let's just say that those who are willing to step on Cancún likely won't hesitate to step on a lot more.

2.23pm: There's a webcast due to start in 10 minutes at the conference - watch this space for any interesting developments.

2.19pm: While we wait for things to get moving in Cancún, here's PricewaterhouseCoopers' take on what would be a 'good outcome' today:

There is optimism in Cancun that an agreement will be reached on fast-start funding, despite attempts by some countries to link this to other, more difficult, issues such as MRV and technology transfer. For some that will be progress since Copenhagen, but for many the reality is that this will simply release funds pledged a year ago. That in itself is important given the frustration that little has been dispersed [in funding]. - Jon Williams, PwC

And Oxfam's:

It is essential that a new fair Climate Fund be established at Cancun, with at least 50 per cent of climate funds allocated for adaptation needs. Women must be at the heart of the Fund so that the money is delivered to them and other groups affected most by the impacts of climate change.

2.13pm: Guest blogger Sylvia Rowley has written an inspiring post for us today on upcoming youth climate activists. There are no Tamsin Omonds, Ben Stewarts or Leila Deens - these are the next generation of names to watch. They're a diverse bunch. Here's Naomi Ralph, a 25 year-old climate justice campaigner:

Environmental problems are not just a white, middle-class, liberal concern


And Isabel Bottoms, a 21 year-old co-founder of UNfairplay:

It sounds boring [doing admin to help poor countries at UN climate negotiations], and in all honesty it is pretty boring, except it happens to be essential.

1.59pm: Some light relief on YouTube that sums up the Groundhog Day feeling some close followers of the climate talks might be experiencing, courtesy of the still-surprising-popular Xtranormal 'text-to-film' service:

(hat-tip to Alex Randall)

1.47pm: John Vidal, one of our two correspondents in Cancún, has woken up and recalled yesterday's late night events over the phone to me:

John Vidal John Vidal

[Bolivian president] Evo Morales stole the show with the most theatrical press conference, which included Mayan priests, admirals, indigenous peoples, advisers and anyone else he could think of. It was followed by a rally in downtown Cancun, which featured brass bands, music and denunciations of the American empire and the whole approach of the west to cutting carbon emissions using carbon markets and offsets. "If we send the Kyoto protocol to the rubbish bin, we are responsible for ecocide and genocide, because we will be sending many people to their deaths," said Morales.

1.16pm: So if Cancún does end in a deadlock - and that's still a very big if - what happens next? Professor Ludwig Krämer, an environmental law expert who works at ClientEarth, has emailed me his idea for an alternative to the current UN process:

Live blog: email

We cannot wait any longer naively expecting the UN process to lead selfish states to an agreement. It is now time to look for an alternative solution. If no global agreement can currently be reached, Europe should take the initiative and pursue a regional agreement.

While political and media attention has fixed on glitzy summits like Copenhagen and Cancun, an existing EU agreement that could provide the solution gathers dust. The Cotonou Agreement was signed in 2000 between the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of 79 states and the European Union (EU) for economical, social and environmental cooperation. It provides a framework through which development policy is deployed. It contains an environmental aspect and it could be extended.

...The agreement could be a model for a global agreement and reassert the EU's leadership role at global negotiations.

12.53pm: Early-rising delegates at the Cancún conference will be waking up now, and preparing for a day that officially closes around midnight (6pm in Cancún). Sceptical types will likely take that with a pinch of salt, despite Mexican president Felipe Calderon saying it will finish on time. Last year in Copenhagen, the feverish last-minute wrangling went on until 12.58am the following day, amid a swirl of rumours and impromptu press briefings.

Those final hours also featured a star cast of world leaders, including Obama, Merkel, Lula da Silva and Brown. This year is quite a different deal - Chris Huhne specifically asked David Cameron not to go. Here's a list of the world leaders in Cancún that I'm aware of:
• Jacob Zuma, South Africa
• Evo Morales, Bolivia
• Felipe Calderon, Mexico
• Bharrat Jagdeo, Guyana
• Jens Stoltenberg, Norway
• Doris Leuthard, Switzerland
• Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia
• Raila Odinga, Kenya
(let me know if I've missed any - I'm pretty sure I'm missing several, and am struggling to find a single source at the UN that lists those attending)

12.24pm: Just seen this on Twitter.

Christian Aid says it's staging a protest at the Japanese embassy in London at 1pm, presumably as a reaction to its hardline stance on not extending the Kyoto protocol:

Emergency dash to Clapham Junction to source Santa suits for 'Don't Kill Kyoto' #climate protest @ Japan embassy in London @ 1pm. #COP16less than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhone

12.18pm: It was clearly a late night for many in Cancún last night. Negotiators were reportedly working into the early hours and activists such as Change and Switch's Linh Do were still tweeting at 1am, Cancún-time. But while we wait for the Mexican resort to wake up in the next hour, here in the UK Greenpeace's Joss Garman is an upbeat mood, despite the developments overnight:

Joss Garman,  anti-aviation campaigner Joss Garman

Not so gloomy bout #COP16 as many. If Japan can agree to allow Kyoto issue to be resolved later, there's other key areas for agreement now

11.36am: To get a flavour of what it's been like at Cancún, check out our gallery of week two.

COP16 Cancun : Greempeace and tcktcktck activists Greempeace and tcktcktck activists, performe under water in Cancun, Mexico. Photograph: Jason Taylor/Greenpeace/EPA

It has everything from activists' protests and photo stunts - including this particularly spectacular underwater one - to life inside the halls of the Moon Palace hotel and Cancunmesse, where the negotiations are taking place.

11.17am: My colleagues on the Guardian's global development site have just published a blogpost on 'energy apartheid', or the fact that over a billion people still don't even have electricity - let alone worry about whether it's green or dirty, the issue that Cancún is interested in. It's by Drew Corbyn, from the charity Practical Action:

Some find the link between energy access and climate change a source of tension, arguing that it is foolhardy, given that the world is hurtling towards dangerously high levels of carbon in the atmosphere, to encourage nearly half the world's population to use more energy. This position is short-sighted and unjust. Meeting the basic energy needs of all the world's people would contribute less than 2% to current global emissions. People living in poverty should not be deprived of the opportunity to improve their lives because of the developed world's historical profligacy.

11.03am: Here's the news on Russia's opposition to extending the Kyoto protocol.

Russia's climate change envoy, Alexander Berditsky, said:

Russia will not participate in the second commitment period of the Kyoto protocol... Russia has repeatedly stated, including at the highest political level, that the adoption of commitments for the second commitment period under the Kyoto protocol as it stands now would be neither scientifically, economically or politically effective.

Looks like we can expect opposition (Russia, Japan, Canada) and support (most developing countries, potentially EU) for the Kyoto protocol to become a pivotal stumbling block today. But will countries compromise, as executive secretary of the UN climate secretariat Christiana Figueres has repeatedly asked them too?

If you find your national position is in opposition to that of others, don't ask for compromise, think of our common planet and offer the compromise first. The deal here in Cancún will not guarantee all your short-term national interests, but reaching no outcome here in Cancún will endanger everyone's long-term well-being

10.50am: Australia-based youth climate activist and student Tim Hall, who is at Cancún, emails me with a plea to the officials and ministers who will be waking up in a couple of hours for today's crunch negotiations. It's written on behalf of the generation who will be affected by many of the predicted impacts of global warming:

It is now the final day and negotiations are still in a deadlock. You still haven't agreed on steps to fight climate change. The 'balanced package' of a fund to oversee climate aid, ways to slow deforestation, steps to help poor countries adapt to climate change and a mechanism to share clean technologies, remains unfinished.

You have had sixteen years of this negotiating. You've had twelve months to ensure progress was made here at COP16.

Yet you still bicker and delay, you still lose sight of the big issue. It seems it's the small things which create the biggest differences. You still can't compromise.

If you can't agree on these things, what hope is there for us at all?

A little heads-up: we've got a great blog on upcoming youth climate activists coming in the next hour.

10.42am: Nnimmo Bassey, the African chair of Friends of the Earth International, has written an interesting comment piece for us on Africa's role in the talks. One of his main complaints is that some leaders of the continent - which is expected to suffer some of the worst effects of rising temperatures, particularly on food supplies - are being used to promote the agenda of developed countries. He singles out the prime ministers of Kenya and Ethiopia:

The Right and Livelihood Awards - Nnimmo Bassey Nnimmo Bassey. Photograph: Romel De Vera/FoEI/EPA

... when rich countries are finally being asked to recognise this through taking strong action to cut their emissions, they are using Africans as a mouthpiece to help them wriggle out of it. What they should do is clear: commit unconditionally to an extension of the Kyoto protocol, cut their emissions by at least 40% by 2020 (without carbon offsetting), and provide more money for developing countries to tackle the problem.

10.20am: Not a great start to the final day of the talks. Last night Russia said no to an extension of the Kyoto protocol, which developing countries are adamant is crucial for agreement on other aspects of a climate deal. Canada is also understood to oppose the extension.

The pair join Japan, which last week cast a negative shadow over the talks by announcing it would not back an extension of the treaty that was created in its former capital. The protocol, which binds rich countries to cut their emissions, is due to expire in 2012. Japan has since hardened its position, with one of its ambassadors telling John Vidal this week:

We are not moving. This is a fact. Many people have had the illusion that Japan might change its position. Well, we are sorry, but we are not going to. There is 0% possibility

We'll have the full story for you in a few minutes, courtesy of Suzanne Goldenberg.

9.54am: This in from Suzanne Goldenberg, our US correspondent who is on the ground at Cancún, who says the final hours of the summit have started to "bring out leaders' dramatic flair."

Suzanne Goldenberg Suzanne Goldenberg

Mexico's president, Felipe Calderon, compared the negotiations to an airplane disaster movie. At an event yesterday he said:
"Sometimes I think we fail to understand that we're all passengers in the same vessel, in the same aircraft, or the same vehicle. Our aircraft has now seen the disappearance of the pilot. Something happened in the cabin. And all the passengers are responsible for the aircraft, and we're squabbling about these matters. Whether the guilt lies with those in the tourist class or those sitting up front in first class and the plane continues to go down. It's as if we were in a truck on a winding road and the driver has had a heart attack, and we're all on the edge of hitting a tree, going over into a ravine, squabbling again. I think, friends, somebody has to take control of the aircraft or put on the brakes."

9.45am: John Vidal's roundup of week one also gives a handy overview on the key areas negotiators and environment ministers need to agree today:
• A deal to cut emissions and prevent a dangerous rise in future temperatures.
• Setting up a plan to protect forests and keep emissions locked away, while helping developing countries in the process.
• Raising billions of pounds in climate aid to help poor countries adapt to the impacts of climate change.
• Extending the Kyoto protocol, which is set to expire in 2012.
• Closing loopholes in the text that could see emissions actually rise.
• Improving transparency of countries' carbon cuts – a key US demand, more geekily known as monitoring, reporting and verifying (MRV).

9.36am: You'd be forgiven for having missed Cancún over the last fortnight, what with that other small story about WikiLeaks and the low expectations for the summit. To get up to speed, I highly recommend our primer to this year's UN climate conference, which lays out the key players, issues and background. And to get the full back story to the negotiations, which have been going on for years to secure a new international deal to cut carbon emissions, take a look at our beautiful timeline of the talks.

9.16am: India's environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, has said India may eventually commit to legally binding cuts in emissions. Here's Ramesh, according to an Indian TV news broadcast this morning that Reuters is reporting:

Jairam Ramesh, India environment minister Jairam Ramesh, India's environment minister

All countries must make binding commitments in appropriate legal form. This does not mean that India is for a legally binding commitment at this stage. That's our position. There are changing realities that we have to understand. Increasingly, more and more developing countries are asking questions of India, China and the United States, the three big countries saying they will not accept an international legally-binding agreement. I have nuanced our position ... Let's keep this discussion going, let's understand the sentiments of the rest of the world, and let's not be painted as the bad guy.

However tentative the remarks, they're a relatively big deal for India. Previously it's only talked about voluntary cuts, and even then only cuts in "carbon intensity" - carbon emissions per unit of GDP - meaning in a fast-growing economy such as India, emissions could still continue to rise. An Indian official, speaking to Reuters, confirmed Ramesh's slightly coded words: "What the minister said was that India is willing to open a dialogue on taking binding emission cuts going forward as a means to keep the negotiations meaningful and alive."

09.00am: Two weeks of wrangling over the fate of the world come to a climax today at the UN climate summit in Cancún, Mexico.

At stake is not just whether billions of people will have "shrinking horizons and smaller futures", as Ban Ki-moon puts it, but the credibility of the UN body overseeing the talks.

Unlike Copenhagen last year, no one is expecting a binding deal at Cancún that will commit countries to cut the carbon emissions responsible for climate change. That much has been clear since as early as February, and since then everyone from the UN to key countries and NGOs has been conducting expectation management.

But the talks could still produce modest successes on forest protection, the speed and amount of financial aid developed countries give to developing ones to adapt to climate impacts, the transfer of clean technology, and monitoring of countries' efforts to cut greenhouse gases. Or it could end in a procrastinating failure, with key decisions deferred another year, until Durban in South Africa. Such failure, the energy and climate secretary Chris Huhne warned yesterday, could result in a vicious downward spiral as countries send increasingly more junior representatives each year:

Cancun COP16: UK Climate Secretary Chris Huhne helping to facilitate information consultations Chris Huhne

Next year people will say, well, we're not going to make any progress, and we end up with a zombie conference where there won't be anybody at a senior enough level to take any serious decisions at all

So far, the talks in Cancún have followed a familiar narrative for UN climate talks. Poorer countries have threatened to walk out over uncompromising negotiating stances taken by rich ones, the Kyoto protocol – the legally binding treaty that compels developed countries to cut emissions by 2012 – has been at heart of disagreements, and leaked texts have revealed backroom deals (this time the EU and small island states – last year's was the controversial 'Danish text'). Plus this year we've had the added spice of cables released by WikiLeaks that show how the US used its diplomatic muscle to get support for the weak Copenhagen accord document that emerged this time last year.

Officially, we should hear the outcome of Cancún at midnight (the summit is six hours behind UK time). But judging from the final day at Copenhagen last year, when Barack Obama delayed his flight home for last-minute negotiations, it's likely to go on until the early hours. This live blog will try to keep going until the end result - Damian Carrington will be taking over from me this afternoon.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/dec/10/cancun-climate-change-summit-final

il summit di cancun

La svolta della Cina sul clima?
E' stato un errore dell'interprete

Il «sì» di Pechino a impegni più vincolanti aveva stupito. Poi la precisazione: non abbiamo cambiato linea

il summit di cancun

La svolta della Cina sul clima?
E' stato un errore dell'interprete

Il «sì» di Pechino a impegni più vincolanti aveva stupito. Poi la precisazione: non abbiamo cambiato linea

dal nostro inviato ALESSANDRA ARACHI

Il capo delegazione cinese a Cancun, Xie Zhenhua (Reuters)
Il capo delegazione cinese a Cancun, Xie Zhenhua (Reuters)
CANCUN (Messico) – La notizia ha fatto il giro del mondo, rapidissima visto che il mondo qui a Cancun è concentrato dentro un albergo, seppure molto grande. Il 7 dicembre Su Wei, negoziatore cinese per la conferenza sui cambiamenti climatici, ha regalato ai media titoli di apertura e approfondimenti di primo piano: “La svolta della Cina su Kyoto”. Brividi nella comunità internazionale: per la prima volta la Cina aveva detto sì agli impegni vincolanti e ai controlli internazionali sulle emissioni di CO2. Il punto nodale della trattativa sul protocollo di Kyoto. La pietra dello scontro fra i due grandi inquinatori del mondo, Cina e Stati Uniti. Con un dettaglio: la svolta della Cina non era vera. C’era stato un errore di traduzione.

Attivisti cinesi a Cancun (Reuters)
Attivisti cinesi a Cancun (Reuters)
CONFERMA - Le parole di Su Wei pronunciate in cinese erano state riportate male dall’interprete della conferenza. Todd Stern, capo negoziatore americano qui a Cancun, aveva fiutato l’errore. E quando è stato assalito dai giornalisti che volevano una sua reazione alla “storica svolta della Cina”, ha provato a balbettare: “Veramente a me non sembra che ci siano cambiamenti nella politica cinese….”. Ma niente da fare. La sua è stata interpretata come una mossa tattica, in difesa. Il tentativo di minimizzare la storica apertura della Cina. E’ dovuto scendere in campo Xie Zhenua, il capo delegazione del governo cinese. Una conferenza stampa con i crismi della diplomazia negoziale. Lungi dal denunciare un errore di traduzione, Xie Zhenua ha ripetuto pacatamente la politica cinese sulle riduzioni di CO2 che, tra le altre, vede la Cina come il paese al mondo che investe di più in energia rinnovabile. In conferenza stampa Xie Zhenua ha scandito lentamente i punti nodali della politica sulle riduzione delle CO2. Parlando, rigorosamente, in inglese.


SPIEGEL ONLINE Interview with Mexican Foreign Minister

EU and US Should 'Offer More' on Climate Protection

Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa addressing the United Nations Climate Change conference in Cancun: "We want to decide upon what the goals actually are."
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AFP

Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa addressing the United Nations Climate Change conference in Cancun: "We want to decide upon what the goals actually are."

The president of the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa, spoke with SPIEGEL ONLINE about why she believes this round of talks will be better than Copenhagen and how industrialized nations need to take on more leadership.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What lessons have been drawn from the political debacle that was the Copenhagen climate summit in late 2009?

Patricia Espinosa: The last climate conference did not fulfill the expectations of the international community. There was too much mistrust between the poorer countries and the industrialized nations over the issue of who should bear the main costs of CO2 reductions. Our answer to that is to ensure concrete, tangible progress. In Cancun, we are not just concentrating on reaching an ambitious result, we also want to agree on clearly defined climate protection projects with concrete financing.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: In what way are these negotiations different?

Espinosa: In Copenhagen, the situation was that the most important decisions were made in an informal meeting of a number of world leaders and their negotiators. Many other countries felt excluded and ignored. In Cancun, we are making sure that all of the world's regions are appropriately represented in the informal sessions.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The expectations of anything significant coming out of the Cancun talks are fairly low. Are you of a similar opinion?

Espinosa: No, I believe that in Cancun we can develop the framework for international climate protection for the next few years. We won't negotiate any legally binding climate contracts but we want to decide upon what the goals actually are, and how we can reach them.


SPIEGEL ONLINE: Doesn't the Copenhagen accord already do this?

Espinosa: No, because that document was never passed by the parties to that conference, it was only taken note of. In Mexico, a whole new process is beginning, that will adopt only the most important elements from that paper, such as the financial promises made by the industrialized nations.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Has there been any sign of the $30 billion that was promised to help poorer nations fight climate change, which was to be made available between 2010 and 2012?

Espinosa: We are certain that this money is available because that promise is one of the concrete results of Copenhagen. The payment of these funds would strengthen trust in the multilateral system. Otherwise the whole process of climate protection would be endangered.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The mood in the industrialized nations is changing. Worries about climate change are now second to concerns about the economic crisis.

Espinosa: The industrialized nations must stop seeing these financial contributions as a pure burden. Through them, they are opening up the most important business sectors of the 21st century, namely environmental protection and resource efficiency. Additionally, the poorer countries will suffer the most from the effects of climate change, while they also supposed to give up unsustainable sources of income, such as forest clearance.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Hasn't the Cancun conference been doomed from the beginning though, given that US President Barack Obama has his hands tied when it comes to environmental protection?

Espinosa: It is a great pity that the US government has not managed to win the support of Congress, because of the many, complex interests that play a role within climate protection. Naturally I hope that the US takes on a leadership role in this area too. And I believe that the European Union could also offer more.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: There seem to be far-reaching doubts in the US at the moment as to whether climate change is actually humankind's doing. What are your thoughts on this?

Espinosa: There are concrete economic interests that are trying to damage the image of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and play down its findings on the dangers of climate change. It is true that there have been some mistakes at the IPCC. But it remains one of the most serious and reliable advisers to policy makers. The IPCC quickly learned the right lessons from those mistakes and reformed its procedures. And unfortunately we are already experiencing plenty of extreme weather events that give us a foretaste of what the future could hold.

Interview conducted by Christian Schwägerl


China, US lead merry dance in Cancun

By Peter Lee

The climate change crisis is about a comma. It is also about a lack of global leadership by the United States and China.

The latest round of climate talks, now ending in the Mexican beach resort of Cancun, is trudging along towards the usual dispiriting conclusion. Beneath the blame-shifting and posturing, there is actually a shared understanding between many of the world's developed and developing economic powerhouses that the Kyoto Treaty is virtually dead - although many countries are loath to take the politically brutal step of admitting it.

Supposedly, Kyoto - the international agreement to keep carbon emissions down - is being replaced by a fairer mechanism called the Long-term Cooperative Agreement, or LCA. Actually, it is being replaced by awareness that the easiest way to deal with global warming is insulation; the kind of insulation that is best provided by a thick, reassuring pile of money.

The richer, economically more vigorous countries will invest in measures that protect them from the deleterious effects of global warming and even allow them to profit from it.

The poorer and more vulnerable nations will have less recourse to the United Nations and its ideas of global equity; they will have to find ways to leverage their diplomatic and economic utility to the richer nations if they want help with their climate change problems.

Japan provided a jolt of excitement to the proceedings in Mexico - the successor conference to the spectacular diplomatic train wreck of the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change in 2009 - with its announcement that it would not sign on to an extension of the Kyoto Treaty when it expires in 2012 unless the BASIC block (primarily China and India) signed on to binding emissions targets.

Japan is an unlikely bomb-thrower in international venues. It has adopted a "plague on both their houses" attitude toward the two major non-participants in Kyoto, the US and China, as justification for scrapping the treaty.

However, it seems more likely Japan is probably acting as a proxy for the United States and for the developed countries that are profoundly dissatisfied with the Kyoto-mandated division of Annex I nations (European countries and Japan, with binding emissions reduction targets) and the Annex II nations (China, India, Brazil, et al, with no hard targets).

The United States never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, so it has limited diplomatic or moral standing to call for the protocol's overthrow. The EU had its shot at Copenhagen, when it circulated a widely vilified draft document calling for a post-Kyoto reordering of the climate change process. It is now apparently resigned to Kyoto's continuation. Canada repudiated its Kyoto targets when Stephen Harper took power last year. That leaves Japan, Australia, and Russia to take the lead.

Apparently Japan - which is locked into an increasingly zero-sum economic struggle with China - was most willing to step up.

China, on the other hand, has been on its best behavior at Cancun. The Beijing leadership remembers how it was excoriated, somewhat unfairly, for the virtual collapse of the Copenhagen conference.

At Cancun, it brought friendly faces, glossy brochures, and a willingness to say the right things - up to a point. In a widely-quoted (and somewhat garbled) article, Reuters reported:
China on Monday offered for the first time to submit its voluntary carbon emissions target to a binding UN resolution..."
China's target would still be voluntary, stressed China's chief negotiator Xie Zhenhua, a distinction from developed nation targets under Kyoto: "Developing countries can ... make their own voluntary emissions commitments and these should be under the Convention."

The November 29 to December 10 talks in Cancun are split over how to harden existing pledges made at last year's Copenhagen summit, which ended in a brief, non-binding agreement.

China's offer to make its existing, domestic pledge to slow growth in carbon emissions binding under a UN resolution is a compromise it hopes will encourage developed countries to continue the existing Kyoto Protocol.

"We can create a resolution and that resolution can be binding on China," said Huang Huikang, the Chinese Foreign Ministry's envoy for climate change talks. "Under the [UN Climate] Convention, we can even have a legally binding decision. We can discuss the specific form. We can make our efforts a part of international efforts.

"We're willing to compromise, we're willing to play a positive and constructive role, but on this issue [Kyoto] there's no room for compromise." [1]

The US sneered: "We've seen quotes from some people saying this can be a game-changer," Todd Stern, the lead US envoy at the UN talks in Cancun, said at a briefing. "I'd love it to be a game-changer, but as far as I'm concerned, this is business as usual." [2]

One has the definite impression that some Annex I countries plus the United States sent Japan out to drive a stake through the heart of Kyoto, lest it be revived by an ostentatious show of Chinese reasonableness.

US climate diplomacy is less than edifying. In its most practical aspect, it seems designed primarily to ensure that China and India are unable to successfully advance initiatives that might contribute to Kyoto's continued viability.

The famous comma referred to above was inserted by the George W Bush administration - normally not deeply engaged with questions of punctuation or climate change - into a seemingly innocuous phrase of the "Bali Roadmap", which was intended to help lead Kyoto out of its Annex I vs Annex II cul-de-sac.

India's Economic Times reported:
The Bali paragraph says treaty talks should yield "nationally appropriate" actions by developing countries to curb emissions "in the context of sustainable development, supported and enabled by technology, financing and capacity-building, in a measurable, reportable and verifiable manner."

The comma after "building" was dropped and then reinserted at the Bush administration's insistence. Delegates from the US argued for the comma to be inserted so that "actions" by developing countries and not just support from industrialized nations, would be measurable, reportable and verifiable, or MRV in UN jargon. [3]
MRV, especially the V for Verification part, is at the heart of climate change squabbles between China and the United States.

The United States professes anxiety that, without third-party verification of China's climate change mitigation efforts, China might be tempted to cheat. If China's opportunities for misbehavior are not explicitly and forcefully foreclosed, the argument goes, the possibility of getting meaningful climate change legislation through the US Congress is impossible.

China, on the other hand, professes anxiety that third-party MRV will (a) compromise Chinese sovereignty by giving a potentially hostile organization the opportunity to inject itself into China's climate change activities in an adversarial way (think of the IAEA under Amano vs Iran), and (b) turn China's voluntary targets into de facto mandatory targets by (c) providing a pretext for China-bashers to institute punitive import duties on Chinese goods if Chinese efforts to control greenhouse gas emissions are not considered up to snuff.

On balance, the Chinese arguments are more persuasive.

Right-wing intransigence, not China's imputed tendency to fudge data, is the apparently immovable and permanent obstacle to US domestic climate change legislation. Using norm-based multilateral initiatives to create problems for China, on the other hand, is apparently an irresistible attraction to US diplomats and legislators on issues as diverse as Iran, North Korea, and the South China Sea, and could presumably be deployed on the issue of China's carbon-spewing behavior.

At Cancun, in what was apparently an effort to placate the United States and avoid standing unambiguously with China (as it did post-Copenhagen), India's representative, Jairam Ramesh, floated the idea of a modified unintrusive MRV he called ICA - International Consultation and Analysis - and a qualified commitment to internationally monitored hard emission targets. The Times of India tells us:
The UPA had committed to Parliament that India would not take on any international legally binding commitments to reduce greenhouse emissions. It was also part of the Cabinet decision drawing a clear red line against such a move.

Last Thursday, Cabinet approved a proposal, mooted by Ramesh, diluting the line. It stated, "India will not take any international legally binding agreement, (at the moment)." This opened the window for Ramesh to shift India's position with his statement, suggesting that while India would not take on commitments right now, it could do so in the future. [4]
Whether China agrees with the Times of India that this is a "tectonic shift" is open to question. Under suitable circumstances, India's positions are probably acceptable to China.

As the West stumbles and China and India soar through the global recession, the free ride for Annex II countries is no longer defensible as a matter of principle.

As for the MRV gap between the United States and China, it is apparently more a matter of politics and negotiating posture, primarily on the side of the United States, rather than rooted in the mundane details of data collection, analysis, reporting, and review.

The US and China have held continual meetings on MRV and it appears that there isn't too much practical difference between the two sides.

The Guardian reported a WikiLeaks cable with this exchange between the EU's top climate change official and the lead US negotiator:
[Connie] Hedegaard asks why the US did not agree with China and India on what she saw as acceptable measures to police future emissions cuts. "The question is whether they will honour that language," the cable quotes [Jonathan] Pershing as saying. [5]
The New York Times reported on December 8 that the Chinese are willing to reach an agreement, but the US is insisting on certain adversarial MRV elements that China, almost inevitably, finds unacceptable:
Those familiar with China's position say the government is eager to agree to certain principles - like that an international monitoring system should not be punitive or impinge on national sovereignty. But it doesn't want an expert panel to rigorously truth-squad its methods or numbers, or allow other countries to submit questions about the reports. America, meanwhile, won't approve agreements on avoiding deforestation, adaptation, technology transfer and other programs worth billions of dollars until it gets specific agreements from China on elements like having an expert review panel. [6]
In an interesting contrast to Copenhagen, Western reporting does not automatically cast China as the heavy on MRV. Just the opposite, in fact.

More from the New York Times:
Yet while the United States is casting China as the linchpin of the negotiations, there is anger aplenty at America inside the Moon Palace resort where talks are being held. Many say the United States is demanding compromise from others while bringing nothing to the negotiating table itself.

"I'm actually more concerned about the US's transparency," said Jennifer Morgan, who heads the World Resources Institute's climate and energy program.

One leading US analyst said every time countries make progress on an issue, the United States reminds countries that it might all mean nothing unless China agrees to transparency rules.

"The US is the problem here," the analyst said. "Everybody is so pissed off. Here we are with nothing back home, and acting like bullies."
Even if India is warily sidling away from the preferred Chinese negotiating stance on MRV, Ramesh has not yet taken the truly explosive step of abandoning Kyoto.

For the time being, at least, both India and China are still insisting on a continuation of the Kyoto regime; Ramesh called that demand "non-negotiable".

China and India were responding to the latest effort of the anti-Kyoto hardliners: advancing the alternative structure-in-embryo of the Long-term Cooperative Agreement, an inclusive venue for ancillary issues that they hope to repackage as an emissions agreement that eliminates the Annex I/Annex II structure.

This approach is strongly resisted by China and India; the other brothers in the BASIC acronym, Brazil and South Africa, are apparently less militant on the issue.

Not only would LCA revoke China and India's Annex II free-rider privileges.

By leveling the playing field, LCA would shift the focus - acknowledged by Kyoto - from the historical culpability of the West for pumping the majority of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Most probably, this end-of-history approach would seek to saddle China - in 2010 the biggest greenhouse gas emitter and one of the world's most vigorous economy - with reduction obligations that China would consider excessive.

As part of the relentless campaign to kill Kyoto and create favorable conditions for LCA, the Western industrialized nations have exploited the split between the smaller, less-developed nations threatened by climate change, and the big BASIC countries that care more about per capita GDP growth than sea level in the Maldives, hoping to completely fracture the image of extensive Kyoto consensus and thereby hasten its demise.

The small nations are anxious for economic aid from the West to help with their climate-related and other problems. At Copenhagen, the United States crudely deployed promises of economic aid to vulnerable countries (coupled with the demand that China yield on MRV or the aid would not be given) in order to split the Group of 77 united negotiating front of less developed countries that China and India pretended to speak for.

Post-Copenhagen, the efforts continued.

WikiLeaks provided an insight into the horse-trading employed, with the Maldives, the most vociferous, creative, and desperate player of the disappearing-atoll card, leading the pack, as the Guardian reported:
Within two weeks of Copenhagen, the Maldives foreign minister, Ahmed Shaheed, wrote to the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, expressing eagerness to back it.

By 23 February 2010, the Maldives' ambassador-designate to the US, Abdul Ghafoor Mohamed, told the US deputy climate change envoy, Jonathan Pershing, his country wanted "tangible assistance", saying other nations would then realise "the advantages to be gained by compliance" with the accord.

A diplomatic dance ensued. "Ghafoor referred to several projects costing approximately $50m (ฃ30m). Pershing encouraged him to provide concrete examples and costs in order to increase the likelihood of bilateral assistance."

The Maldives were unusual among developing countries in embracing the accord so wholeheartedly, but other small island nations were secretly seen as vulnerable to financial pressure. Any linking of the billions of dollars of aid to political support is extremely controversial - nations most threatened by climate change see the aid as a right, not a reward, and such a link as heretical. But on 11 February, Pershing met the EU climate action commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, in Brussels, where she told him, according to a cable, "the Aosis [Alliance of Small Island States] countries 'could be our best allies' given their need for financing". [7]
It is not clear if the Maldives have received their payout yet.

But Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed delivered on the eve of Cancun:
Mohamed Nasheed is the president of the Maldives, a group of low-lying islands in the Indian Ocean that will be among the first to vanish as the sea-level rises in a warming world. That's why he is so outspoken in challenging the current negotiating position of the developing countries.

"When I started hearing about this climate change issue, I started hearing developing countries say 'we have a right to emit carbon because we have to develop,' " he told the BBC recently. "It is true, we need to develop; but equating development to carbon emissions I thought was quite silly."

That is heresy, for the standard position of the group of developing countries (G-77) is that since the rich countries caused the problem, they must make the emissions cuts that would stop it. [8]
China's chief climate envoy, Xie Zhenhua, took the high road. According to the Global Times, he opined stolidly:
"Countries and people involved in the information that WikiLeaks released should reflect upon their deeds, if the information is true," Xie said. [9]
According to author Gwynne Dyer, around 30 nations of the G-77 share Nasheed's view. [10]

Though the United States may be able to deploy sufficient financial incentives to satisfy eager client atolls, it apparently lacks the will and muscle to stump up the cash for a deep and sustained effort to help the poorer nations of the world adapt to climate change.

This is a problem of practical as well as symbolic importance. US sincerity on the issue of binding emissions commitment has been suspect from the very beginning - rejection of Kyoto - to the present - the collapse of domestic carbon legislation in the US Congress.

If the US is going to lead a march to a level-playing-field emissions regime under LCA - which implies some significant burden-shifting away from the US and onto China's shoulders - America would be expected to compensate for its historical greenhouse gas legacy with significant aid to vulnerable states for adaptation, and transfer of carbon mitigation and energy conservation technologies to have-not states.

China and India have seized upon Western shortcomings in cash and technology and highlighted them by declaring that concrete action by the developed countries on these two commitments - along with continuation of Kyoto - as their three "non-negotiable demands".

Instead of delivering the cash, the West has spewed vapor while shifting money from other aid programs and providing loan guarantees instead of grants.

China clearly sees this as an opportunity to point out that Western underperformance - and not Chinese intransigence on the largely manufactured issue of verification - is what the developing world should really be worried about.

China's climate change honcho, Xie Zhenhua, claimed that on the eve on Cancun only $5 billion of the pledged $30 billion was in place as actual, new cash. In an interview with an environmental website, chinadialogue, Xie stated with an unctuous show of sympathy "that China understands the economic crisis many nations are facing and is not criticising this". [11]

The recession also casts a shadow on the other Western effort to control the global climate control process with its wallet: the pledge to transfer $100 billion a year in long-term climate mitigation funding to developing countries by 2020, in the Atlantic's opinion:
However, fiscal austerity measures in industrialized countries and ongoing economic stagnation will limit the ability to tap either public or private sources of financing. Proposals for raising money through carbon levies on certain global industries like shipping and aviation are not likely to amount to anything. [12]
BASIC seized on reports that the West wanted to pull control of the funding from the UN - the only organization that makes even a token effort to stand up for the world's dispossessed - and put it in the hands of the grantors.

According to the Times of India, a vociferous defender of the classic BASIC line on Kyoto:
The G20 has now stepped in to strip the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change further of any substantial worth.

The G20 has told member countries that the issues of financing climate change action be taken out of the UN talks and be handed over to them. The move could further demolish the consensus-driven process within the UN talks and potentially rob the climate change convention of any worth to the developing countries that have seen little real money despite commitments and promises by the rich countries.

The G20 has asked member countries that they allow the finance ministries under the aegis of this umbrella devise the Green Fund that the Copenhagen Accord had envisaged. ...

The developing countries are keen that the fund be managed democratically under the UNFCCC where all countries get an equal vote and equal weight. The US and other countries prefer to set up the fund in a way they can control the flow as contributors to the fund. The developing countries have demanded a greater say in finalising how the funds would be spent based on their needs and priorities, if and when they materialise.

The attempt by G20 to hijack the Green Fund proposal, while the developed countries block it in the UN negotiations, would lead to details of the critical component of the expected global deal being instead finalised in a body dominated by developed country interests and then being imposed on the 193 country UNFCCC. [13]
Stripped of meaningful assurances of Western funding to compensate for historical responsibility for generation of greenhouse gases, LCA looks like little more than burden-shifting to China.

At the same time, China has amassed a relatively stellar record on carbon intensity and emissions-related progress in comparison to the United States.

As Bloomberg put it:
"It used to be thought that China wouldn't act until the U.S. took leadership," Mark Fulton, a managing director at Deutsche Bank Climate Change Advisors in New York, said in an interview. "But unless I've missed something, China has already taken substantial action." ...

"China is in a stronger negotiating position now than they were in Copenhagen because the perception is the US doesn't have its domestic act together," Alden Meyer, head of policy in Washington at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in an interview. "The Chinese public believes they are doing a lot more on the ground than the US, and they don't think China should have to make any concessions." [14]
Therefore, a more confident and assertive China may be willing to put up with what it considers to be hypocritical pummeling from the West for its insistence on Kyoto.

Beneath the apparent international united front dedicated to eliminating the anachronistic Annex I/Annex II dichotomy, there is probably a certain understanding of the Chinese position.

As far as Europe - the lonely mainstay of genuine global efforts to control greenhouse gases - is concerned, a possible alternative to Kyoto is not LCA; it is bilateral engagement with China to perpetuate the emissions control and carbon trading regime already conducted by the EU with China, India, and other developing countries through the Clean Development Mechanism, and compel the United States - which apparently lacks the ability to lead - to follow the two blocs into a new regime:
A number of analysts have called for closer EU-China co-operation in recent weeks however, including Chatham House energy research director, Bernice Lee.

"With the collapse of climate legislation in the US, it is up to the EU and China as the world's largest markets for low-carbon goods and services to strengthen their role as the locomotive of the low-carbon economy," he wrote in a paper last month.

Environmental groups also agree a Sino-EU alliance would have advantages. "The biggest emitters - China and the US - are the biggest players," WWF climate activist Jason Anderson told this website. "The key question at the moment is how to bring pressure on the US." [15]
There is not a great deal of downside to insisting on Kyoto if LCA if the nations of the world perceive as no more than a taunting mirage.

Without active US leadership to give meaning to the LCA process, Kyoto is the best that the world has got.

Post-Cancun, the world faces the certainty that China and India will not decrease emissions; the likelihood that the United States will not achieve significant reductions, either by treaty or through domestic regulation or legislation; the futility of the EU and Japan trying to carry the weight of game-changing emissions reductions on their shoulders; and the near certainty that greenhouse gas targets will be missed and the world is in for major climate change.

It seems to make very little difference if the Kyoto can is kicked down the road a few more years, or simply kicked aside.

Notes
1. China buoys climate talks with "binding" target, Yahoo, Dec 6, 2010.
2. U.S. Sees No `Game-Changer' in China's Pledges at UN Global Warming Talks, Bloomberg, Dec 7, 2010.
3. 'Famous comma' slows climate talks, Economic Times, Dec 18, 2009.
4. India can pledge binding emission cuts, says Jairam Ramesh, Times of India, Dec 10, 2010.
5. WikiLeaks cables reveal how US manipulated climate accord, Guardian, Dec 3, 2010.
6. U.S. and China Maintain Polite Disagreement as Climate Talks Reach Final Days, New York Times, Dec 8, 2010.
7. WikiLeaks cables reveal how US manipulated climate accord, Guardian, Dec 3, 2010.
8. No emissions deal at Cancun, Japan Times, Dec 9, 2010.
9. BASIC nations stand firm, Global times, Dec 8, 2010.
10. No emissions deal at Cancun, Japan Times, Dec 9, 2010.
11. "China will be transparent", China Dialogue, Nov 29, 2010.
12. What to Expect at the Cancun Climate Talks, The Atlantic, Nov 29, 2010.
13. Climate change: G20 wants financing out of UN talks, Times of India, Dec 9, 2010.
14. China Turns Negotiating Tables on U.S. at Stalled Cancun Climate Meeting, Bloomberg, Dec 4, 2010.
15. EU downplays chance of climate alliance with China, EU Observer, Nov 29, 2010.

Peter Lee writes on East and South Asian affairs and their intersection with US foreign policy.

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