The New Nation - Internet Edition

James Russell

Today, a herd of suits hurried past a handful of swimsuit-clad vacationers in the Nusa Dua resort area of Bali, Indonesia. Snorkels and flippers in hand, tourists headed for the sea. Briefcases in hand, perspiring delegates headed for the 13th Annual UN Climate Change Conference negotiations at the Bali International Conference Center.

Tim Annett at the Wall Street Journal has already blogged about the air conditioning situation at the event, so I'll just focus on how excited I am about attending my first UN climate conference. (I'll admit that I felt a bit envious of the beachgoers. How could I not? To the right is the scene I walked past on my way to work today. Tempting, isn't it?)

But putting such visions of paradise behind the sea of delegates, observers like me and a swarm of media flowed into the main plenary for the opening session. By the time I got there, it was standing room only. Delegates from the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change filled most of the seats. NGOs and other observer organizations occupied a few rows in the back, plus just about all the available standing room. The turnout is already tremendous, and more are sure to arrive as we approach the high-level meetings at the end of next week.

The demands placed on this process are enormous: in a nutshell, formulate a worldwide response to climate change. The expectations for these Bali negotiations are considerable, including designing a process to negotiate an international climate pact over the next two years. In this context, today's official proceedings were remarkably unimpressive. Despite laudable calls for fast action made in the opening speeches, a conference encompassing nearly 200 countries doesn't exactly "spring" into action. Today, the official business entailed a lot of housekeeping.

There were, however, some shining moments and some "fossil" moments. The shining moment was the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by Australia. The U.S. now stands alone in its non-compliance with the first international climate pact-a fact that greatly complicates its participation in these negotiations.

In contrast, Saudi Arabia offered today's fossil moment. What is a fossil moment? The Climate Action Network (CAN), an umbrella organization representing many participating environmental NGOs, awards a daily "fossil award" to national delegations that are impeding progress toward an effective climate agreement. Today, the Saudi delegation not only stated their reluctance to commit to a negotiation track, but they also called for a climate agreement that would provide compensation for the intended consequences of climate change mitigation. In other words, they requested that they be paid for the oil that a climate pact would prevent the world from consuming. Fossil indeed.

Having offered these tidbits from today's opening meeting, I realize that I can't hope to give a full accounting of the day's events. I've been going for 14-plus hours, and all I've told you about so far are the first few hours of just one of the official meeting tracks, which are themselves but a small fraction of the activities here. Many of the most interesting themes are being addressed in so-called "side events," and particularly as we move toward high-level meetings next week, many critical decisions will be made in "informal consultations." It requires a whole new language just to describe both the vastness and the nuances of the discussions occurring here.

I hope you'll stick with me as I open a small window into the next 11 days of this critical beginning to a new global climate pact. In future postings, I'll try to speak more on the less-reported side stories of the conference.

Day 2 of the UN climate conference in Bali, and things were already heating up.

By about the fourth time I'd handed over my bag to be searched, emptied my pockets, gone through the metal detector, and held out my arms to be "wanded," my spring of pleasant banter with the security staff had pretty much run dry. Unfortunately, the conference is set up such that the main events occur in one area (the entrance of which is shown at right), and most side events plus the NGO offices are located in another center, perhaps a kilometer away.

A measly kilometer. Big deal, right? Wrong. Take a 1-kilometer stroll in 90-degree heat and 90 percent humidity, and trust me, you're hardly presentable for a meeting. Top that off with having to pass through security at the end of the ordeal, and it turns into quite a challenge to get from one place to another, much less to see all the events that you'd like to. Maybe it's time to bite the bullet and follow my colleagues toward that siren song-"Taxi? You need taxi?"

Getting down to business: Remember how I said that yesterday focused on a lot of housekeeping? Well, I stand corrected. Turns out that while I was attending a side event, the Japanese delegation alarmed everyone with a reference to moving "beyond the Kyoto Protocol to a new framework…"

It sounds innocent enough-after all, we're here to establish a new global climate deal. But especially with Australia now on board, endorsement of the Kyoto Protocol is emblematic of commitment to effective, binding emissions reductions. In this context, speaking out against the Protocol is something of a heresy in many delegates' and observers' eyes.

I tell this story mainly to give you an impression of just how sensitive these negotiations are, even to what might casually sound like an inoffensive or even dull comment. Interpretation here goes far beyond the various languages being spoken. In the end, subsequent information from the Japanese delegation indicates that the meaning of their statement may have been misinterpreted. We'll see if they address this confusion in the days ahead.

In fact, now that the United States is the only major industrial-country emitter that has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, support for anything else sounds a bit like supporting the U.S.'s foot-dragging. A struggle is beginning to emerge here to see how the U.S. will be wedged into the negotiations ahead. This struggle has both legal and political dimensions. The legal obstacle is that Kyoto Protocol countries have that agreement as a foundation for their discussions, and the U.S. can't (or won't) contribute there. Perhaps more importantly, the political challenge is that allowing the U.S. to drive a parallel negotiation track doesn't sit well with countries already on their way to mitigating climate change.

Today, the first proposal on how to deal with these challenges appeared. China proposed that a special task force be convened to deal only with those countries that haven't ratified the Kyoto Protocol-i.e., the U.S. and a few smaller emitters. The statement further called on those countries (read the United States) to look at the same language of 25 to 40 percent emissions reductions below a 1990 baseline by 2020 that industrial-country participants in the Kyoto Protocol are working with. In a briefing today, the U.S. delegation suggested that this was a position that presented some "difficulty." More proposals are sure to be presented in the days ahead.

I seem to have gone back on my promise yesterday to focus more on the less-reported side of the event. I apologize. As well as trying to follow the thread of the major issue here, I also spent several hours in a meeting of the technical body, the SBSTA (Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice) that reports to the principal conference bodies, and in a side event focused on carbon-offsetting projects.

Some of the most interesting discussion in the technical group related to how the implementation of the Clean Development Mechanism would be modified in the future, with discussion focusing on forestation, carbon sequestration, and fluorine gas destruction projects. I'll just provide that no-doubt enticing teaser now, and return to this subject as I follow it through the conference.

At the side event on carbon offset projects, the opportunity for climate change mitigation via these projects was demonstrated in two ways: first, explicitly by some of the panelists, and second, by the solid attendance, even at 9 p.m. (see photo). On the other hand, one panelist gave a sobering presentation of the challenge of "additionality" that continues to plague these types of projects-essentially, many projects would have proceeded even without receiving the benefits of carbon finance, so the offsets may not really be providing "new" carbon mitigation services.

Day 3: I'm beginning to find my way here at the UN climate conference in Bali-but what about the negotiators?

Since arriving, I've had something of an identity crisis. I'm at an event where decisions are being made (or perhaps not made) that I believe will truly shape the course of the world for the next century or more. But I'm a researcher, not a lobbyist.

When I walk past a U.S. negotiator in the hallway, part of me tells me I should just pull him aside and say, "Hey, I'm not sure you really get what's going on here. Can I try to explain?" But another part of me says that such a maneuver is outside my role, not to mention being far outside my area of expertise.

And then there's that other little voice, in this case the tie-breaker, saying, "Don't be stupid, he knows EXACTLY what's going on here." I'm feeling the need to resolve this split personality before it becomes a permanent disorder. Fortunately, there are a couple of things making that possible:

First, every day I interact with amazingly capable people from NGOs around the world, some of whom have been to a decade's worth of these events. They're being actively consulted by the progressive players here (e.g., the European Union), and respected, if not adored, by the "fossils." If any groups can steer this process in the right direction, they can.

Second, I've found somewhat of a niche for myself in the negotiations tied to the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The discussions around the CDM are typically very technical. Most peoples' eyes glaze over within the first few minutes. I could talk about it for hours-perhaps why I've never been particularly good at cocktail parties.

With $7 billion committed to CDM projects in 2006 and $25 billion in the pipeline, it's an issue that deserves someone's attention. My experience here is that the CDM is something that the European Community is getting a grasp on, and the developing world is trying to capitalize on. But the United States won't really give much thought to it until people start thinking about how the provisions for offsetting emissions in pending climate legislation will play out.

Day 4: It's Thursday, and the negotiations at the UN climate conference in Bali have moved behind closed doors.

Following my rather long and introspective post yesterday, I'll try to be a bit more focused on the (in)action today. Not only will this spare you my musings, but it will also allow me to get a couple hours of sleep before being woken for the graveyard editing shift on ECO, the Climate Action Network's widely read daily publication that gives a voice to the environmental NGOs.

As I indicated above, most negotiations are now occurring behind closed doors. When I walked into the conference center today, I thought I felt a distinct lull. But as the day progressed I learned that, far from a lull, things are likely happening much faster now-though perhaps not fast enough.

At this point, most information about who's saying what in this-or-that closed session is obtained from "spies." It's not actually cloak-and-dagger stuff, but simply that some of the friendly delegates share information about how things are progressing. Personal relationships between delegates and NGOs are very important at this point. Not only does information get passed along, but some delegates also run proposals by the NGOs.

I'm a newcomer and thus nearly spy-less, but through the veterans and a briefing today from the U.S. delegation, which of course must be critically evaluated, I get the gist of what's happening in the main event. Countries are beginning to wade through what would be on the agenda of negotiations for a new climate pact, and after that they will attempt to define the process by which those negotiations would occur. It's slow-going, and there is some concern that too much distance between parties will persist into next week to allow for a quick conclusion in the high-level negotiations.

This description is basically consistent with what I witnessed today in the one open meeting I attended of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) group. It took 45 minutes just to decide if they should be talking about what the Chair suggested they talk about. It was a 45-minute meeting, so it ended with no progress. Now that discussion moves behind closed doors as well.

Transportation between sites remains a bit of an adventure, but with the right attitude it can be a fun one. I've been taking advantage of the public bicycle service that has been set up (see photo, right), as have many other participants. Between scheduled event times, an amusing stream of yellow bicycles weaves along the path between venues. From the wobbling, I'd say it's been a while since some have been on a bicycle.

Yes, I've also hopped in a taxi on occasion. Gasp! My new favorite trick is that when I see someone else hail a cab, I invite myself along. "Oh, didn't hear me ask for a lift? You can hear me now that I'm squeezed in next to you, right?"

I'm kidding, mostly. To some extent, everyone here is in the same boat: working long hours and running from place to place, so there's some camaraderie there. And my rideshare tactic isn't just getting me from place to place-each time, I've had a great conversation about international governance, biofuels, renewable energy, etc…

Now for a bit of sleep before my shiftt

So while the CDM is perhaps not the biggest story at this conference (though here in Indonesia, how forestry projects are treated by the CDM is certainly seen as important), it's one I can't resist following (and yes, if possible, influencing by providing some solid analysis within the Climate Action Network's CDM working group, shown right).

As for the negotiators, there's some fear they aren't getting any closer. Most discussions have shifted away from the main conference forums to smaller, focused negotiating groups. But according to a source more savvy than I, the limited mandate assigned to these groups-to prepare options for consideration-is far more limited than is usual at such negotiations. This leaves a troubling amount of common-ground finding to be done during the high-level sessions next week.

It's early, and I don't want to sound alarms, but things could be going better. And perhaps they would be if some of the delegates could find the time to attend some of the side events going on here. Tonight, I attended one that presented the perspectives of people living in small island states (pictured left, excuse the blurriness). Climate change looks a lot different when your entire country sits only 1.2 meters above the rising sea.

(Source: Worldwatch Institute. James Russell is the Sustainable Energy Fellow at the Institute.)