| |
Since the 2002 Jonnesburg
Summit:
Since the
disruptive and unruly ending of the 2002 10th Anniversary Summit, the
general mood has, if anything, deteriorated in terms of international
cooperation on climate. People openly questioned whether world summits
would ever happen again.
Up to the present
the U.S. government has remained, for the most part, non-cooperative,
indeed openly hostile to the Kyoto accord, launching in a surprise move
in July 2005 its own initiative with Australia, India,
South Korea, China and Japan -- independent of the Kyoto accord.
Meanwhile in
December 2005, the currrent administration tried to oppose any significant
efforts to specify and commit to goals beyond the 2012 Kyoto accord period.
Their efforts
were eventually unsuccessful -- partially because the citizens of Montreal
invited former President Clinton to come to the meeting in Montreal to
address the assembled delegates. In effect, the U.S. official delegation
from the State Department was "upstaged" by a totally unauthorized
and unofficial intervention of a former President.
An effective
deadlock was engineered by the U.S. delegation, with its Chief Negotiator,
Harlan Watson and Paula J. Dobriansky,
under secretary of state for democracy and global affairs. Then, dramatically,
an unofficial guest of the Mayor of Montreal and the Sierra Club of Canada
showed up at the conference hall....
| BBC
News Online |
| |
"Clinton
damns Bush climate policy," BBC News Online, (Saturday, 10
December 2005, 00:21 GMT). |
This has not
led to a stable or predictable policy environment concerning the United
States, especially since the U.S. seems to be forging ahead with its plans
with the "Asia-Pacific Climate Pact."
In this respect
it is very interesting to view the recent comments of Tony Blair -- otherwise
a strong ally of the U.S. administration -- in his most recent statements
to the world community on climate issues:
All of these
moves have not endeared the U.S. -- and the North in general -- to the
global South. In the Global South, there are growing signs that "resource
wars" over remaining supplies of carbon reserves are intensifying.
Consider the mood that has been emerging in Nigeria, Venezuela and Bolivia
over the control and future disposition of carbon resources.
| BBC
News Online |
| |
"Nigeria
oil 'total war' warning," BBC News Online, (17 February 2006,
16:05 GMT Friday).. |
Further, there
is a wide and rapidly growing perception that the carbon gluttony of the
North is leading directly to the climate misery in the South.
| John
Donnelly |
| |
"Drought
Imperils Horn of Africa," The Boston Globe, (20 February
2006).[Note the comments of people in Somalia
and the role of they cite of the BBC in making them aware of their
plight as victims of global warming.] |
The link is
being made and openly discussed between what is seen as the "addiction"
to oil and its excessive consumption in the North and the extensive and
growing poverty of the global South. In this respect, then, the problem
is being increasingly case as one of:
The
North vs The South?
Convergent Crises but Divergent Views
and a growing sense of greivance...
On
a world-wide scale, the aggravation of the gap between the global North
and the global South may prove to be the single greatest social impact
of climate change, with enormous future implications for political stability
and world survival. The causal connection between "northern"
patterns of consumption and "southern" suffering is being made
explicit, and this formulation of the problem has not assisted diplomats
in coming together to forge an effective global "climate regime."
|
Lectures
for Week 9 
Dr Rahenmdra Pachauri, 