It has been long two last days here in London reporting back from the G 20 as part of the G 20 Voice project. 50 bloggers got accreditation to get into the media area of the ExCel centre where G 20 leaders were meeting today.
The meetings just finished and Brown, Obama and co are now giving press briefings to present to the world their great plan to deal with the as PM Brown calls it international economical hurricane that came over us. But what is about the real hurricanes that will threaten countries far more often than usual due to climate change? And what’s about the rising threat of droughts, floods, food crisis etc? There was lots of talk about global problems needing global solutions but in the final press statement there was just a quick mentioning of support for a green recovery and green jobs as well as the agreement of G 20 leaders to try to agree on a global climate deal in Copenhagen this December.
This is not enough. First of all it is questionable how likely the achievement of an fair and equitable agreement in Copenhagen will be when the parties most affected by the impacts of climate change, e.g. AOSIS states, LDCs, Indigenous peoples etc. are not sitting on the same negotiation table as G 20 leaders. Any commitment of the G 20 states to constructively engage in the process of reaching a global climate deal is useful and a step in the right direction but without embedding these talks into the framework of the UNFCCC this is just another talking shop where e.g. nearly 90% of African people are sitting again on the sidelines.
And the biggest elephant in the room still remains: the question who needs to move first. In president Obama’s press briefing after the G 20 summit he told us that the people of India on a per capita basis emit far less than the ordinary US citizen, but that if all Indian citizens would life the American lifestyle the planet would be melted by now. Rumour is that emerging economy delegates stopped progressive language on low-carbon recovery in the G 20 communique as they were afraid of any commitments that undermines their development chances. So the big task of convincing countries like China and India to take part in global action on climate change remains and without long-industrialized countries putting any concrete offers on the table to move first it also remains questionable how much weight an agreement to try to agree in Copenhagen actually has.
