Leaders to the rescue?

In case you haven’t been keeping up with COP15, the United Nations Climate Conference, I will share two blog posts that will bring you up to date. The first is a post by Yvo de Boer, the UN’s top climate official, with a bleak update. The talks have stalled on the eve of arrival by world leaders from the participating countries, including President Obama. What was to be a two day period of agreement signing by these leaders now appears to be the last chance to find a compromise agreement with enough clout to impact global warming.

Will these leaders now come in and broker a significant deal that could not be reached by their nation’s scientists and negotiators? Will they swoop in and save the day? I don’t believe that will be the case. The issues, identified here, require compromise and commitment in money and behavior that appear to be beyond what can be achieved at this time. The talks have also been marred by conflict between protesters and Danish police. Remind anyone of WTO in Seattle in 1999?

What has been of particular interest to follow has been the bantering between the U.S. and Chinese representatives. Though China for the purposes of the conference is viewed as a developing country they are in talks with the developed countries. Issues have emerged between the two countries over measuring, verifying, and reporting of reduced carbon emissions. China wants to maintain sovereignty over these while the U.S. wants them to be independently verified. There is also disagreement over the amount of money that developed nations will commit to developing nations to mitigate climate warming issues and to move towards clean energy sources. I agree with this quote from Ban Ki-moon.

"This is the time where they should exercise the leadership," said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a speech in Copenhagen on Tuesday. "This is the time to stop pointing fingers, and this is a time to start looking in the mirror and offering what they can do more."Read more:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1929071_1929070_1948020,00.html#ixzz0Zu8t83NE

It is time for the two big dogs in the room to stop posturing and come to an agreement on how we can move forward in ways that benefit all people and the world that we all share. Barking and snarling must be replaced by skillful conversation and collaboration.