Deeper Shade of Green

Commentary By Gwynne Dyer, The Georgia Straight

Do not be too downhearted about the outcome of the Bali talks. They did not deliver the binding commitments to cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions that are desperately needed, and as a result millions may die who might have lived. But they did show us something remarkable. They showed us the human race trying to grow up and take responsibility for its common future.It doesn’t feel like that, of course. It feels like 15,000 politicians, diplomats, journalists, and activists flew across continents to sit in Bali for two weeks and achieve very little.

Disappointment and even anger are not out of order. The commitment to early and deep emission cuts (25 to 40 percent by 2020) that most developed countries wanted to see in the draft treaty had to be dropped in order to keep the United States involved at all in the talks.

It was Al Gore who saved the day with a speech in which he urged the conference to be patient. “My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali,” he admitted, but “over the next two years, the United States is going to be somewhere it is not now…One year and 40 days from today there will be a new [presidential] inauguration in the United States.”

“If you decide to continue the progress that has already been made here on all of the items other than the targets and timetables for mandatory reductions, on the hope and with the expectation that, before this process is concluded…you will be able to fill in that blank with the help of a different position from the United States, then you can make great progress here.” George W. Bush will soon be gone. Even though time is short, you have to wait him out.

The conference took Gore’s advice and removed the numbers from the text. Even then, astonishingly, the U.S. delegation declared that it could not support the revised text–and a chorus of boos rang out in the crowded conference hall. A delegate from Papua New Guinea stood up and told the U.S. delegation: “If you’re not willing to lead, please get out of the way.” After a short huddle, the U.S. delegation announced that it would support the revised text after all.

So don’t believe the cynics who say that public opinion does not matter. A large majority of Americans are far ahead of their government in their desire to see effective action on climate change, and the Bush administration is fighting a delaying action. With both world and American public opinion solidly against Bush, it suddenly became clear to the U.S. delegation that this line of trenches had to be abandoned fast.

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