Translating willpower into action: a challenge for the “African COP”.

It’s not everyday you get to see Jacob Zuma, Nicholas Stern, Rajendra Pachauri, Jean Ping and various Nobel peace laureates sitting around a table, chatting about the future of the world. But this is how my second day of COP started – at something called a “high level dialogue” – a discussion on adaptation and sustainability for Africa between policy makers and scientists.

What was really encouraging was the nature of the event: both scientists and politicians sitting around a table and acknowledging each other (or at least appearing to). More often than not in the climate discussions there has been a separation of the two actors: the scientists presenting the hard, cold facts, with the politicians squabbling over who’s responsible for what, who owes who, and how to get the best deal.

The dialogue was focusing on adaptation, which is one of Africa’s most important issues: how do we adapt our industry (mostly reliant on the natural environment) around inevitable changes in climate and weather patterns? The swirling of big brains around the table were tangible: these guys know a lot of stuff and can present it eloquently. Amongst the discussion were ideas that the re-shuffling of economies to be more eco-friendly should happen and be a “win-win” situation, that there needs to be more research coming from African institutions and especially (thanks to Naledi Pandor’s remarks) indigenous knowledge, that political will and transparency are needed.

At the "high level dialogue" - political will, scientific knowledge

It was great to listen to the issues being discussed so openly and also being agreed upon: I came out of the session feeling uplifted and hopeful. But later I started to think, “what about action?”. The political will to take action is there. The scientific facts are there. But why does action not seem to be happening?

Perhaps, I found myself thinking, our political systems are just too archaic to deal with rapid changes and action. After all, there is a huge dichotomy: on the one hand, there are the problems, and on the other, fantastic solutions. Why are they not being carried out?

Yesterday I was lucky enough to see Norbert Röttigen, the German minister for the environment, speak on Germany’s energy policy for the future. Some of my doubts, at least, about archaic political systems were disputed. Germany is one of the most progressive countries in terms of their energy policy. Not only are they talking about change, but they are actively carrying it out.

Germany is a hugely industrialised country, reliant on using large amounts of electricity. However, it is spearheading renewable energy and is fully committed, both politically and on the ground, to changing from fossil fuels to renewables.

What is interesting to note (not forgetting that my view is slightly superficial, coming from the outside), is the fact that whilst Germany is using a similar political and economic system to much the rest of the rest of the world (and that with a conservative government!), it is being a lot more effective about institutionalising changes to it’s energy policy. Why is this so different and what can the South African government do to follow in their footsteps, so that the change on the ground is actually carried out?

Of course, South African society is very different so Germany – we’re much less industrialised, have a huge vested interest in producing cheap coal, and face substantial inequality and poverty. But what would our country start to look like if the government were as dedicated, not only to talking about changing, but actually putting in the sweat and grime to carry it out?

    

The Debate Begins

Monday the 28th November brought with it the official opening of COP17. The day began early with a youngo meeting that established the youths approaches to the conference and how they hoped to influence the negotiations at hand. In their meeting the global youth representatives used every opportunity to remind their colleges that what they, the youth, wanted from these talks was not another half measure by governments to prolong the fossil fuel generation. 6 of the members within the youngo meeting were even selected, by vote, to join the official plenary sessions. Although the selection process was open and fair there was a definite lack of African presence in those chosen. The main plenary sessions although late went on without a hitch, and unfortunately as expected the major leaders omitted the call for an extension to the Kyoto protocol or a legally binding agreement. The words of welcome from delegates like those of South African president Jacob Zuma were certainly warm. There was however the consensus that climate change is a devastating process that must be stopped and that the prior 20 years of stunted negotiations have taken far too long to have resulted in a lack of consensus. The official proceedings throughout the day followed suit. As a first time conference go-er the amount of formalities and greetings that preceded every parties statement was hard to adjust to. It is understood why they occupy this place yet the question that must be asked is, how much more negotiations could delegates get through if these endless greetings were removed from the official program.Along with the official proceedings cop17 also consists of many side events. One of these included a presentation by The Energy Research Institute, on India's response to climate change. This presentation consisted of an in depth look into local level mitigation measures that have been put in place by Indian local municipalities. This presentation not only included Indian officials but also academics, representatives of industry and other organisations. What this presentation showed was that even though these initiatives were of a local scale their principles could be put in place at an international level.

The final official session met in order to deal with a number of administrative matters and it also have the opportunity to parties to voice their expectations for the conference which lay ahead. Here again there was the consensus that there was a great opportunity for having up a legal agreement and that the time in Durban should not be wasted. Many parties like those of small developing island nations called for responsibility to am taken a developed nations for the sold they played in climate change and that developing nations should not bear the brunt of climate change alone. Observer organisations were also invited to voice their expectations and this is where the most inspiring calls came from. Pleadings like those of Gambia which noted that "No country is insignificant enough to be lost to the effects of climate change". Finally it was the turn of the African youth to voice their concerns. A member of the climate caravan from Nairobi, Ester, was given the honour of this task. She noted that "We cannot allow to leave durban without a legally binding agreement, it cannot be the death of the Kyoto protocol". It was inspiring messages like these that highlighted a day that was otherwise flooded by protocol.