Saying a lot about nothing

Yann Tierson's soundtrack for the movie Amelie is playing at the front desk of the hostel, and a few of us stragglers are staying back here this morning, recuperating from a long celebratory night out (or in some cases, commiserating), catching up on emails, thoughts, and letting the past week's events sink in. I chose to take the morning to reflect on how Canada's performance has been thus far, now that we are halfway through the conference.

But first, I'll summarize what last week was about. The first week of the meeting is always about information-sharing, political posturing, and discussing draft statements and reports. The main topics for discussion are the four pillars of the Bali Action Plan: adaptation, mitigation, technology transfer and finance. The Bali Action Plan was decided last year in Bali as a framework to guide nations toward an agreement in Copenhagen on what would replace the Kyoto PRotocol upon its 2012 expiry date. It is absolutely critical to have the new agreement finalized by this time next year in order to ensure there is no implementation gap of the new agreement and the Kyoto Protocol, otherwise the ball of yarn begins to unravel and it becomes very difficult to get everyone back to the table.

Unfortunately, talks this week did not reveal much promise for staying on our strict timeline. Countries such as Canada, Japan, and Russia are deliberately calling for further discussion, speculation, and studies on issues that have already been studied and discussed to death. Perhaps this is an attempt to see what the new US government puts on the table, or perhaps more pessimistically, to throw off the whole process. Canada in particular has said absolutely nothing of merit in any of its statements. Our daily meetings talk in circles with no concrete information ever laid on the table. For example, yesterdays' debrief with the Canadian negotiatiors centred around what is called Aggregate Emissions Reductions Targets. This is a term used to describe a group of countries that each take on their own domestic reduction targets within a certain rannge such that the average emissions reductions fall within a pre-determined range for the group of countries.

We suggested that this may be an idea for Canada and the US, similar to what the EU has done. Our delegation totally missed the point, and began comparing us to Spain as an example of why this system doesn't work. According to Harper's appointed negotiators here in Poznan, Canada, as a country is remarkably like Spain. I mean, it's hot, we're cold. It's small, we're huge, and it has a similar population evenly distributed throughout, while ours is mostly concentrated in a few major cities separated by hundreds of kilometers (if not thousands). The similarities are uncanny!

During the official meetings, Canada rambled on in their statements with many thanks to other countries for their contributions, thanks to the Chairs for their efforts, and thanked some more, than blabbed on about nothing in particular, leaving listeners confused and perplexed as to what they really said. Contradictory to this earlier this week, they stated that their incredible emissions growth was the result of canada's cold climate and vast geography (both traits which I'm pretty sure haven't changed since ratifying the Kyoto Protocol in 2005). They even went so far as to suggest that Canada should get a break for the fact that they have tar sands operations that contribute greatly to their ghg emissions. Ha! That's right in line with Saudia Arabia requesting compensation for the cost of reducing emissions in their vast oil-producing economy! (Which is a long-standing laughing matter at these conferences among the vast majority of participants). Needless to say, Canada won all three places for Fossil of the Day on Thursday for their remarkably incoherent or incredulous statements that did nothing constructive toward the process.

Seeing the Canadians waffling about like this, dragging everyone down with them like a ball and chain, is driving us all a little nuts. I think this weekend we are all feeling a little less optimistic about the process and our ability to effect the change that is required to ensure a stable and safe climate for the future. Next week, the high-level ministers arrive, and the tone and urgency of the meeting usually picks up substantially, so we're changing our strategy slightly, in hopes of finding a stronger message and a louder means of getting our message through.