So we're off.
Ten thousand or so delegates are beginning to struggle through accreditation. Electricians are rushing to finish wiring up the convention centre. And the vanguard of an army of a thousand or so journalists have set up their laptops in the tent that will be their home for duration of the Bali meeting.
Proceedings started with the first of a hundred or so press conferences that we are threatened with over the next fortnight. Yvo de Boer, the UNFCCC's Secretary General, was the main draw.
De Boer, who is Dutch born, but educated at a posh English school, said more or less what you'd expect him to.
Science, he argued, has spoken. Climate change is real and caused by human actions. Its impact will be catastrophic if unchecked. But solutions are to hand and needn't cost too much.
If you accept all that, everything then boils down to a 'big question' that governments must answer. In De Boer's words:
[quote]Ministers, what is your political answer to what the scientific community is telling you so very clearly?[/quote]
It's the answers to that question that we're going to cover on this blog over the next couple of weeks. The science - by and large - we'll leave alone (RealClimate, after all, has the goodies on that). Of course, we'll be keeping questions of impact (how bad? how quickly?) in mind, but our focus will be on climate solutions and, above all, the political will to put those solutions into action.
According to De Boer, 2007 has seen a political response beginning to take shape.
First, George Bush used his State of the Union speech to argue 'climate change is a global issue that needs a global response'. (De Boer's exaggerates slightly. In the SoU, Bush merely said that 'technological breakthroughs' would soon sort the problem out. He has been unequivocal about the need for a global deal in other statements, however).
Second, the EU committed to cutting emissions by 20% by 2020 and promised to go as far as 30% if other industrialized countries joined in. And third, at the Heiligendamm G8, leaders from the rich countries committed to making a 'breakthrough' at Bali and finalizing a global deal in 2009.
So what kind of breakthrough can we look forward to?
Well don't get too excited. We're here, for the most part, to agree to have more meetings. De Boer laid out three main aims for Bali:
- Formally launch negotiations on a long term climate regime.
- Agree what the agenda for those negotiations should be.
- Set an end date for those negotiations.
There are some other bits and pieces (setting up a new Adaptation Fund, extending the mandate of the Expert Group on Technology Transfer, tackling deforestation, and sorting out the Clean Development Mechanism) on the table, but 'talking about talks' is the main item.
I asked Yvo whether he expected political leaders to be specific about long-term goals. Would they set a ceiling on temperature rises or greenhouse gas concentrations? Or agree a headline figure for emission cuts?
De Boer's answer:
[quote]I am expecting some specifics. There's already been an indication from the European Union that we should agree to a global maximum temperature increase of 2 degrees. Some countries feel that is much too ambitious, whereas small island states point to the fact that kind of goal could herald their disappearance as a result of sea level rise.
Japan and other countries have been talking about a global goal to halve emissions by the middle of the century. The question that surrounds that is 'how do we carve up those emissions between different countries?'
These issues will be on the table, but my personal hope is that we can focus on the questions that need answering today and then return later to the questions that can be answered tomorrow.[/quote]
"The middle of the century is probably not something I am going to live to experience." De Boer concluded. "I do hope, however, that I live to experience the start of climate change negotiations here in Bali."
I thought it was a rather good joke. Nobody else laughed.