11 December 2009 second post
News from the inside
The Bosnia Herzegovina delegation are not best pleased
This evening Jennie, Freya and I attended the plenary of the Kyoto Protocol working group to hear the latest on the greenhouse gas emission reductions targets for the Annex 1 (rich) countries. We are obviously total climate nerds as I can’t imagine it’s what most people would want to do on a Friday night.
We were joined by Miodrag Dakic from Bosnia. We first met Miodrag at the Climate Exchange last weekend where he was an enthusiastic workshop attendee. He works for a Bosnian NGO working to create eco-villages and yesterday managed to get himself accredited as an official member of the delegation from Bosnia and Herzegovina at the COP15. He has now upgraded from a yellow (NGO) badge to a pink (Party member) badge. It turns out that he is the one and only official delegation member at the COP15. Miodrag had already told us that people aren’t really that interested in sustainability in Bosnia Herzegovina, given the troubles they have had they have too many other things to think about. The government delegation is coming tomorrow.
The large plenary room had plenty of empty seats at the front amongst the country delegations so we made our way to the front and sat down. As far as we were concerned Miodrag was the Bosnian delegation. We mused on what power he might have. Could he say anything in the meeting? Could he stage a walk out if the emissions reductions targets were too low? Miodrag said he hadn’t been told what he might be able to do in the name of Bosnia Herzegovina. But we all had a bit of fun with it and Jennie made him a Bosnia Herzegovina sign to put on the desk in front of himself.
We sat waiting for the plenary to begin. Someone came in and said that some parties were delayed in other meetings, an hour passed pleasantly as we played spot the country negotiator. I got one point for spotting Alf Wills, the South African. At nine, after an hour, the rest of them came in and the meeting began.
First to speak was Australia. They said “We are unsure of the documentation we are using for this group. Earlier on someone circulated some new text. Before we can continue we wish to have an informal meeting so that we can discuss the chair’s text. We are prepared to do it now.”
Alf Wills from South Africa said “There are not any major changes to the text. We would like to understand the reasoning of Australia behind the proposal.”
Australia replied “This is an umbrella group proposal. We object because we have not had an opportunity to discuss this with the chair of the KP working group.”
The chair said (and I kid you not) “Thank you Australia on behalf of umbrella, so I see we have no option other than to close here.”
It went on like this for about another ten minutes with a few countries saying the text hasn’t really changed and Australia (on behalf of the umbrella), backed up by Switzerland, saying yes it had and we want to talk to the chair of the KP working group about it.
Finally the chair said “John, the chair of the KP working group can meet you tomorrow at 10am in room Berthel Torbertson and with that the meeting is adjourned”
Alf Wills said “But at 10 o’clock there is a COP meeting. Is this intended to run in parallel?” The chair said “I am aware there are plenary meetings but we have to run in parallel otherwise we will not be able to report to the meeting on Monday.”
Saudi Arabia said “We are following very important issues in the COP. We do not have a lot of delegates here and we would prefer there not to be overlapping” The chair said she would see what she could do. The Saudi delegate didn’t look very happy.
We thought this is all totally pathetic. Talk about fiddling while Rome burns.
The Bosnian Herzegovina delegation were not best pleased either.
Sue Riddlestone
Executive Director and co-founder