COP 20: Permission to Christmas?

The 20th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP20) has finally ended following another bruising filibuster session in the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform (ADP). At one point organisers were forced to spin off any routine procedural votes into a separate meeting because the less capable nations were simply blocking any discussion until their demands were met.

This situation was made all the more surreal by the fact the ADP had long since stopped negotiating the text of an agreement. Instead they were discussing the wording of a non-binding decision to continue the negotiations into 2015 as planned. This decision in no way prejudices negotiations over the text making it effectively a communique. Obviously though people who are familiar with this type of negotiation understand that a three to four hour debate over whether someone "Recognises" of "Acknowledges" the need for a certain type of action in a non-binding agreement can reveal a lot about their position.

Sadly though it doesn't look as though that this is what the less capable nations were trying to do. Instead they seemed to be operating under the idea that if they got a piece of paper committing other nations to do certain things those obligations will be met. This is of course a nonsense because it seems the purpose of G8 Summits these days is to provide rich nations with a forum to announce pledges of assistance to poorer nations that they have no intention of delivering.

Therefore I think the less capable nations now really need to step back, take a deep breath and think long and hard about how tenable their current positions are and how they wish to proceed. After all a number of the more capable nations seem to have approached this summit with the plan of provoking the less capable nations into throwing just this type of tantrum. That way no agreement will be reached but the more capable nations will be able to claim they were negotiating in good faith.

A prime example of this has been Sudan who have headed the African group at COP 20. Also an example of how diplomacy can become an end in itself rather then a way to achieve an outcome I think it is fair to say that the relationship between Sudan and the US is not a good one.

In the early 2000's Israel attempted to deflect criticism of its behaviour by pointing to the situation in Darfur, Sudan in an effort to claim that Israel was being held to a different standard to everyone else. The prompted the international community lead by the US to go in hard on Sudan eventually leading to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir being indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC). As Darfur wasn't even the biggest conflict in Sudan at the time the international pressure also led to the nation being split in half with the new nation of South Sudan being formed in 2011. Due to tribal rivalries South Sudan is currently in the process of tearing itself apart. However rather then admit they made a mistake the US are now trying to blame all of South Sudan's problems on Sudanese President Bashir.

On Tuesday (9/12/14) the US released its torture report into the actions of the CIA during the war on terror. This was intended to irritate everyone at COP 20 because no-one had the time to read a 600 page report particularly one featuring phrases like "anal rehydration." However it showed that the US did commit crimes against humanity. This was supposed to provoke a furious reaction particularly by people like President Bashir who are under indictment for crimes against humanity. In the end the ICC moved to take the pressure off by announcing that they're effectively ending the investigation into President Bashir. However this didn't stop Sudan's neighbour Uganda trying to bring them into its sphere of influence by launching a campaign to scrap the ICC in response to the ending of their investigation into Sudan's other neighbour Kenya.

Fortunately Sudan managed to maintain a rather level head throughout meaning the disruption was caused by individual nations rather then entire negotiating blocks.

The rebellion of the last couple of days has had an interesting effect though - suddenly news agencies in the more capable nations such as the BBC and CNN have finally acknowledged that COP 20 has been taking place. Worryingly though they seem to be describing what has become known as "The Lima Call For Climate Action" as a "draft text of the agreement" which may give the rebellious nations the entirely false impression that their little tantrum has improved their situation in any way.

12:40 on 14/12/14 (UK date).