COP21 Terrorism Update #12

Between November 29th (29/11/15) and December 12th (12/12/15) the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) took place in Paris, France.

This should have provided a forum to allow nations to address the outstanding issues in what has been a five year negotiation over the structure of a new global agreement to combat climate change. The hope was that this final discussion would allow COP21 to end with an agreement that could then be presented to nations for ratification in replacement of the Kyoto Protocol (KP).

Unfortunately back at the UNFCCC's October meeting the US hijacked the process by introducing a brand new negotiating text that completely ignored the outstanding issues. This prevented those issues being discussed at COP21 and instead the meeting became all about putting pressure on nations to agree to a draft that was so weak US President Barack Obama could pass it through executive order and claim all the glory for once again saving the world.

As a result it seems that only now that COP21 has ended can the issues that should have been discussed at the meeting are being discussed.

On Wednesday (16/12/15) came the news from Peru that a Canadian national - Joshua Stevens - had stabbed and killed a British national - Unais Gomes - in apparent self-defence while both were under the influence of a hallucinogenic drug as part of a spiritual/religious ceremony.

Peru of course hosted the 2014 COP20 Summit. Although the summits themselves only last for two weeks negotiations continue throughout the year between the summits. Therefore the tradition is that the previous host and the next host share the Presidency throughout the year. Having picked up the co-presidency after the 2013 COP19 Summit in Poland and carried it forward to COP21 Peru has invested two years in the process and therefore wishes it to succeed.

Also in my eighth update I used the example of the Congo Rainforest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as an example of how the requirements that nations keep full IPCC standard inventories and submit new INDC's every 5 years is simply unworkable.

Despite being roughly the size of Spain or twice the size of the US state of Oregon the Congo Rainforest is only the world's second largest Rainforest. The largest of course is the Amazon Rainforest. Contrary to popular opinion this isn't located exclusively in Brazil and instead stretches across several South American nations including Peru.

The way that what are termed "Global Commons" such as Rivers, Lakes, Oceans and Rainforests completely disregard national boundaries in this way really highlights the futility of the KP's focus on reducing national greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions rather then global emissions.

Although he was a British citizen at the time of his death the deceased - Unais Gomes - was working as an economist for a private environmental investment company based in San Francisco, US. Also in my eighth update I explained how the COP21 draft threw open the door to private environmental investment even though that seems set to benefit the investors far more than the nations being invested in.

Although I've not been able to identify the specific company that Mr Gomes was working for and therefore am unable to confirm whether they were represented at COP21 they are certainly the type of company that stands to benefit.

The killer - Joshua Stevens - is a Canadian. In terms of global action on climate change Canada is a particularly interesting nation.

As I've said numerous times before the big problem with the draft agreement presented at COP21 is that it establishes the principle of binary differentiation in perpetuity. This means that only nations defined as "Developed" have to reduce their ghg emissions while nations defined as "Developing" are free to do as they please. The nations that are defined as "Developed" are the 38 nations listed in Annex I of the KP.

Initially Canada was included in this annex. However in 2011 the government of Stephan Harper withdrew Canada from the KP. Therefore along with the US which never ratified the KP Canada are a bit of a wildcard with there being plenty of room for debate as to whether they are actually bound by the draft agreement put forward by COP21.

The reason why Harper withdrew Canada from the KP was to allow the country to massively expand its tar sands industry. This involves using huge amounts of ghg emitting energy to extract tar sands from the ground before using even more ghg emitting energy to convert those tar sands into oil which is then burnt to produce energy emitting even more ghg's in the process. In environmental terms it is extremely nasty stuff.

The long running debate in the US over the building of the Keystone XL pipeline has been about whether to make it easier and therefore more profitable for Canada to export its tar sands oil by building a pipeline down to the US' Gulf of Mexico coast.

While withdrawing from the KP and massively expanding its tar sands operations Canada has also been heavily promoting Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology as a technological solution to climate change. CCS centres around the idea that carbon emitted by burning fossil fuels can be captured at source and then stored underground where under pressure it turns into more fossil fuels.

If CCS can be made to work then it is the holy grail of climate change technology by allowing fossil fuels to be turned into carbon neutral renewable fuels. However CCS is a very long way off from being a viable technology.

Nations like Canada and the Gulf States such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar are really the only ones interested in CCS because they've discovered that they can use the captured gases to pump more oil out of the ground more cheaply boosting the profits of their fossil fuel sales.

Also the science of CCS is eye wateringly complicated making the research difficult to follow. Trying to identify coded negotiated positions within discussions about CCS is a large part of the reason why people like me end up drinking far too much coffee at this time of year. Therefore it is a useful topic to disrupt and derail negotiations.

The world of course already has a highly effective CCS system known as "Rainforests." These absorb vast amounts of Carbon Dioxide converting it into Carbon which is stop in the body of the trees which can be used as a renewable fuel source and Oxygen which is emitted back into the atmosphere allow life on earth to exist.

Unfortunately because you can't slap a patent on a Rainforest the people who are prepared to spend trillions of dollars researching artificial CCS aren't prepared to spend a cent making sure that Rainforests aren't cut down.

Just after the UNFCCC's October meeting the Canadian government of Stephen Harper was sensationally voted out of power in favour of the centre-left Liberal government of Justin Trudeau.

Since then Trudeau has been making a steady stream of announcements intended to appeal to his lefty-liberal base. For example he's going to withdraw those nasty warplanes from the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and instead defeat them with humanitarian aid. He also seems intent of legalising Marijuana.

What I think Trudeau is doing is trying to bank a lot of good will amongst his core supporters. That way they are unlikely to be too critical of him when he shies away from taking action on climate change and instead simply continues Harper's tar sands policies.

On Friday (18/12/15) the Peruvian authorities released Mr Stevens after determining that he had acted in self-defence and therefore no crime had been committed. This prompted lots of discussion about the concept of self-defence.

The big issue throughout climate change negotiations has been Saudi Arabia's use of terrorist violence against nations that would stand to gain a lot from a viable climate change agreement. The hope being that rather then signing up to such an agreement these nations would try to defend themselves either refusing to sign up or signing up to an agreement like the one put forward by COP21 that permanently blocks a viable agreement.

There is though substantial debate as whether nations who allow themselves to be intimidated by terrorism are acting rationally in their self-defence.

For example in Pakistan 219 people have been killed by terrorism in 2015. However in the summer alone more then 1000 people died in Pakistan as a result of extreme heat related to climate change. Therefore climate change is five times a bigger threat to Pakistanis then terrorism.

However the 1000 people who died due to climate change did so quietly mourned by only their own families with scant news coverage. However the 219 who died due to terrorism did so very publicly in a blaze of publicity that heaped pressure on Pakistani politicians.

This does rather pose the question of whether the politicians who allow themselves to be intimidated are actually concerned about the safety of their citizens or simply about their own selfish political careers?

The fact that both Mr Gomes and Mr Stevens were under the influence of a hallucinogenic drug at the time of the incident poses the question of what drugs the COP21 delegates were on when the agreed the Paris draft. After all they were clearly operating in an entirely different reality from everybody else.

Although extremely limited reports didn't begin to emerge until Saturday (19/12/15) also on Friday (18/12/15) a ship capsized in Lake Mai-Ndombe in the DRC killing at least 14 people. To give you an idea of how vast a country the DRC is this actually sits in the half of the country which isn't covered by the vast Congo Rainforest.

In an effort to energise delegates throughout COP21 Executive Secretary to the UNFCCC Christiana Figueres kept calling for "All Hands On Deck!" This is a really outdated nautical reference dating back to the days of sailing ships when all the crew would be called onto the deck of the ship to engage in hand-to-hand combat to repel borders such as pirates.

I responded by pointing out that the only reason why you would need everybody on the deck of the COP21 ship is because it had been holed below the waterline and everybody needed to rush to the lifeboats. I then took things further by comparing COP21 to a Mary Celeste style ghost ship and suggesting that the Coast Guard needed to be alerted to rescue.

Therefore the Lake Mai-Ndombe sinking could have been an acknowledgement that due to the the massive burdens it places on nations like the DRC while doing nothing to tackle climate change the COP21 ship has indeed sunk amid massive loss of life.

It is hard to tell though because the DRC is an extremely undeveloped nation. It barely has a functioning government let alone a Department of Transport to make sure ships are safe. Therefore accidents of this type are really quite common with poorly maintained or overloaded ships sinking quite frequently.

The DRC's almost complete lack of infrastructure actually makes it near impossible to find out what happened. The single report I've been able to find on Friday's (18/12/15) sinking is in French. According to the Google Translation the sinking was caused by a whale surfacing too close to the ship causing it to capsize.

The presence of whales in Lake Mai-Ndombe is either a translation error of the most exciting discovery in the study of aquatic wildlife in generations.

So even if it was just a completely random accident Friday's sinking does serve to highlight how completely unrealistic it is for nations like the DRC to keep a complete IPCC standard inventories and submit new INDC's every 5 years.

It seems that Indonesia thought there was something in the Lake Mai-Ndombe sinking because on Saturday (19/12/15) they had a sinking of their own. There a ferry carrying passengers across the Gulf of Bone off of the island of Sulawesi disappeared. Citing bad weather Indonesian authorities have so far been unable to confirm whether or not the ship has sunk leaving the question open for discussion.

Within climate change circles Indonesia is another quite interesting nation. For example it is the most populous Muslim nation on Earth which would certainly make it very susceptible to Saudi Arabia's terrorist threats. However unlike its near neighbour Malaysia it hasn't yet started openly issuing threats itself.

Indonesian farmers have also long engaged in slash and burn farming. This involves them setting fire to the farmland used last year so the ashes go into the soil enriching it with nutrients before moving onto a fresh patch of land. Although technically carbon neutral this practice creates huge amounts of air pollution which causes smog across the region.

The fact that the smoke created in Indonesia refuses to stay within Indonesia has actually been central to the work supporting the concept of global commons.

Some of Indonesia's neighbours have even go so far as to attempt to include specific clauses in any climate change agreement that would prevent nations engaging in activity that pollutes their neighbours in an effort to get Indonesia to end this practice.

17:00 on 21/12/15 (UK date).