The Bali negotiations

It’s said that a week is a long time in politics. The burning question is whether two weeks is long enough for governments to finally wake up, smell the carbon and confront the biggest problem facing the world.

We'll find out soon.

The United Nations climate negotiations have begun in Bali. The most important two weeks in (climate) diplomacy in the last decade are now under way. In an opening address David Mwiraria, Kenya's environment minister, spoke these words.

"Climate action is not as strong and fast as the emergency we face demands" and appealed to delegates that "negotiations need to speed up."

These international climate talks attended by representatives from over 180 countries - will shape the next stage of The Kyoto Protocol, the only global treaty that requires Governments to actually reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and slow climate change.

For years, governments of the world, including ours in New Zealand, have let us down by failing to get to grips with the problem. They’ve left us increasingly exposed to the biggest threat that civilisation has ever faced.

Before things get totally out of hand, governments have to knuckle down to business in Bali and act on the basis of the alarming scientific findings about climate change that they themselves approved at the IPCC meeting only a few weeks ago. They agreed that climate change can be beaten. [Download the report (PDF)]

Without serious cuts in global warming pollution, the future will be more frightening and insecure than we can imagine. And it’s no longer the dim and distant future we’re talking about. We are into the realm of IMTO – “In My Term of Office”. Climate change was without a doubt an election issue in Australia last month and the Howard Government was thrown out in no small part because it consistently stonewalled on climate.

Two weeks is a short time for a political turn-round. But it can be done. Although not a single gram of carbon will be cut nor a single sapling saved as a direct result of Bali – for these are talks about talks – without agreement there governments may well have lost the opportunity of ever putting the brakes on climate change.

On Saturday the 8th December we will gather in centres all over NZ, and around the world, for a global day of action aimed at reinforcing the message to our governments that THEY MUST ACT!