Doing 'Nothing' at Poznan Seems to Be Par for the Course -

Day 4 in Pozan. Concrete commitment seems to be flying away


by Dan Bloom

POZNAN, POLAND (RUSHPRNEWS)12/05/08 -- The climate talks are getting close to the end of their first week here, and things are not looking good. Two Americans watching the events unfold, one on the ground in Poland and the other monitoring the talks from his university office in Chicago, have said as much.

First, the middle-aged professor, watching from afar, and then some words from the 20-something activist on the ground in Poznan.

"U.S. Under-Secretary of State Paula Dobriansky be in Poznan next week for the high-level ministerial negotiations that will be the culmination of the two-week UN process towards a post-Kyoto global climate change treaty,"blogs Dr Hugh Bartling today. "She and the chief White House environmental policy advisor, James Connaughton, held a press briefing this week in Washington in advance of their trip."

Bartling noted that Ms. Dobriansky basically admitted in public that her participation in efforts to achieve anything substantial will be minimal. Please read that sentence again, and don't fall off your chair: "Efforts...to...
achieve ...anything ...substantial ...will... be... minimal."

These are the exact words of Ms Under-Secretary of State:
"In Poznan, our highest priority will be to set the stage for an effective outcome in 2009. And what this means specifically is that we hope that Poznan can produce a deeper understanding of parties'
priorities and expectations, and then also our objective there is to reach consensus on a practical work plan — a work plan that will guide us and the new team into intensive negotiations into the spring period of next year for agreement at Copenhagen in December in 2009."

Big hat tip to Professor Bartling for catching all this on his insightful Poznan blog. He adds: "This, of course, is essentially a replay from last year's meeting in Bali. Nearly a year ago, Ms. Dobriansky explained what the U.S. delegation wanted to accomplish in Bali."

And this is what Ms Under-Secretary of State said in Bali in 2007, for those of you who lost your notes: "First, we would like to see a successful outcome in Bali, and specifically, the United States is very committed to developing a new global post-2012 framework that is environmentally effective and economically sustainable. And toward this end, the United States will be working with its partners to reach consensus on a Bali road map that will advance negotiations."

Dr Bartling views it this way: "[So] over the past year we've moved from wanting to "advance negotiations"
to an outcome that will "produce a deeper understanding of parties'
priorities"!

"On the one hand, this inaction is possibly a good thing -- having the Bush Administration lock the US into some position that would likely be ineffective and possibly damaging would not be beneficial in the long run," blogs Bartling, but noting: "On the other hand, the interregnum in US power is giving other countries–namely Australia, Japan, and Canada–a convenient decoy to allow them to dodge their own commitments. The void, in turn, could make it difficult to have a Kyoto successor in place by next December."

LINK:
hughbartling.com/blog

Meanwhile, Joshua Kahn Russell, one of the youngest observers on the ground at the climate talks, a recent college graduate and committed social activist in his early 20s, told RushPRnews in an email from Poznan that he is worried, very worried, especially about the way global financial problems are hitting climate goals.

"In terms of the various bailout measures being proposed in major countries, a bailout means that we are using public money to resuce an industry," Russell told RushPRnews in an exclusive interview.
"Therefore, this is a powerful moment for the public to have more control over massive sectors of industry by exercising leverage for climate demands. We need to renew these sectors. It's not just about money, it's about innovation and curbing emissions. We can tie our government lending to conditions that foster a 'green new deal'."

And he added, before signing off: "We activists here in Poznan are tasking the leaders of the world with no less than fundamentally changing the way we live our lives and run our businesses. This crisis gives us an opportunity to take a massive step forward with instituting a 'Green New Deal' and investing in a truly sustainable economy."

Russell, who serves as the grassroots actions manager for the Rainforest Action Network in San Francisco, tells us he will be in Poland over the weekend and all next week, and will have more to tell us about what it's like to be there -- at this pivotal time in human history -- then.