Following the disastrous failure of the climate talks in Barcelona last week, the developing countries have placed themselves in a dangerous game of chicken with the developed world. Lumumba Di-Aping, the Sudanese chair of the G77 group of developing nations quite rightly rejected the inadequate proposals coming from the developed countries, who continue to be the cause of the climate crisis to begin with:
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Di-Aping insists that rich countries cut emissions by 40% by 2020, as proposed by UN scientists, a figure way above the aggregate 16% that is on the negotiating table now.
"We try to be optimistic [but] we cannot accept total destruction of our countries as a choice for developing countries. Anything south of [an emission cut of] 40% means Africa is destroyed.
"If you take the EU position of a 20 or 30% cut the result is to condemn developing countries to total destruction, loss of livelihoods, and economies, land forests will be destroyed. You can't solve the climate change problem by tinkering around the edges."
This is a principled stand to take, but also a dangerous one, since the leaders of the world's primary polluters remain substantially misinformed. While many of us greeted the election of Barack Obama with an outpouring of joy and relief, our nagging doubts about his understanding of climate change have turned out to be well-founded. Obama campaigned on the need to become energy independent, and to develop clean, renewable energy sources, but repeatedly spoke approvingly about "Clean Coal" in the same breath.
This has been followed by significant investments in this farcical oxymoron. Forget that "Clean Coal" is a slogan invented and promoted by the coal industry, and has yet to be successfully tested at an industrial scale. It is certainly not a technology to hang the fate of humanity on, not to mention the majority of the species on Earth.
Obama is not alone in his faith in this mythical panacea. Ed Miliband, the UK's Secretary of State for Energy and the Environment, and a strong proponent of binding agreements at the Copenhagen talks, spoke about the need for "Clean Coal" and nuclear power in the future at a recent Parliamentary debate in the House of Commons.
It can be safely said that most of the leaders of the G20 nations are dangerously in denial about the scope of the climate crisis. They are bickering about cuts that scientists agree will not limit warming to the 2 degrees that conventional wisdom has deemed acceptable, despite the fact that current data suggests that the tipping point could be as low as 1.7 degrees due to positive feedbacks. Shaun Chamberlin has likened this discussion to people in a burning house arguing about the longest possible time they can stay in the building without being killed. It is suicidal madness.
So, the question for the developing world is, are they better off getting the ball rolling on binding cuts, even if they are completely inadequate? Perhaps it is worthwhile to accept the current proposals as a starting point, and then come back for more later as the data becomes even more visibly obvious. By shooting for an unrealistic agreement for 40% cuts by 2020 now, perhaps they are risking derailing the entire effort. Chicken doesn't get any more dangerous than that.