Monday, February 06, 2006
Climate Roulette
We play it each and every day, said the man centre stage at the end of the debate. "Climate Roulette," he repeated, with all the drama of a headline phrase, designed to stun.
So he pointed at his head with a finger for a gun. Having just relished a description of The Day After Tomorrow. Meet Andrew Simms, armed with doomsday prophecies and hyperbolic pronouncements. Run-of-the-mill stuff, except his anecdotes weren't.
Take a little look at one tiny island of ten thousand people, out in the South Pacific and three metres high: Tuvalu. And take a little look, do, while you still can: for under our rising waters, Tuvalu is amongst the first destined for drowning. So how many delegates and scientists and experts can they send to the UN's IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? A few, a couple, a handful, a drop in the ocean - and many, many less than they send to Hollywood. To Hollywood? You read right. In the hope that sales on their domain name will save them: .tv
Or, this. Of the estimated 150 million environmental refugees the world will face by 2050, 20 million will come from Bangladesh. From Bangladesh and its floods. From Bangladesh who, under the duress of poverty and population, resigned themselves just recently to the sale of 300 million tonnes of their coal. The burning of coal. They teach the global consequences of that now in school.
But these stories weren't the centre of the debate. On stage were three others: Tim Forsyth, Saleemul Huq, Peter Newell. Two academics and a campaigner, and not replete with the scandals that make neat examples.
Instead they analyzed how the international debate was full with the voices of the first world: Of the scientists, creeping toward consensus in their technocratic language, of the nations and their line-by-line vetoes of the IPCC's reports, of the politicians and their stalling tactics, of the business leaders saying what might or might not be practical. Voices that don't speak of their responsibilities to and the rights of those who suffer the consequences most of pollution. Those for whom land and liveable weather are passing luxuries. Those for whom all that is left is some kind of adaptation to such problems - like the Inuits, who are suing the United States for their losses - but who have no real say in attempting some kind of solution.
Analysing the structure and discourse of international decision-making is a dry pursuit, not the stuff that headlines are made of. But reading through my notes from the debate, even as the boundaries of our comfort start to shrink, and the height of our decadence starts to stoop, it does not seem like climate roulette points a gun at our heads. More like it points at the heads of poor and the misplaced, and that their mouths are gagged with a black cloth manufactured to a Western design.
So he pointed at his head with a finger for a gun. Having just relished a description of The Day After Tomorrow. Meet Andrew Simms, armed with doomsday prophecies and hyperbolic pronouncements. Run-of-the-mill stuff, except his anecdotes weren't.
Take a little look at one tiny island of ten thousand people, out in the South Pacific and three metres high: Tuvalu. And take a little look, do, while you still can: for under our rising waters, Tuvalu is amongst the first destined for drowning. So how many delegates and scientists and experts can they send to the UN's IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? A few, a couple, a handful, a drop in the ocean - and many, many less than they send to Hollywood. To Hollywood? You read right. In the hope that sales on their domain name will save them: .tv
Or, this. Of the estimated 150 million environmental refugees the world will face by 2050, 20 million will come from Bangladesh. From Bangladesh and its floods. From Bangladesh who, under the duress of poverty and population, resigned themselves just recently to the sale of 300 million tonnes of their coal. The burning of coal. They teach the global consequences of that now in school.
But these stories weren't the centre of the debate. On stage were three others: Tim Forsyth, Saleemul Huq, Peter Newell. Two academics and a campaigner, and not replete with the scandals that make neat examples.
Instead they analyzed how the international debate was full with the voices of the first world: Of the scientists, creeping toward consensus in their technocratic language, of the nations and their line-by-line vetoes of the IPCC's reports, of the politicians and their stalling tactics, of the business leaders saying what might or might not be practical. Voices that don't speak of their responsibilities to and the rights of those who suffer the consequences most of pollution. Those for whom land and liveable weather are passing luxuries. Those for whom all that is left is some kind of adaptation to such problems - like the Inuits, who are suing the United States for their losses - but who have no real say in attempting some kind of solution.
Analysing the structure and discourse of international decision-making is a dry pursuit, not the stuff that headlines are made of. But reading through my notes from the debate, even as the boundaries of our comfort start to shrink, and the height of our decadence starts to stoop, it does not seem like climate roulette points a gun at our heads. More like it points at the heads of poor and the misplaced, and that their mouths are gagged with a black cloth manufactured to a Western design.
