Bali, Poznan, Copenhagen - Triple Jump Towards a New Quality of Climate Policy?

Publication Series Ecology

Bali, Poznan, Copenhagen - Triple Jump Towards a New Quality of Climate Policy?

Preface

By Barbara Unmüßig and Jörg Haas

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Following the Bali conference, the climate negotiations are going into marathon mode. Never before have such complex negotiations had to be coped with in such a short time. But the challenge is urgent: we must succeed in stopping the rapid grow of greenhouse gas emissions within the next 10 years and then begin a rapid decrease. All this at a time in which the world economy is undergoing profound upheavals and the global economic and political balance of power is shifting.

Identities are teetering, especially in the old industrial states of Europe and the USA; insecurity and fear is spreading. The necessary turnaround in climate policy will have profound effects. Accordingly, the negotiation process is not merely an exercise for diplomats. The challenges we face can only be mastered if the negotiations are received with comprehension and criticism; if the political pressure builds to make the difficult compromises that are necessary; and if political support in society and the business world can ultimately be mobilized to ratify and implement the results.

Issues of justice are at the center of the global negotiations. Global climate protection requires the cooperation of nearly all the world’s states. They cannot be forced to protect the climate; they will only subscribe to an agreement they regard as fair. In Bali none other than Sir Nicholas Stern, author of the Review on the Economics of Climate Change, formulated this as follows: justice in climate policy is not merely an ethical question, it is one of political realism.

Only an agreement that recognizes “common but differentiated responsibilities and capabilities” (Framework Convention on Climate Change) will meet with all the countries’ approval, be ratifiable and combine climate protection with the right to development. With the Greenhouse Development Framework the Heinrich Böll Foundation has published a yardstick to measure obligations for climate protection and for the financing of adaptation measures according to the criteria of responsibility and ability. It is strongly recommended for further reading.

It is a long and tortuous route from Bali via Poznan to Copenhagen. In this paper Christoph Bals has written a “travel guide” meant to offer you orientation on this journey. Orientation knowledge is power. Thus, this publication is also a small contribution toward the democratization of global governance.

Publication Series on Ecology – Volume 2:
Bali, Poznan, Copenhagen – Triple Jump Towards a new Quality of Climate Policy?
By Christoph Bals
Edited by the Heinrich Böll Foundation in cooperation with Germanwatch
Berlin, July 2008, 52 pages
ISBN 978-3-927760-82-0

Address:
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