In Mexico, Curtis Doebbler* finds that this year's headline climate change conference -- COP16 -- is just as lost on what action to take as the last was The annual climate change jamboree opened with expressions of hope, mass confusion, and exasperation with logistical failures and limited access. Mario Molina, president of the Mexico- based Mario Molina Centre for Strategic Studies on Energy and Environment, opened COP16 with an emotional plea. Why Molina, who represents an NGO with obscure funding sources and a vague mandate, was chosen to headline the conference was not entirely clear. Nevertheless, he did his best to underline that "our generation has the responsibility of solving the problem of climate change." But as things got underway, the dented optimism of such a plea seemed almost misplaced while the Mayan meaning of the host city of Cancun -- which is "den of snakes" -- may have seemed more appropriate to most observers. Some might have also pondered the fact that tourist hotels in which they were meeting had been property taken from the few indigenous people living there or converted from swamp land that absorbs greenhouse gases (GHG) to emission- producing tourist resorts. Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, soberly reissued his perennial warning about how delayed action "would only increase costs globally and unfairly for some regions of the world" and "would only lead to impacts of climate change that would be much larger and in all likelihood more severe than we have experienced so far." Adding ominously once again that, "these impacts are likely to be most severe for some of the poorest regions and communities in the world. Significantly, in most cases these communities have hardly contributed to the cumulative emissions of GHGs in the past." Christiana Figueres, the Costa Rican executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), tried to deflate any remaining high expectations by calling on delegates to "compromise" with "reason and creativity." Afterwards Figueres told the media that, "Traditional responses are failing to produce lasting results" and warned that business as usual will not prevent the most serious adverse impacts of climate change. The logistics of holding such a meeting have also been a nightmare. Last year's meeting was hosted by Denmark, a major developed country that ranks third together with its other European Union compatriots on the list of major greenhouse gas emitters (though 59th separately). Despite their best efforts, however, the Danish ended up locking out many accredited participants, beating and arresting peaceful demonstrators (sometimes before they even began to demonstrate) and being caught red-handed trying to "fix" the meeting with a pre-cooked, non-transparent negotiated outcome text. Mexico had made significant efforts to avoid the same diplomatic embarrassment, but as a country that ranks more than 30 places behind Denmark in the UN's Human Development Index, it seemed to be overwhelmed by the challenge. Delegates staying in Cancun city were faced a 20-kilometre trip to the meeting site that sometimes took more than three hours in each direction. Security was also on high alert -- not only the police but also regular checkpoints manned by heavily armed soldiers welding automatic weapons. The welcoming Mexican hosts also sent confused messages youth and environmental NGOs who are pushing state representatives to live up to their responsibilities. Cancun Mayor Jaime Hernàndez emphasised that the police would exercise "friendliness [and] courtesy," while the secretary of Cancun's City Hall, Tomàs Contreras, threatened that the police may act with a "strong hand" against any demonstrators. Meanwhile, the UNFCCC Secretariat shifted from the position it announced in bold type on its 1 September 2010 circular to NGOs, that stated: "No restriction to the circulation of participants is expected at this stage." By the time the COP16 was underway, its official Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs website unequivocally warned that civil society access to the negotiations would be limited and that "Secondary passes will be issued by the UNFCCC Secretariat to ensure orderly access to the conference rooms." Even accredited delegates did not have an easy time getting into the meetings. The registration desk was not even located at the meeting point, but some seven kilometres away at Cancun Messe. The trip between the two points could take hours depending on the traffic and the pedantic nature of security checks. And as if to rub salt into the wounds of frustrated delegates who were vying to get to the meeting complex at the five-star Moon Palace Hotel in time for the opening ceremony, registration closed from early morning until after the opening ceremony was completed on the first day. Journalists were also not spared the chaos as for the first two days of the meeting the contact number provided to the press for the media coordinator appeared not to work, or merely was not being answered. Like much of the UNFCCC Secretariat staff, press liaisons seemed overwhelmed beyond breaking point. If the logistical struggles were understandable, the lack of adequate action on climate change -- the reason for COP16 -- was unbearable, though some delegates seemed to have the answers as to what could be done. Ironically, delegates from the Global South stressed that the answer lies in the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol, both of which provide a widely agreed "right" direction for action on climate change. Many delegates from the global north, however, seemed to disagree, apparently ignoring the legal obligations they had agreed to as much as 20 years ago and suggesting that a new, more "voluntary" way forward was appropriate. Delegates from the Global South often add that they can no longer trust non-legally binding promises because so many have been made and been constantly broken. In relation to financing, the continuing failure of most of the richest countries in the world to provide even the minimum level of .07 per cent of their GDP to overseas development assistance, which they agreed to decades ago in the Monterrey Consensus, is a classic example. Facing a bill of between $500 billion and $1 trillion a year for the harm caused by, and effort needed on, climate change, will require more than 1 per cent of each country's GDP. But the few countries that have the ability to pay this bill are unwilling to do so. Even before the meeting had begun, the limited expectations had been further narrowed by a focus on financing. Emission targets for developed countries seemed almost off the table. The discussion had turned away from mitigation (the cutting of emissions of GHG that is needed to prevent the most damaging impacts of climate change for the most vulnerable) to the adaptation action that is necessary to provide a minimum chance for survival to those who will be subject to the now inevitable consequences of climate change. Addressing adaptation of the most vulnerable, a report released at COP16 by the Nairobi- based International Livestock Research Institute, warned that "the main concern is really the fate of Africans," pointing out that it "is quite possible that the adaptive capacity and resilience of hundreds of millions of people in Africa could simply be overwhelmed by events." And in a statement to the plenary, Simona Gómez López, a representative of the indigenous peoples, lamented that threats to their "survival and the violations of ... internationally recognised human rights as a result of climate change are increasing on a daily basis." The speaker also accused "market-based" coping strategies for this consequence. But even on issues of adaptation there is no agreement, because the countries that can afford to pay for the adaptation of the most vulnerable people in the world refuse to be bound to do so. This obstinacy is irrespective of the legal obligations of developed countries in the UNFCCC to "provide new and additional financial resources" to assist developing countries. To break through the impasse, a new climate fund has been suggested that will be less cumbersome and more accessible than current arrangements. Developed countries are seeking to exercise strict control over this fund, while developing countries want it to be managed in a transparent and equitable manner. Both sides do agree it should be more accessible and better funded then the current Global Environmental Facility, which is mandated by the UNFCCC but which has suffered from neglect by donors and a cumbersome procedure for accessing the funds. As all decisions are made by consensus, even a handful of states can block any decision on financing. This may lead to a weak new climate fund, or even prevent its creation altogether. Attempts to create a viable decision making procedure led by small developing countries have until now failed. When Papua New Guinea once again asked for decisions to be made by a majority of two-thirds when no consensus could be reached it received little support. Already in the first week of the two-week summit the mood is at best one of patience, but in the worst sense. While states with little or no international political authority try to make arguments based on law, morality, and science, most of the largest emitters seem locked in their old ways that protect their narrow national interests at the expense of most of the rest of us -- and eventually all of us. One can't help thinking that nobody in the room seems to really care about taking action, and that there are no real fixes on the table for what is perhaps the most serious problem that has ever faced humanity. * The writer is a prominent international human rights lawyer.
