Environment

Conflict in Copenhagen

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There was tension today at the Copenhagen climate summit. But it wasn’t a dispute between industrialized countries and developing nations. Developing nations started arguing among themselves Anchor Marco Werman finds out more from the BBC’s environmental correspondent, Richard Black.

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MARCO WERMAN: Hello Marco Werman, “This is The World.”  There was tension today at the United Nations Climate Summit in Copenhagen.  It wasn’t a dispute between industrialized countries and developing countries, instead developing nations started arguing among themselves.   The BBCs Environment Correspondent Richard Black is in Copenhagen.

RICHARD BLACK:  Today we saw really dramatic signs a split you have to say of a split developing where some of the smaller nations that consider themselves especially vulnerable to climate change.  So this is some of the small island developing states, some of the African countries, spoke out very strongly in favor of much tougher curbs, urh,  they want a tough, new, legal treaty, or protocol if you want to say, tougher than other developing countries such as India or China want.  There was actually a prolonged debate about it in the plenary, in fact [SOUNDS LIKE] Tuvalu which was instigating this [OVERLAPPING]

WERMAN: Right Tuvalu is a pacific island republic seemed to be driving this tough lead

BLACK: Yes, yes indeed it was.  It’s all done through the Association of Small Island States or ASIS as it’s known, lots of Caribbean members of that as well.  You’re right Tuvalu was taking the lead in this particular situation and they called for a suspension of discussions unless their proposal to have the idea of a new, tough treaty discussed could be taken seriously.  And they got it.  The Chair had to suspend discussions.

WERMAN: So debate kind of temporarily suspended on this, but when it resumes I mean do countries like Tuvalu and some of the others have a prayer?

BLACK: Well, that’s a very interesting question and different people give you different answers on this, people who followed this for a long time there are some that say, “look the big countries

are so economically powerful, (I’m talking about big, developing countries here) are so economically powerful and so politically powerful that they will just sort of somehow pummel these small countries into line.”  But there are others who are saying, “look things are changing,

these guys are finding a voice, they’re standing up for themselves, this the style of a big, new  process of differentiation of how countries regard themselves, what blocks they fall into.”  We’ll have to see how it pans out.  It’s going to be fascinating watching.  I would bet my bottom dollar that somewhere in this conference center right now there is a meeting going on which is pretty bloody with these different developing countries coming together and shall we say, discussing their positions.

WERMAN: I guess we should say Richard, that this debate was pretty inevitable, I mean it’s one of the themes that emerges, that emerged over the years when international agreements on climate change come up, I mean, why does it all sound very “ooh we didn’t expect this?”

BLACK: I think, some people, I certainly felt for a long time that this debate had to surface at some point, but the climate change process doesn’t exist in isolation, it exists in the context of all the other international negotiations that countries are involved in, including things like the World Trade Organization, for example and so often what’s happened is that the what you might call narrow climate oriented interests of the smaller and less powerful countries have been played down and you know, that they have had to play them down because of these wider economic interests.  They have much more interests in other spheres in being very, very closely aligned with the Chinas, the Indias, even the Saudi Arabias.  But, you know, part of the equation maybe that if you feel your country is going to cease to exist at some point unless you stick up for yourself well, maybe that does make you stick up for yourself a little more than previously.

WERMAN: Urh, indeed.  Well we’ll leave it there.  The BBCs Environment Correspondent, Richard Black in Copenhagen.  Thanks a lot.

BLACK: Thank you.

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