Kenya Climate Talks

Tales of the unexpected at the WSF

I do wish the World Social Forum had been invented when I was a student. It's a perfect environment for the young and socially aware especially, though also for everyone else with a cause to fight for, an injustice to highlight. And there are of course, among the tens of thousands here in Nairobi, plenty of youg people, along with a good number of people of a certain age, a few of whom look like they never quite left the hippie trail.

I hadn't quite appreciated the chaos that 150,000 extra people would cause Nairobi's already fragile transport and communications facilities, not to mention accommodation. Last week I met a mad Dutchman who'd scoured the city in search of somewhere to stay - even the red light district, he said - but without success. And the number of people taking the odd nap in and around the WSF meeting area suggess that many others may also have found nowhere to lay their heads.

Then today I chaired a two-hour session on climage change in an open-ended tent. Thankfully the amplification system worked well (it doesn't always). because we were regularly distracted by a variety of protest marches going past: democracy in Zimbabwe, Americans out of Somalia, and so on. None of them could have consisted of more than 40 or 50 marchers, but with their whistles and drums, songs and chants, they made enough noise for hundreds, albeit briefly. But nobody frowned at the interruption: this is what the World Social Forum is all about.

Our subject was 'Water, climate change and the environment', and as two of the three speakers were Kenyan the emphasis was very much a local one. The problem of conflict caused by water shortages, the impact on tourism, the need for responsible leadership and the call for an Adaptation Fund unique to Africa were among the issues raised.

The discussion was all very good natured - probably too much so. One Kenyan in the audience called for a return to what he called the 'banana roots' - raising awareness of the climate crisis at community level and encouraging everyone to do what they can. A number of others stressed the importance of water, but noone raised the difficult issues: carbon trading, offsetting and all that.

In fact there's relatively little here for those who are passionate about the climate. In general, debt and trade issues predominate. Surely next time the WSF meets (when and where is not yet clear) things will be very different.

Meanwhile, back to the dilemma about whether or not to bring back a T-shirt that's the ultimate in bad taste: that image of Saddam with the noose round his neck, but with a very worthy message about democracy beneath it. Watch my front.

With Desmond Tutu in Nairobi

'Why do you think they gave me the Nobel Peace Prize? Because I have an easy name: Tu-tu' -- followed by a gale of high-pitched laughter. I think I've read about Archbishop Desmond Tutu saying that before, but even so it was great to hear it at first hand.

The Archbishop Emeritus was in brilliant form, in a speech marking the close of the World Forum on Theology and Liberation (WFTL) in Nairobi that has kept me busy most of the week. He warned us that he was an old man and likely to repeat himself, but the 400 delegates from around the world, the majority of them Catholics from Africa and Latin America, hung on his every word. By the end passers-by were handing their mobiles through the window bars for us to take photos for them.

The more serious part of Desmond Tutu's talk had to do with the present situation in South Africa. He confessed that the struggle against apartheid had been exhilerating and that then it was easy to discern what was meant by being Christian: you were either for or against. No country, he said, had ever been prayed for so much, and there had never been any doubt as to the outcome. 'If you want to oppress anyone, don't give them the Bible: it leads to a hell of a lot of trouble.'

Today in South Africa things are very different and many people feel the churches have lost their way. In Tutu's words, 'We'd been in against-mode for so long that it was difficult to change to the for-mode.' But he didn't say solemn for long: 'God's smart -- he made me retire at just the right time!'

Not surprisingly, none of the speakers at the WFTL were quite as engaging. Even so, it has been a valuable time of listening, learning and sharing views on topics ranging from satanism to globalisation (no connection intended) and from religious pluralism to the theology of African Instituted Churches.

The great liberation theologians of the last century were briefly represented by Jon Sobrino, and the liberation theme was never far from people's minds. But again it was Desmond Tutu who formulated that most memorably, and, incidentally, reworded Christian Aid's strapline for us: 'We're not about promising pie in the sky when you die. We want our pie and we want it here'.

LEFT IN LIMBO

Like many developing world cities, Nairobi's a place of stark contrasts.

It's absolutely bucketing it down outside (raining lions and tigers, as they say here, which is like cats and dogs except bigger and without the dogs). I've come to an internet cafe in the Sarit centre, the city's largest shopping mall. It's much like any shopping mall anywhere in the world. Except that it's not anywhere in the world, it's in the heart of sub-Saharan Africa where two-thirds of people live below the poverty line.

Inequality is at the heart of the climate change debate because, put crudely, poor people do not emit much carbon dioxide and yet are vulnerable to drought and flood while wealthy people are the big emitters and yet are more insulated against climate change. Each and every one of us is going to have to think about this because if we're to stand a high chance of combatting global warming effectively - which means pegging global average temperature increases to below two degrees Celsius - then we're also going to have to confront inequality.

The UN climate change summit finished around 9.30 last night with what delegations from the 189 countries attending will take back to their people calling an 'agreement'. And there was agreement of sorts. A fund to help those most at risk adapt will be launched next year and is likely to be majority controlled by poorer countries themselves, which is a victory. The Kyoto Protocol will be reviewed in two years time, although the wording of the final text appears to rule out countries making further commitments to reduce their emissions. Most importantly, there were no major setbacks - the status quo in the global effort to tackle climate change was maintained.

And yet, compare this timid response with the task at hand. A new report from the think tank IPPR (see the link to the left), which is based on some of the latest science, says very clearly that to stand any reasonable chance of remaining below plus two degrees, global emissions must peak within the next seven years and then decline by around four per cent each year thereafter. Kyoto, though important in that it's all we have, sets a one-off reduction target of five per cent by 2012 and the biggest emitter, the US, is not even involved. Nairobi's 'agreement' has, for two years at least, dismissed any chance of accelerating and deepening these cuts.

Frankly - and I don't say this to be dispiriting, merely as a statement of high probability - if we don't match the global effort with the emerging scientific reality, we can kiss goodbye to the internationally agreed target of halving poverty by 2015 and many other human aspirations. We're in urgent need of some leadership, which to me underlines the importance of the burgeoning campaign on climate change, not just in the UK but elsewhere.

What's been most impressive these past two weeks is the extent to which Kenyan people have taken up the issue of climate change. From church leaders to taxi drivers, everyone seems to be engaging - even the notoriously parochial media has been producing powerful double page spreads and radio and TV programmes focussing on the UN talks. If these ultimately yielded little of substance, they seem to have spawned a new awareness of the issue here and also to have revealed to the world what impact climate change is already having on Africa.

That brings me back to the rain. This morning, Philip, the manager of the guest house in which I'm staying, was bemoaning the weather. But in the next breath said, 'at least we will eat this year.' And therein lies the reality. We're all forever waiting on the climate's next move and, whether our natural habitat is the shopping mall or the savannah, rather more at its whim than we care to consider.

The timidity of our leaders and their lack of urgency in dealing with a rapidly heating planet leaves us all in limbo.

Signs of Hope

Incoming Democrat senators have wasted no time in ramping up the debate on climate change in the US and their actions are sending powerful signals to Kenya. This is good. We don't have much time.

What I'm learning fast is that the process underway in Nairobi under the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change is very much about mutual confidence. Few, with the notable exception of the UK and some others in Europe, are prepared to commit to more profound cuts in their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions until they see others doing the same, especially the big economies. So Japan is unwilling to make major moves until the US signals its willingness to move.

Enter stage left senators Boxer, Bingaman and Lieberman - all now influential in the climate change debate at senate level - who have written to the US President to urge action on cutting emissions. 'The US must move quickly to adopt economy-wide constraints on domestic GHG emissions and then work with the international community to forge an effective and equitable global agreement', says their letter.

This is of major significance. All will chair influential committees in the senate and all have attempted in the past to introduce legislation on cutting emissions. While any new moves they may initiate are likely to be blocked by George W Bush, it is neverthless reassuring to know that climate change will be firmly on the US agenda. Plus their letter, widely circulated here, is figuratively massaging the tired shoulders of delegates and providing a filip to negotiations.

There have been other developments here too. Prompted by the UK, so I hear, the EU tabled over night an interesting proposal to accelerate the pace of talks over the next two to three years, with more formal negotiations on a new, global agreement beginning next year. While this has been blocked by some of the more uncooperative rich countries, some of it is still on the table, in particular a proposal for proper negotiations on Article 9 (review of the Kyoto protocol - see the Articles Article) starting next year and concluding in 2008.

The EU is to be commended for this attempt to break the deadlock. Any sense of urgency has been sadly lacking, but with Sir Nicholas Stern presenting his report here this morning, some more substantive proposals finding their way onto the negotiating table and the timely intervention of the US senators, that may be changing.

How do we lobby?

Editors note: Andrew responded in detail to a comment left by one of the site visitors. We thought it would be worth posting his response here on the main blog.

You can hear a podcast interview with Saleem Huq and Andrew Pendleton here on the Christian Aid podcasts page.

Natasha, who I note is from one the UK's two excellent study centres on climate change, raises a good point; how do we lobby?

Acting collectively, through the Climate Action Network, the World Council of Churches and other, smaller coalitions, we have good access to negotiators from the UK, EU and other nations and negotiating blocks. We also try to send messages through the CAN daily press briefing (see Kofi kicks impasse) and via a barrage of press work by individual agencies.

We have some considerable experts in our midst, such as Bill Hare from the climate institute at Potsdam and Saleem Huq from IIED. This helps keep us grounded.

It's an imprecise art. But knowing that right now pastoralist communities in the north whose cattle herds have been decimated in recent years, are seeing the temporary communities in which they've been forced to settle washed away instills a sense of urgency.

This is something we try to pass on both to negotiators and ministers. Our most important role is to keep this urgency message going through two gruelling weeks of talks.

KOFI KICKS IMPASSE

One thing that appears likely in Nairobi currently is that it will rain each day. After four consecutive failed rainy seasons and one which was slightly better, tens of thousands in Kenya have had their homes and crops washed away in floods.

At this morning's daily press briefing by the non-governmental organisations represented at the talks, Jesse Mugambi from Christian Aid partner organisation the All Africa Conference of Churches spoke movingly about the irony of 'one moment being burnt to a crisp and the next washed away.'

It seems as though the weather is determined to underline the importance of what is being discussed at these UN climate change talks. Several cloudbursts over Gigiri, the UN compound in which the conference is taking place, have sent delegates scattering for cover and have reduced the newly constructed gravel paths to rivers, leaving them covered with Kenya's red earth.

Today (Wednesday 15 November) the high level section of the talks begin. Hitherto, discussions have been arcane and detailed and all about Articles of the UNFCCC or the Kyoto Protocol. Now, it's political.

Kofi Annan, the UN's outgoing secretary general, opened the high level segment with some stern words for leaders from rich countries. He said the issue was marked by 'a frightening lack of leadership,' something with which Christian Aid would agree. He also called on 'those that are largely responsible ...' the rich, industrialsed countries, to go much further. They 'must do much more to bring their emissions down,' he said.

This is a strong message and an important and timely one. It is impossoble to see how poorer countries can sign up to any agreement on climate change unless they see those who have caused the problem during their industrialisation making the necessary cuts in emissions. They will also need to see money on the table.

Put yourself in the position of India, Brazil, South Africa or Nigeria. Yes, you're developing rapidly and you have a growing economy, but you have huge inequality and many millions of poor people. What do you need out of an agreement on climate change? You need a promise that finance and technology will be available to help you grow without becoming the next big emitter and you need to see that the rich world is serious about cutting its emissions. Neither need is currently being fulfilled.

It's easy here to get sucked into the detail, which is important but only a fraction of the bigger picture. The reality is this: Climate change must be tackled otherwise the whole of humanity and the earth's fragile ecosystems are in dire jeopardy. Poor people in particular are vulnerable and are the ones on the frontline of this calamity. But these same people also need energy, jobs in new industries, healthcare, education, water.

Any new climate change agreement - and there must be one in place within the next two years so that there's a seamless transition from Kyoto to something much more ambitious - has to grapple with this tension. The only way, in Christian Aid's view, is to forge an agreement which both cuts carbon dioxide emissions and, at the same time, delivers cash and technology to help poorer countries skip fossil fuels and go straight to the clean, green future. This would not only be climate justice, but it would also be just development.

Bonding in the mud

On Friday night the rain came back with a vengeance and it was still tipping it down the next morning when the World Council of Churches' Ecumenical Delegation, me included, were due to head up a climate change march through central Nairobi.

We'd already got to know each other pretty well, but huddling together under umbrellas in the mud of Central Park while we took it in turns to change into our new "Our Climate Our Survival" teeshirts really cemented our group friendship. Rain, we were told, was a sign of blessing, and indeed when we eventually got going it stopped. Our leader, Dr David Hallman from Canada, was invited to declare the march open, which he did in some style, only to find that one of the two brass bands were lined up right behind us, putting paid to any conversation along the route to Uguru Park.

Rather bravely, I thought, we launched ourselves into the Saturday morning traffic, with just a solitary policeman to protect us, and he was keeping his distance. In fact, marches are currently banned in the central area for security reasons, and that, together with the brass bands, a couple of primary schools and another thousand or so marchers meant we could hardly go unnoticed.

In Uhuru Park there were some rousing speeches, songs, and some brilliant climate change sketches by young people. Ice cream sellers appeared from nowhere, as did the sun, and a good time was had by all.

Unfortunately our next event - an afternoon on Development and Adaptation - was at the Hilton Hotel, where the more sensitive among us made a beeline for the loos to try to clean off some of the morning's mud. Was the march effective? It got some great media coverage locally and really made the point that Kenyans are concerned about what's happening and are looking to do something about it. The preacher I heard in church on Sunday was in little doubt as to its importance, describing the march as "as much a spiritual activity as coming to church".

Most of the churches in the city seemed to be featuring climate change in some way yesterday. I went to services at St Mark's Westlands, a fairly upmarket part of Nairobi, where there was an excellent Church Army preacher developing the theme of what Kenyans could do to combat change, and the biblical basis for action. After an energetic youth service we were rewarded with hot samosas - just the thing to set you up for the equally long but more traditional Eucharist that followed. It was all over by early afternoon, leaving me just enough time to see Spurs lose to Reading - which put a rather different kind of dampener on the rest of the weekend.

Discomfort in the cathedral pews

Yesterday, my first day at the CoP, was a steep learning curve for me. Loads of new acronyms to take on board, countless opportunities for learning at some excellent side events (I went to a session on clean energy development in Asia and the Pacific), and a huge UN compound to get lost in.

The main event of my day though was a public meeting at All Saints Cathedral in central Nairobi. This is one of the few events aimed at the general public and the cathedral was full for it. The main attraction was a lecture by David Hallman (Executive Secretary of the WCC working group on climate change), who is always worth hearing. But in true African style it took a while to get round to that, and on the hard pews we felt every minute of it.

After a very delayed start, due to the Archbishop planting a tree outside (though no-one thought to tell us that inside), there were the inevitable songs from local schoolchildren, an excellent sketch by some young people about water conflict, and speeches by various local worthies. The Kenyan Minister for the Environment sent a Deputy Secretary to represent him - a grumpy soul who asked the North to give him an adaptation fund and go away, claiming that the rich industrialised countries were only interested in protecting African forests and wetlands so that they could continue their rate of CO2 emissions unhindered. He attacked the summit in no uncertain terms: "they meet and meet and meet and as they meet they pollute and pollute and pollute".

Despite this somewhat graceless speech, there is a very real underlying problem, as Jesse Mugambi reminded us at our evening debrief: if the South think there's nothing in it for them, they will simply pull out of negotiations.

The Archbishop of Kenya was more subtle: "Discussion about climate change is for the whole world. I call on you to fight all that makes this country not to be what it is meant to be. We need to go back to working with our Creator, to make án Earth that is good."

After David's excellent lecture (you can find the gist of what he says in various documents on the WCC website (http://wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/jpc/ecology.html)) there were questions from the audience, not all of them comfortable to listen to. A local lady asked pointedly, "We have known about climate change for years - we called it a hole in the sky. What have you done about it?'' The chairman weighed in with his own observation that as a boy he'd climbed Mount Kenya and found snow at 14,000 feet. "Now", he said, with perhaps unconscious irony, "when I fly over it I see no snow at all".

So, uncomfortable pews and uncomfortable messages.

But, on a lighter note, I was enchanted to discover that Climate Action Network (of which CA is a member) makes a daily "fossil of the day" award. On Tuesday this went to Australia for comparing its vulnerability to climate change to that of Africa and the Pacific countries. On Wednesday it was Canada's turn for fiddling its commitment figures, and yesterday we voted for Japan for threatening to "shrink its commitment" for the second commitment period if it was forced to make a decision in 2008 on article 3.9. It makes you almost proud to be a Brit!

THE ARTICLES ARTICLE

High time we dived into the substance of this COP climate change conference - stick with this one, you'll be a better person for it.

The Kyoto Protocol, agreed in 1997, is in fact an amendment to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Its purpose is legally to bind industrialised (known in the Protocol as Annex 1) countries into targets for reducing greenhouse gases, especially CO2. Developing (Annex 2) countries can sign and ratify Kyoto, but are not required to make any commitments as yet. Kyoto came into effect last year (2005) and expires in 2012.

It is utterly inadequate in its scope, but given the current political climate still rather remarkable. Plus, of course, Australia and the US - two major emitters - have not ratified the Protocol, although the former claims to be aiming to hit its targets nevertheless. Many other countries are off-track.

There are two sections or 'Articles' that are critical here in Nairobi.

Article 3.9 requires Annex 1 countries take further commitments after 2012. At the last COP meeting, which took place in Montreal in December 2005, a working group was established to take forward discussions on Article 3.9. That working group has been meeting here in Nairobi and while nothing earth shattering - or rather earth repairing - is emerging by way of bold new promises to cut emissions, the discussion has for the most part been positive.

A startling exception to this is Canada. Yesterday during the working group meeting, its delegation suggested it would be prepared to take on a commitment to reduce emissions by between 45 and 65 per cent by 2050 (inadequate in any case) but was using as its baseline 2003 rather than 1990. Canadian emissions increased by 24 per cent between 1990 and 2003 and so their offer is, in fact, very much lower than it appears at face value - go and stand in the naughty corner Canada!

Article 9 is about reviewing the whole Protocol in the light of new scientific evidence or new information about the impact of climate change - there is now no shortage of either. According to Article 9, the first review is to take place at the second COP meeting after the Protocol comes into force - in Nairobi, in other words - and other reviews 'in a timely manner.'

But Articles 3.9 and 9 are intertwined in a manner which theatens progress. Developing countries, especially India and China, want to see rich countries making bold new commitments to cut their emissions before they take action to limit theirs. They want to see movement on Article 3.9. Rich countries, on the other hand, don't want to make the kinds of commitments required until developing countries indicate their willingness to make commitments after 2012. Stalemate.

When I was last in Kenya, I met Kithaka Kimomo, a 60 year old farmer who told me how rains were no longer predictable and how his crops were failing more frequently and how his family was going without food as a result. He told me how it had become warmer and said: 'It's like the sun has come closer to the earth.' How poetic; how true.

I wish COP negotiators and ministers from both sides of this debate could meet Kithaka. Then, perhaps, they would understand how 'timely' it is to make the kinds of cuts in global emissions - with rich countries going furthest and fastest - that are necessary to help protect him and his family against the worst excesses of chaotic climate change.

COP ARRESTS KENYA

I would be lying if I said Kenya was in the grip of COP climate talks fever. But people here are beginning to wake up to the fact that they're hosting the most important talks on global warming ever and that's in no small way thanks to Christian Aid partners.

The Conference of the Parties (hence COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, as it's properly know, opened this morning. Do note that while this meeting will feature the Kyoto Protocol heavily, it is about an existing UN agreement that 189 countries in the world - the US and Australia included - have alredy signed. This means that all those countries already have legal obligations to tackle climate change.

In the run up, Christian Aid has been supporting the All Africa Conference of Churches to help co-ordinate a city-wide programme aimed at involving local people. This is important since the UN compound where delegates are actually meeting is several miles outside the city centre.

Professor Jesse Mugambi, who spoke so movingly in Christian Aid's Forum earlier in the year about the impact of climate change on Kenya, has been chairing the co-ordinating committee. Prof Jesse, a steely and passionate advocate for action on climate change, was the star of this morning's opening civil society press conference at the COP. I lost him in a sea of journalists as the conference ended. The fact that many of those surrounding him were Kenyan journalists I felt was heartening. Kenya's on the frontline of climate change and should be involved in this debate

So what might the assembled delegates from the 189 countries achieve between now and 17 November. There is really only one answer to that; a bold new agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Of course, because this is the first COP to be held in sub-Saharan Africa it is also quite proper that the urgent matter of supporting communities already affected by climate change to adapt is discussed. But the degree to which this is necessary and the central question of whether or not we can avoid climate chaos relies on how much rich countries cut their greenhouse gas emissions.

And before you all say 'what about China?' I should add that it will be difficult for the rich world to have any credibility with the bigger developing nations unless drastic cuts in emissions are underway and they're not at the moment.

Oh, and my rain dance appears to have worked. It is now raining - pouring, in fact - in Nairobi.