Tuvalu stays strong

Tuvalu´s strong stance for a legally binding treaty so powerful countries don´t wriggle out of their commitments continued today.  As a result more meetings were postponed and diplomats, NGOs and media scurried around to find out the latest.  Scurrying around is getting harder though – there are heaps more people here now.  Forget finding food at lunch time, the queues are too long.  Although Tuvalu has blocked progress on some negotiations, there were lots of other negotiations for diplomats to do so work continued unabated behind the scenes.

It´s quite busy here now, apart from the numbers of people, I get an email every 1-2 minutes during the day with information, latest gossip from negotiations, meeting arrangements and the like.  And I´m writing this blog after 1.00am in the morning.

Fossil of the Day

New Zealand got Fossil of the Day and I took this photo of the crowd watching New Zealand get its Fossil.  The nomination didn´t come from a New Zealand NGO, a reflection of how what is said in New Zealand on climate change is being watched from Copenhagen.

A spot of Trans-Tasman rivalry

In the Kyoto Protocol negotiations* there was a fabulous little exchange between New Zealand and Australia.  As these diplomatic fights seem a bit arcane, I´ll give you a bit of background first before telling the story.

The New Zealand Government has an admittedly shrewd plan to get extra free credits (called Assigned Amount Units).  These are the credits that underpin targets under the Kyoto Protocol.  Countries get free credits equal to their target and if they don´t cut their emissions enough, they have to either plant lots of trees (preferably in advance) or buy credits.  It´s a bit like a global emissions trading scheme.

How tough your target is depends on how many free credits you get. This is just like New Zealand´s emissions trading scheme where polluters get an easy ride because they get lots of free credits. Except that the Government has come up with a scheme to give it extra credits.  I´ve previously blogged on it when the scheme was proposed in Bonn.

As well as giving New Zealand extra free credits, this scheme gets rid of Russian hot air and this is how New Zealand promotes it.  Russian hot air is extra credits Russia has got from the collapse of its economy after the fall of Communism.  As the economy fell apart, greenhouse gas emissions reduced and this has given Russia an enormous amount of spare credits that is causing headaches in the negotiations.

So today, during a debate that seemed like a lot of hot air about hot air, New Zealand proposed its little scheme again.  But of course our friends from across the Tasman were not at all fooled.

After New Zealand made its suggestion, Australia spoke up to oppose it.  The Australian negotiator pointed out that New Zealand´s proposal would reward countries that overshoot their target (by giving them lots of extra free credits).   Then Australia went on to add that New Zealand´s scheme would be problematic, especially with countries that were an extreme example.

Of course, if you were to ask him, the Australian diplomatic would never say New Zealand was the extreme example he was thinking.  That´d be way too impolite and undiplomatic.  The beaut thing about diplomacy though was – he didn´t need too, diplomats are very good at reading between the lines.

It´s very late and I can hardly write because I´m tired so it´s time for bed.

*A contact group meeting of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments under the Kyoto Protocol for the climate geeks amongst you