Romance, Bali-style.

Best Quote: “We are well past the first date. Rio was 15 years ago. We may not be married but we are at least at the prenuptial agreement.”
-Alden Meyer, Union of Concerned Scientists, commenting on Yvo de Boer’s suggestion that Bali is the first date on the road to a comprehensive climate compact.

Worst Quote: “We were humiliated and our ancestors were bullied.”
-China’s spontaneous outburst during morning plenary squabbles over whether technology transfer should be a separate agenda item or not. This discussion lasted for the better part of the day, as the icebergs slowly melt away. Later in the evening, the parties to the conference came around to China and the G-77’s view that technology transfer should be a separate agenda item.

Term of the Day: Conservation refugee (A person who is made homeless or prevented from sustaining their livelihood because a forest they depend upon (for firewood, building materials, ect.) is made into a conservation zone and put off limits to them.

Who’s hot?

-Canada: The day didn’t start out so well for Canada. The morning press conference by Climate Action Network singled out Canada as part of an evil band of countries trying to derail the Bali talks, by infuriating China and India with calls for them to agree to emissions caps. I asked Stephen Guilbeault of Equiterre what was so bad about requiring fast-industrializing countries like China and India to bend down their emissions curves, given that that China’s business as usual emissions growth alone would put it on track to be emitting twice the total greenhouse gas emissions as the next 26 nations combined in the next 25 years, thus ensuring that global temperatures exceed 2 degrees Celsius increase regardless of what the industrialized world does. Guilbeault’s answer was that Canada is not being sincere. On one hand, Minister Baird tells the House of Commons that a temperature increase of 2 degrees is unacceptable and will bring severe hardship, on the other Canada is abandoning its modest Kyoto obligations. “So,” Guilbeault asked, “are these guys serious or are they just wasting our time?”

In the afternoon, despite being shamed with a Fossil of the Day Award by the Climate Action Network on Monday (and Tuesday), Canada’s lead negotiator showed up to a Climate Action Network side event on what a post-2012 framework should look like. He stuck around for most of the two hours, but I felt a little bad when he asked what the civil society groups were expecting to happen in Bali, and nobody really answered his question. First, he gets a lump of coal for during the wrong thing, and when he asks what is the right thing, no answer is forthcoming.

Canada’s delegation also met with the Youth Delegation (which at 32 members is the largest youth contingent from any country). One of the members of the older Canadian delegation took exception to Canada Youth Delegation coordinator Aiden Abram’s comments in the Canadian Press that it was up the youth to press for a breakthrough in Bali because young people would be stuck dealing with the consequences while most of the negotiators would not even be around in 20 years. As a point of clarity, nobody in Canada’s delegation is over 60, with the oldest clocked in at 57 years of age.

-Forests: Almost everyone it seems, including Canada, is in favour of including forests as an integral part of post-2012 climate agreement. This is good news as deforestation is responsible for 20 per cent of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, more than the entire global transport sector. Two important things to nail down first are measuring how much carbon is stored in forests (and peatlands!) and how to safeguard that a preserved tree not cut down today will not be cut down tomorrow.

-Yvo de Boer: The UN climate chief took a breather between puffs on his smoke break to chat with Corporate Knight May Jeong for almost ten minutes.

-The US Ghost of Christmas Future: According to Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), the US-climate solution train is about to arrive at the station, no later than early 2009, when the new President is inaugurated. As Churchill said, “the Americans can always be counted upon to do the right thing--after they’ve exhausted all other possibilities.” Meyer also drew inspiration for a sea change in US attitudes from Exxon Mobil, which he classified as an “indicator species” for being willing to come to the table with the UCS to discuss climate change regulations design. I was personally more convinced by the Sports Illustrated cover story on climate change, with the picture of the New York Yankee being flooded.

Who’s not?

-Lichtenstein: For being the only holdout industrialized country keeping company with the US in not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.

-Japan: Japan won an unprecedented three Fossil of the Day awards Tuesday for proposing to shelve the Kyoto Protocol for a new agreement, without making mention of absolute emissions reductions targets. In Japan’s defense, they are on record calling for 50 per cent global emissions reductions by 2050, albeit from a base year of 2005, which is much less difficult to do than a base year of 1990 (interestingly, a lot of the current Canadian government’s modeling has been based on using 2005 as a base year).