Shall we talk? Bilateral agreements made outside cc talks
Posted on 22. Oct, 2009 by Fontane Lau in China
Long for the spotlight meeting - Hu and Obama
When we were having deadlocks in Bangkok, where no substantial political will were displayed, I kept on wondering if it’s simply a psychological phenomenon of bystander effect or group polarisation.
The recent news on a tele conference between Chinese President Hu Jintao and US President Barack Obama is not any daily call made between you and I, mom and dad, who and who! It’s Hu, and Obama… The 2 most powerful persons of the 2 giant contributor to the world greenhouse gas emissions, they contributed jointly 12 Gt of emissions of the 29 Gt world emissions, according to the IEA highlights in 2009 reporting on the 2007 figures (alright, I know I’m seriously jammed with the data I used for my last piece of assignment..)
Anyway, I believe that a casual chat with a gentleman who used to be in the US negotiating team when we were in Bangkok was quite valid. Sometimes, international monitoring would create pressure which may be positive to the outcome as the negotiators knew somebody is watching, but it may also create pressure which leads to rather small and slow progress – the less you do, the less you do wrong.
When there are only 40s days left before Copenhagen’s climate change conference, it seems like leaders start the normal ritual of opening up the gate a bit by making bilateral agreement, instead of making slow progress with 200 countries… Fair enough, though there are critics on watering down the success of the agreement made in Copenhagen, I believe the negotiators of the 2 countries will have greater idea and stronger political will for a more substantial move.
China and India are also having their bilateral agreement made lately too, which is a 5-year agreement in combating climate change before and after Copenhagen, where mitigation, programs, projects, technology development and GHG emission reduction were covered in the agreement. This agreement was signed by
Indian Environment and Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh and China’s Minister for National Development and Reforms, Xie Zhenhua on 21 Oct.
For me, these attempts made by China at this point of time is no coincident. It’s good for reputation management, when the world seems desperate for a deal, or at least stronger political will to jump-start the negotiation with substantial movement again. I believe when Hu and Obama meet in person, astonishing speech would be made by Obama, and Hu will be presenting in his modest approach as he always does. I’ll look for the content, behind different presentation skills… At the end of the day, it’s the core message that build up lasting PR for both giants, not just the photo opportunity like the above scene.