Stop sp OIL ing our future

Its been 10 days since I have been tracking the negotiations. Every day seems like a new day but the routine it seems like the same feeling. Its like you’re listening to one of those old songs on a tape and sometimes it gets stuck , keeps repeating a sad and irritating tone and then you need to rewind it over and over again.

The only ray of sunshine comes when you have a great dinner , share a laugh with you colleagues and shop. In the evening I took a detour from the main station and just went and stood in the store . Looked at the happy kids, the enthusiastic teenagers, the worried mothers and the overworked saleswomen doing there rounds in the H &M store in Bonn. Having the chance to see colours and shoes and bags rather then the placards of countries and people fighting over whether a technical paper should be presented gave me hope that maybe no matter what goes inside the UNFCCC, life still moves on , you still love ice cream and girls still love shopping.

No doubt that there were wide interconnections in life that we as humans are so closely and neatly woven into. Everything can also be traced back to the people inside the UNFCCC and the decisions they influence and make.

Its interesting to note that among us in Maritim are roaming around 50 -60 accredited Oil Lobbyists. They have been polluting the talks and disrespecting the very spirit of why the convention was set up in the first place. These lobbyists have worked there way up all the way to not only civil society and media but country delegates themselves.

The Oil Producing and Exporting countries face the most amount of danger economically , considering almost 80 % of their GDP comes from the export of oil. Rather then seeing this as an opportunity to switch to an alternative fuel they take the easiest path that of calling themselves the “victim” of climate change

OIL has proved to be thicker than blood and here is a simple explanation why. The Oil producing countries not only lost all logic but are now dictated by this slimy oil running through their veins. Because of the way this disease makes them behave they were awarded a fossil today.

The fossil goes to these four Parties for risking the good faith and integrity of the negotiations by blocking all attempts to secure a technical review of the 1.5 degrees target and suggesting that vulnerable countries use “google” to get information that they need/want. They did this in the teeth of emotional pleas from vulnerable countries and numerous rounds of diplomatic efforts to reach a compromise. Saudi Arabia even gave us a list of traded goods which would be in peril from a 1.5 degrees target. See if you can spot which one is their true concern: rice, cocoa, tomatoes, coal, oil…. (If you’re stuck, look up their chief export on Google.)

Now that they have stalled the negotiations on the scientofoc aspect one can only wish that the talks at Cancun are also not stalled and that it migth not be a curtain raiser to more nasty drama to unfold at the UNFCCC negotiations.

Outside the UNFCCC , OIL is making news, apparently so much news that BP the big oil company had to buy off the terms oil spill from google to control the falling stock value in the stock markets. Its a shame that the big media cant see how much of this problem of the oil spill is linked to what going on inside the negotiations.

This is why they got a honorary fossil today:

BP-USA is awarded an Honorary Fossil Award from CAN International for fostering our addiction to fossil fuels, an addiction that is driving global warming towards dangerous climate change and lies behind the disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico.

The consequences of foregoing a global agreement to move off fossil fuels and invest in a low-carbon future are clear – scientists have run the numbers – unless warming is checked temperatures will increase way beyond the threshold for catastrophic climate change.

For some countries the toll is already mounting. As the negotiations began here in Bonn, hundreds died in India and Pakistan during the hottest heat wave on record, with temperatures shooting over 50 degrees Celsius (122 F).

This is bitterly ironic given that we have alternatives. Each year we delay, we pass by opportunities to invest in clean energy. The International Energy Agency has calculated the cost of passing by those opportunities at $500 billion a year. At same time $100 billion a year in subsidies are paid to fossil fuel companies worldwide.

Checking climate change and sustaining economic growth depends upon an international agreement to invest in clean energy.

BP-USA, a leader in fossil-fuel development that has played out so disastrously in the Gulf of Mexico, is awarded an Honorary Fossil for failing fulfill its responsibility to help break the fossil-fuel addiction it has fostered and address climate change.

Hoping for a better future where blood is valued more than oil and where there wouldn’t be any climate talks , and I can go shopping without worrying that , oh my god, I gotta save the world!