BASIC: Having Your Steamed Buns and Eating Them Too
Posted on 05. Oct, 2010 by astark in U.S.A.
my breakfast
My most exciting food find so far in China has been steamed buns (as in my breakfast, pictured to the left). I’ve always enjoyed the greasy fried stuff in the US that we call “Chinese food,” but eating food in China is a whole new level of wonderful deliciousness, and so far for me this food item somehow tops them all. It is bready and filled with some unidentifiable sweet stuff that has become an inevitable part of my breakfast each morning.
The reason that I’m blogging about them however is because China and the other advanced developing nations (like India, Brazil and South Africa, collectively known as BASIC) seem like they want to have their steamed buns and eat them too here in Tianjin, in 2 ways. First, these countries want to continue to be treated like the poorest of developing countries and not have to make legally binding agreements to cut their emissions, even as their GDPs skyrocket alongside their emissions. This morning I attend a session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol, known in local lingo as AWG-KP. This group is essentially in charge of deciding what a successor document to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012, will look like. The session was actually the contact group on legal matters.
The chair of the AWG-KP contact group on legal matters (yeah, it's a mouthful)
Unfortunately, the entire time was used up by country delegates arguing over whether or not the group has the mandate to renegotiate the terms of the Kyoto Protocol, instead of on substantive matters. The underlying context of these rather heated disagreements was whether or not developing countries would also have to make binding agreements to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Essentially, under the Kyoto Protocol, only developing countries (known as Annex-I countries) had to make binding agreements. Developing countries, known as non-Annex-I countries, did not, according to the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities.” In many cases, this is a perfectly sensible policy. The poorest countries don’t have the resources to make drastic emissions reductions, and frankly they aren’t emitting much anyway.
Perhaps when the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated, it made sense to put all developing countries in the same category. Today, it makes no sense at all- why should China, with a GDP per capita of $6,600 and a global leader on clean energy technology be treated the same as Zambia, with a GDP per capita of $1,600 and an economy based primarily on low-tech agriculture? Yet countries like China want to have their steamed buns and eat them too, by demanding that developed countries agree to binding emissions cuts and refusing to agree to the same cuts themselves.
It’s a similar situation when it comes to climate finance. Financing adaptation and mitigation efforts, not to mention where these funds will come from and how they will be distributed, is another hot topic at these negotiations. The United States and other developed countries are pushing for a series of measurement, verification and reporting efforts (called MRV) to be attached any grants of foreign aid that go to climate finance. Yet the BASIC countries are arguing that these standards are too onerous to meet and that they don’t have the capacity to comply with them. MRV standards would really serve a purpose, by assuring reluctant donors (like the US Congress and taxpayers) that their money is being well spent, and making sure that the programs being funded are actually doing their job.
When I spoke with the US delegation they mentioned that they will be pushing MRV, arguing that the standards for monitoring and performance reviews are not particularly onerous- after all, if China can build the enormous and glamorous conference center that we’re currently negotiating in in only 9 months, why wouldn’t they be able to monitor what happens to climate finance? Here, the BASIC countries also want to have their steamed buns and eat them too, by accepting climate finance from others without reporting on where it goes.
Ok, so I’m clearly joking a little bit here. Certainly the United States has a long way to go before it fulfills its commitments to the world when it comes to tackling climate change and acting like a true world leader. Yet it’s also true that wealthier developing countries are in some ways obstructing poorer developing countries from receiving climate finance by objecting to some of the conditions that accompany it. And if the world really is to reach a comprehensive, ambitious and truly fair deal in Cancun, everyone must do their part and make compromises for the good of the whole
