Storm clouds gather

The United Nations Climate Change summit in Bali packed up shop yesterday as news networks announced a positive deal had finally been reached. But with heavy criticism directed at the blocking delegations and some environmentalists labelling the deal a "suicide pact", are we really any closer to solving one of the biggest problems of our time?

It took a last-minute intervention from the United Nations Secretary General to salvage something significant from the two week-long meeting of 189 nations in Indonesia. Despite European Union efforts to secure a textual pledge of 25 to 40% reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 for developed nations, countries such as Japan, Canada and of course the United States ultimately frustrated the wording in the final document. Achieving any consensus at all seemed unlikely at one point, and it took an eleventh-hour intervention from the UN chief to break the impasse. Ban-Ki moon promptly flew in to deliver a surprisingly gentle rebuke given the circumstances:

"I come before you with great reluctance. Frankly I am disappointed. With a spirit of compromise and flexibility I think you have made much progress over the last week."

But it seemed to work. Finally the United States cast aside ruthless brinkmanship and agreed to consensus on the heavily watered down document which finally emerged from the negotiations. Perhaps the US delegation realized at the last just how much enmity their implacability would provoke around the world. Or perhaps they recognized just how much they had got away with, as the agreement itself obliges no nation to cut emissions and is certainly no successor to the Kyoto Protocol. Much similar to the recent meeting of Israeli and Palestinian leaders in Annapolis, the product of Bali 2007 is only a roadmap - these were talks about talks. The next climate change summit of substance will take place two years down the line, in Denmark in 2009.

Upon inspection, the main points of the Bali agreement seem positive. In it, nations acknowledge that planetary warming is "unequivocal" and that "deep cuts in global emissions will be required to achieve the ultimate objective" of the UN climate convention, namely "avoiding dangerous climate change". There are promises to review forestry policy, support poorer nations suffering from some of the most pronounced impacts of climate change and to remove obstacles to the development of cleaner energies.

But crucially, there are no binding targets on carbon emissions and while UK Environment Secretary Hilary Benn hailed the agreement as "a historic breakthrough", the masses of environmental campaigners camped outside the meetings had evidently hoped for so much more. Bill Hare of Greenpeace remarked, "I've never seen such a flip-flop in an environmental treaty context ever", and Hans Verolme of the WWF commented, "The [ US] administration was out on a wrecking mission." International development agency Christian Aid stated that it welcomed "the last minute agreement... It is dismayed, however, that crucial target figures for cutting carbon emissions in rich countries were removed from the final agreement." Former US Vice President Al Gore, recent recipient of the Nobel Peace prize, accused his own country of putting progress on climate change back by a decade.

Aware of the significance of climate change in the news this week, UK newspapers have run with some interesting accompanying stories. At the beginning of the week the government announced its plan for 7,000 wind turbines to be installed off the British coast by 2020, providing about one third of UK energy needs. But only days later Sir Bob Geldof was quoted in the press describing renewable energy sources as "Mickey Mouse" solutions to climate change, calling instead for a "scramble for more nuclear power." The Guardian ran critical reports on the big oil companies: Shell, who recently sold off most of its solar power, and BP, who has recently started buying into the dirtiest and most polluting form of oil production in the form of Canada's oil sands. This week also saw planned protests over the rising costs of fuel in the UK failing to garner as much support as similar protests in 2000. Prices of petrol in this country now cost upwards of one pound a litre in places, with as much as 65% of the cost going straight to government.

In many ways, climate change and all things green have been the story of the year: from the Live Earth concerts to the summer flooding, from the melting polar regions to the Bangladesh cyclone and from the Bali conference to the debate on renewables. Measuring our carbon footprint has become a whip with which we like to punish ourselves in the UK as we hear constant moralistic reminders to switch off the lights, offset flights and recycle as much as possible.

It is interesting to note that in the US, by contrast, the Bali climate change conference has hardly been covered by news networks, and the green issue as a whole trails in terms of importance in the upcoming presidential elections. It lags behind Iraq, illegal immigration (always a winner) and the economy, stupid. Other developed countries around the world obviously have far bigger fish to fry and those poorer nations for the moment, and quite rightly, would rather focus on survival and somehow improving living standards in a harsh world.

So it is that vast obstacles lie in the way of progress on climate change. The overriding consumerism juggernaut of free market capitalism has become more than a way of running our world, it has become an intoxicating and possibly fatal addiction which drives our policy and trade terms. Given this fact, few sane nations will willingly hobble themselves by being more prudent with resources in a rampantly competitive global economy.

All of which brings us to the crux of the matter. Approaches to global warming and climate change must be run in tandem with co-operative and binding agreements governing world trade and wider national and international cultures of prudence. Consumerism, unfettered spending and production will have to be tempered and nations will have to see the good of the greater whole above their own lofty ambitions. In short, things will have to be slowed down. History, however, shows us that nations have a poor record in acting together effectively when presented with a clear threat, preferring instead procrastination.

Out with the old?

A look at Australia, where despite a strong record in governance, Prime Minister of eleven years John Howard was voted out of office. His replacement is Labour Party leader Kevin Rudd, a former diplomat who has promised policy change on the environment and Iraq while pledging continued stability in the economy.

John Howard, such a familiar face and distinctive character among world leaders, has misjudged the Australian electorate for the final time and must now pack his bags for home. He lost not only the country, but also, rather pitifully, his own seat of Bennelong in Sydney in an election where his Liberal Party garnered only 36% of the votes to Labour’s 44%.

Hoping to seal his fifth consecutive election victory, Mr Howard was in fact trailing in a hard-fought election campaign when, at the last, fatal scandal engulfed his Liberal Party. In the days prior to voting, Liberal Party activists were discovered to have distributed leaflets in the marginal constituency of Lyndsay, Sydney, purportedly from an Islamic terrorist group thanking Mr Rudd’s Labour Party for its sympathy with the Bali bombers. Despite assertions from Mr Howard - “It was not authorised by the Liberal Party, it is no part of our campaign” - the move was perceived by many Australians as sleazy at a critical time in the election.

For the record, Mr Howard will be perceived as a strong Prime Minister who presided popularly over many notable successes. These include sustained economic growth, the phenomenal Sydney 2000 Olympics and the widely applauded intervention force sent to East Timor to stop widespread looting and violence by pro-Indonesian militias.

The former Prime Minister, famous for his love of cricket, endeared himself to many Australians with his common touch and conviction leadership. The man who stopped the Australian cricket team traveling to Zimbabwe, calling President Robert Mugabe “this grubby dictator,” openly weeped on television when speaking about the death of Australian TV personality and Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin earlier this year.

But John Howard’s vision was conservative, sometimes controversial and it is now clear that he outstayed his political welcome. Mr Howard had refused to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol, arguing as does the United States, that the economy should not be sacrificed when major polluters such as China and India are not subject to the treaty. Like his political contemporary Tony Blair, John Howard provided staunch allegiance to the Americans when they requested it on the Iraq incursion, now considered so disastrous and morally bankrupt. On aboriginal rights Mr Howard showed little enthusiasm during his years in office, stating that a full apology for past treatment by white settlers would “only reinforce a culture of victimhood and take us backwards.”

His successor, newly sworn-in Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, seems to have wasted no time in breaking from the old. He has promised to withdraw the Australian contingent of 550 combat troops from Iraq by the middle of next year. He has also promised an apology to Aboriginal groups, and within days of his appointment, Australia agreed to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol, leaving the Americans as the only developed nation outside of the pact.

Mr Rudd’s new cabinet includes Julia Gillard as first ever female deputy PM, and Penny Wong, Australia’s first Asian-born minister. Peter Garrett, former lead singer for rock group Midnight Oil becomes environment, heritage and arts minister. Mr Rudd has called this a rejuvenated government that will bring fresh ideas to the country.

In the wider world, the political landscape is on the brink of important change at the end of 2007. With conservative stalwarts such as John Howard and US President George W Bush ultimately rejected in the court of public opinion, people are now searching for new ideas on Iraq and climate change in particular. And whereas Tony Blair somehow managed to escape a very public downfall, his heir Gordon Brown may not. In many ways the British PM is seen as the architect of the Blair years, and currently finds himself knee deep in scandal with accusations of mismanagement seeming to stick. It entirely possible that Brown, like Howard and Bush, will be seen as a relic of the past and rejected by an electorate clamouring for a change in direction.