Bali Insights: Greengrants Network Takes Part in Climate Change Conference
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference took place from December 3rd through the 16th in the Indonesian resort of Bali. The UNFCCC is the parent agreement of the Kyoto Protocol—the first international agreement that required reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
The Bali initiative is officially the largest UN climate change meeting ever held. It is part of a multi-faceted, international environmental effort to address global warming. The success of future environmental efforts will undoubtedly hinge on large international agreements like Bali. Yet, international climate change agreements desperately need the critical input from the thousands of grassroots activists who converged there. Global Greengrants Fund advisors Dr. Rubens Born from Brazil and Nonette Royo and Ambrosius Ruwindrijarto from Indonesia were among the 11,000 who took part in the conference. We’ve recorded some of their experiences and impressions below.
Reflections from Dr. Rubens Born/CASA/Greengrants Alliance of Funds
Dr. Rubens Born is an environmental activist in Brazil and has been part of the Greengrants Network of Advisors for over a decade. His organization, Vitae Civilis, got off the ground with the help of a Greengrants grant in 1993; since then, it has become a key organization for promoting a cohesive and effective social-environmental movement in Brazil. Rubens was on the official Brazil delegation to Bali and also served on the Scientific Advisory Committee for Design to Win: Philanthropy’s War in the Fight Against Global Warming, released earlier this year.
Rubens set the scene in Bali: “[We] are fully convinced that we are taking part in a historic moment for humanity. Never before have so many people, from so many places, convened with such willingness to work for a single cause: to guarantee that the men and women of this planet slow down the process of global warming to leave a less damaged world for future generations.”
Rubens remarked on the imbalance of power in negotiations at Bali. “The majority of delegations can not participate in all the discussions at the meeting. An ambassador from one country commented on the difficulty of participating in the whole process, as much for its complexity as for the lack of negotiators in his delegation. The number of delegates from each state reflects the imbalance of power of the international system. For example, the US has representatives in every forum, including specialists in each subject discussed, while Greece has only one.”
For a Greengrants profile of Rubens click here.
Experiences of Nonette Royo and Ambrosius Ruwindrijarto/The Samdhana Institute/Greengrants Alliance of Funds
Nonette Royo is Executive Director of The Samdhana Institute, a member of the Greengrants Alliance of Funds. The Samdhana Institute is Greengrants’ grantmaking partner in Southeast Asia. Ambrosius Ruwindrijarto (Ruwi) is an advisor to The Samdhana Institute.
Nonette and Ruwi took part in the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) forum. REDD, first introduced at Bali, uses cap and trade mechanisms to encourage tropical countries to reduce emissions by protecting their forests. Deforestation accounts for 20% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and most of it takes place in tropical developing countries.
Nonette and Ruwi were part of a group of NGOs (non-governmental organizations) that issued a statement to the REDD forum. The statement said that with an integrated sustainable development and rights-based approach, socially and environmentally sustainable REDD policies have the potential to bring about climate change mitigation, environmental conservation, and social and livelihood benefits.
As Ruwi wrote in an op-ed published in the Jakarta Post, “The basic concept should be expanded from just rewarding the good to remain good, to also rewarding the bad to become good.”
However, there are some concerns that the REDD initiative will not be properly implemented because the World Bank is the proposed central administrative body. The NGO declaration states that the World Bank continues to undermine its own climate change mitigation efforts by persisting in funding fossil fuel industries on a global scale—a conflict of interest.
The NGO contingent was also dismayed by the lack of consultation with communities that are impacted by deforestation. Nonette noted, “Hearing stories from village participants on the sidelines that never make it to the main event, one can be truly frustrated and seek more action. But what type? Who do you target?”
Bali Blogging/Peter Riggs/Rockefeller Brothers Fund
The Bali negotiations grew testy in the waning days of the conference when most of the provisions of the Bali Roadmap had already been settled. “This felt ominous in and of itself, because everyone in the room knew it was that last ten to twenty percent [of the provisions] that would make all the difference,” wrote Peter Riggs, Director of the Forum on Democracy and Trade. (Peter, a long-time friend of Greengrants and former program officer for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, has given us permission to share his account for what happened in Bali. Click here to read his full commentary.)
“Then occurred one of the most remarkable sounds that has perhaps ever been heard in the annals of international diplomacy—like a collective global groan—descending then to a murmur, then increasing in volume to a full-throated expression of rage and anger and booing and jeering, lasting for a full minute, so that finally the Minister had to call the meeting back to order,” Peter wrote about the last, emotional plenary session where exhausted delegates hammered out the final language of the Bali agreements.
In the end, the United States joined the consensus, but not without a push from the rest of the world. Papua New Guinea’s delegate blasted the US position, saying, “We seek your leadership. But if for some reason you are not willing to lead, leave it to the rest of us. Please get out of the way.”
Click here to read Peter Riggs’ firsthand account from Bali.