91Èȱ¬

Can we agree now? Please? After a decade of two thousand and this, two thousand and that - surely it's time we came to our senses.

It's now 13 long years since I wrote in a newspaper article (The Guardian, 11 November 1997, but not available online, apparently): "The English language counts the centuries in hundreds, not thousands, ten-oh-one, eleven-oh-one, twelve-oh-one, and so on until we get to nineteen-oh-one, twenty-oh-one -- and in due course, twenty-one-oh-one."

So the wretched two-thousand-and-nine at last makes way for the glorious twenty-ten. As I wrote back in 1997: "You probably just about remember the date of the Battle of Hastings. One-thousand-and-sixty-six? Perhaps not. And the date of Queen Victoria's death? One-thousand-nine-hundred-and-one? Of course not."

So that's that, then. The London Olympics? Twenty-twelve. Agreed?

On which note, a happy twenty-ten to you all.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• |
• |
• - What's this?

A quite extraordinary insight into how high-stakes global politics were played in Copenhagen has emerged from an off-the-record briefing given to American reporters as they flew back to Washington from the climate change conference.

The briefing was given by a senior Obama administration official on board the Presidential aircraft after several hours of sometimes farcical, 11th-hour negotiations between the US and China, the world's two biggest emitters of greenhouses gases.

Here's the picture that emerges from an account of the briefing that I've seen. (Needless to say, I was not on board Air Force One myself.)

By early Friday evening, the last day of the conference, President Obama had decided he needed another one-on-one meeting with the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao. They'd already had a private meeting earlier in the day, but at follow-up sessions, the Chinese had sent only relatively junior officials.

Obama also wanted to set up meetings with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, and Jacob Zuma of South Africa. But for some reason, his schedulers had great difficulty in nailing down times for these encounters.

So when Barack Obama arrived for his 7pm appointment with Wen Jiabao, imagine his consternation to discover the Chinese premier already locked in discussions with - wait for it - Messrs Singh, Lula and Zuma.

If the US president didn't exactly gatecrash the meeting, he certainly invited himself in. And that was when the Copenhagen Accord finally took shape, endorsed by the US, China, Brazil, India and South Africa.

It may well be that when the history of the 21st century comes to be written, that will be seen as the moment when the new world order was born.

What strikes you about those five countries? Try comparing them with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the traditional Big Powers: where's the UK? Or France? Or Russia?

This, I think, may turn out to mark the dawning of the new geo-political reality. (I do not, of course, expect the Brits, the French or the Russians to agree.) After all, India and Brazil, like China, are rapidly emerging economic super-powers; and South Africa is the undisputed economic power-house of Africa.

China, as a power only beginning now to understand how these global games are played, has identified them as the nations it needs to do business with.

The British energy secretary seems to see things much the same way in an article in today's Guardian: "The old order of developed versus developing has been replaced by more interesting alliances."

So was China to blame, as US and EU officials are claiming, for the weak final text of the Copenhagen Accord?

Certainly, it seems China was not prepared to agree to a defined greenhouse gas emissions target being specified in the text. (The EU was pressing for a global emissions reduction target of 50 per cent of 1990 levels by 2050; and an 80 per cent target for industrialised nations.)

In China's eyes, that would almost certanly have meant signing up to far deeper emissions cuts than it's prepared to countenance - remember, it may now be the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, but an average Chinese person is still responsible for only about 6 tonnes of emissions a year, compared to 25 tonnes for an average American.

One final thought: the UN model of consensual policy-making based on nation states doesn't work any more. If Copenhagen taught world leaders anything, it's that they need to work together in groups - geographical, economic, political - to define common positions ahead of global summits. (And no, it doesn't make much sense for China and India to be grouped together as "developing nations" with countries like Mali or Madagascar.)

Oh yes, and the EU needs to reflect on why it wasn't even included in that crucial 7pm get-together on Friday evening. Perhaps it was because Europe is already committed to emissions cuts far greater than anything that was under discussion in Copenhagen.

Or perhaps it's because in the eyes of Washington and Beijing, it simply doesn't matter as much as Brazil, India and South Africa.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• |
• |
• - What's this?

There may have been 192 governments represented at the climate change conference here, but in the end, it came down to just two men: the former law professor Barack Obama of the US, and the one-time geologist Wen Jiabao of China.

I'm told that yesterday morning they realised that there was no workable text to present to their fellow leaders, so they rolled up their sleeves (figuratively, you understand) and did it themselves. One veteran negotiator told me it was unprecedented in his experience to see world leaders do the hard graft of drafting themselves.

And so the Copenhagen Accord was born. It will never take its place alongside the Magna Carta or the US Declaration of Independence - but it was the best they could come up with.

And so ashamed of it were its sponsors that they could scarcely even bring themselves to damn it with faint praise. A first step, they called it, a modest success, something to build on. As late night turned into early morning, and as press conference followed press conference, it was almost embarrassing to see them trying to sound positive.

They all know they failed. They didn't do what they came here to do. Nor did they do what the scientists told them they had to do to have even a small chance of avoiding the worst effects of climate change.

Here's where we stand: suppose they had committed themselves to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent of 1990 levels by 2050. (Which they didn't do.) Even that, almost certainly, would not have been enough to stop global temperatures rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius. That's the point at which scientists say really nasty things start to happen.

Suppose they had come up with a cast-iron finance mechanism to help the poorest countries deal with the impact of climate change (floods, drought, famine) and to adapt to the needs of a low-carbon economy. (Which, again, they didn't.) Even then, countries like India and China would have gone on increasing their emissions for years to come. After all, they argue, why shouldn't their citizens have the comfy cars, the deep freezes and the air conditioners that rich people have? It wasn't the Chinese or Indians who caused the problem, was it?

So the negotiators will have another go next year. They've set themselves some more deadlines, but given how much notice they took of the Copenhagen deadline, I don't recommend holding your breath in anticipation. (Who was it who called this conference the most important gathering in the history of humankind? Ah yes, of course, the environment secretary Hilary Benn.)

As for the proceedings of the past few days, for a grizzled old reporter like me, it was all horribly reminiscent of a particularly fraught EU summit mixed with an even more fractious than usual political party conference. Too many people, not enough fresh air, and a vast amount of energy expended to produce not very much.

I was more or less right in my prediction last week about how it would all end, although I did think they would go on later into the night and eventually come up with something a bit more impressive.

On the other hand, they did try. And these are fiendishly difficult issues to get right. So what do you reckon? How about a B for effort and an E for achievement? Must try harder next time?

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Newsvine |
• |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

You can read my thoughts on the climate change summit so far .

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• |
• |
• - What's this?

There are some occasions when radio reporters have to do things that may appear to be extremely stupid. I've just been in Chicago for a few days, and believe me, standing on a street corner in the snow, in the teeth of a howling icy wind, and asking passers-by what they think about "global warming", probably did appear very stupid. Certainly the passers-by looked at me as if I was mad.

I could, of course, have saved myself some embarrassment by asking about "climate change", rather than "global warming". Trouble is, at least in Chicago, no one seems to know what you're talking about.

And while we're on the subject of embarrassment, spare a thought for my colleague (I think she'd better remain nameless, but her friends and colleagues know who she is), who found herself chasing across a Chicago park early last Sunday morning after some geese whose tuneless honking we needed to record. To get close enough, she had to catch them unawares ... so here's the scene: zero temperatures, senior 91Èȱ¬ editor, microphone held aloft, chasing geese across a field, geese merrily honking away. You should have been there ...

But seriously. We were in Chicago to report on its claim to be one of America's greenest cities. It's Barack Obama's adopted home town, of course, and back in its heyday, it was a city of railways, steelworks, cattleyards and slaughterhouses. I somehow doubt that back then anyone would have dared claim it was environmentally-friendly.

How times have changed. Now Chicago has its very own Climate Action Plan; it has "green buildings" that consume far less energy than conventional structures. Thousands of trees and flowers have been planted; the shoreline along Lake Michigan has been turned into a splendid Millennium Park; the honking geese now live happily on what used to be a private airfield reserved for the use of corporate jets and hot-shot executives.

But inevitably, there is another side to the story. Take yourself out of central Chicago, to the low-income neighbourhood of Little Village, home to one of the biggest Mexican communities in the US, and you'll find a coal-fired electricity generating plant that local residents say is seriously damaging their health. A study carried out by scientists from Harvard University some years ago estimated that this plant, together with another one nearby, could be responsible for 41 premature deaths, 2,800 asthma attacks, and 550 emergency hospital visits every year.

All of which adds a human dimension to the fiendishly complicated negotiations now under way at the international climate change conference in Copenhagen. One of the many issues under consideration is how to strike a balance not only between developed and developing economies, but also between national and local, governmental and private action.

I reported from Chicago both for Newshour, on the 91Èȱ¬ World Service, and for The World Tonight -- you can hear the material by clicking below.




One of the questions I was interested in exploring was whether the kind of plan Chicago has drawn up at city level could be more effective than policies agreed at national or international level. Or do you have to reach binding international agreements to make sure that some nations don't "cheat" by allowing polluting industries to get away with emissions they wouldn't be allowed elsewhere?

I shall be reporting from Copenhagen next week as the climate change conference reaches its climax - and here's my prediction. The news next Friday evening will be that the whole thing is on a knife-edge; the negotiations will be described as "fraught", and "extremely difficult". Some of the poorer nations will claim that their interests are being ignored. Then, some time during the night, there'll be a breakthrough, and by Saturday morning, the headlines will be of a "historic moment when the world came together to save the planet for future generations".

But of course, I may be entirely wrong, which is why I'd better go to Copenhagen.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• |
• |
• - What's this?

I want you to think of a country where the government has little or no control over vast areas of territory.

It's a country that has known decades of endless conflict; where most people feel a greater loyalty to their tribe or clan than to their national leaders. A country of poverty and violence, with little infrastructure and where jihadi insurgents are a constant threat.

It's also a country whose neighbours have used its land as a proxy battleground for their own wars; a country where chronic instability risks engulfing the region and causing deep concern in capitals many thousands of miles away.

Are you thinking of Afghanistan? I'm not. I'm thinking of Somalia. And of course, once we've run through the long list of similarities between the two countries, we come to the one big difference. There will soon be 100,000 US combat troops in Afghanistan - and there are none (well, maybe a handful of undercover special forces) in Somalia.

Why is that, do you think? If Osama bin Laden had been based in Somalia back in 2001, would the US have led an invasion of that country? Probably it would. But if the US had lost 18 of its soldiers in the most humiliating of circumstances in Afghanistan rather than in Somalia, would it have vowed never to return, as it did in Somalia?

Here's the point: Somalia is much more of a mess even than Afghanistan - and quite possibly more of a security threat to countries like the US. The al-Shabaab jihadi fighters control more of Somalia than do the Taliban in Afghanistan, and are facing far less opposition. They also espouse much of the same philosophy as al-Qaeda.

In his speech on future military deployments in Afghanistan last Tuesday, President Obama specifically referred to Somalia: "Where al-Qaida and its allies attempt to establish a foothold -- whether in Somalia or Yemen or elsewhere - they must be confronted by growing pressure and strong partnerships."

Which brings us to the suicide bomb attack in the capital, Mogadishu, yesterday morning. It was a graduation ceremony for medical students, young doctors who have been trained to take the places of the thousands who have either fled or been killed during 18 years of civil war. Three government ministers were among the more than 20 people killed when a bomber detonated his explosives vest towards the end of the ceremony.

Last night, magazine quoted a senior al-Shabaab official in Mogadishu as saying they had targeted the ceremony as part of their war against the internationally-backed transitional government. "We did not target the students - our target was the government ... Our goal is to target the enemy of Allah." On the other hand, this morning another al-Shabaab was quoted as saying they had nothing to do with the attack.

This is where it gets even more complicated. Some Islamist groups now back the government and have joined it in coalition. Last March, it was announced that Islamic sharia law would be adopted as the country's official judicial system. Al-Shabaab is made up of some of the groups who broke away from the main Islamist movement, the Islamic Courts Union, and carried on fighting.

And of course, we mustn't forget the pirates. They prey on commercial shipping - up to and including some of the world's biggest oil tankers - seize them and then hold them and their crew to ransom. In a country with no functioning economy, it's one of the very few ways available to make any money.

So why don't we hear more about Somalia? One simple reason: it's just too dangerous. Nearly five years ago my 91Èȱ¬ colleague Kate Peyton was shot dead outside her hotel in Mogadishu; there are very few journalists who dare to report from there. After all, how many people reported from Aghanistan before September 11, 2001?

The 91Èȱ¬ is lucky: we have a Somali service with a remarkable local correspondent, Mohamed Olad Hassan, based in Mogadishu. On last night's programme, he described how he was just feet away from the bomber when he detonated his explosives.




Mohammed is lucky to be alive, and we're lucky to be able to call on his services.

So we'll continue to report from Somalia as and when we can.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• |
• |
• - What's this?

According to the Republican Congressman of Wisconsin, leaked emails from a climate research unit at the University of East Anglia "show a pattern of suppression, manipulation and secrecy that was inspired by ideology, condescension and profit."

They do no such thing, says one of the scientists to whom the emails were addressed, Professor Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University. But in an interview with me last night, he did distance himself from the man who wrote some of the emails, Professor Phil Jones at East Anglia. He said he "in no way endorses" some of what was said in the emails he received; that he "can't justify" a request from Professor Jones that he should delete some of his own emails to prevent access to them by outsiders; and that his East Anglia colleague "clearly made some poor decisions."

Penn State said in a that "it is looking into" the matters raised by the leaked emails but that Professor Mann is a "highly regarded member of the Penn State faculty" .

You can hear the interview by clicking below.




Broadcast on The World Tonight, 91Èȱ¬ Radio 4, 2 December 2009

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• |
• |
• - What's this?