Each day since the second Wednesday, the COP has continued in plenary session all day, with only a meagre lunch break. A less than knowledgeable observer would be impressed by the line-up of Heads of States and Ministers that are paraded before the plenary to give their declarations of support for sometimes hefty claims as to how they will protect to protect our climate. An observer would probably be impressed at the apparent action or at least promises of action that are made from the podium. They almost seem like right-minded action. 

The truth is much different. To many activists and even State representatives that are trying to get an agreement to take action to deal with the adverse consequences of climate change the plenary meetings in which senior political leaders give prepared statements is just another distraction. These plenaries are not negotiations, but rather the unilateral statements of States' positions that often reflect mere diversity at best or at worse the failure of consensus, rather than an effort to achieve consensus. States rather move from well established positions. In fact the plenaries appear to be an intentional distraction from the inaction or wrong-minded action that is taking place elsewhere in the building. Elsewhere throughout the building the space is full of more pro-business events than pro-climate activities.

Business, encouraged by a pro-business UNFCCC Executive Director, are the most prominent participants at COP17 are by far businesses. Not only are there high-tech stands and fancy receptions that are able to woe the most senior politicians, but there are also private business meetings that do not appear on anyone's schedule. Several recognizable diplomats have been seen meeting with business partners who have little concern for what is going on at the COP except how much money they might be able to make form it. To the untrained eye that does no see through the walls around secret negotiations or understand that delegation negotiating rooms are often hidden away from sight, it might seem like this is a business convention. Several High Level events attended by the Executive Director and the UN Secretary-General were sponsored by private enterprise such as Bill Gates potent US based and US policy sympathic foundation. 

Pablo Solon (*)

After 9 days of negotiations there is no doubt that we have seen this movie before. It is the third remake of Copenhagen and Cancun. Same actors. Same script. The documents are produced outside the formal negotiating spaces. In private meetings, dinners and not attended by the 193 member states. The result of these meetings are known only on the last day. In the case of Copenhagen that was at two in the morning after the event should have ended. In Cancun, the draft decision just appeared at five pm on the last day and was not open to negotiation or even to correction of a comma.

Bolivia stood firm on both occasions. The reason: the very low emission reduction commitments of industrialized countries that lead to an increase in temperature of more than 4 C. In Cancun, Bolivia was left alone, but I could not do otherwise. How could I accept the same document that was rejected in Copenhagen knowing that 350,000 people die each year due to natural disasters caused by climate change. To remain silent is to be complicit in genocide and ecocide. To accept this merely so as not to be left alone is the trait of a diplomatic coward. More so when one trumpets the "People's diplomacy" and has pledged to defend the "Agreement of Cochabamba" of the World Peoples' Conference on Climate Change and Rights of Mother Earth.

Durban will be worse than Copenhagen and Cancun. Two days before the closing the true true is not yet known and is still being negotiated. Everyone knows that the 131-page document that has been circulated is just a compilation of proposals that were already on the table in Panama (two months ago). The formal negotiations have advanced very little. The final document will likely only emerge at the end of COP17 from an obscure process.

But more importantly, the substance of the negotiations remains unchanged from Copenhagen. The emission reduction pledges are still 13% to 17% of the emissions based on 1990 emission levels. Everyone knows that this is a catastrophe, but instead of looking indignant they sweeten the poison. The envelope for this package will be the promise of a second commitment period of Kyoto Protocol and a mandate for a new binding agreement. The substance of the package will be the same as the Copenhagen and Cancun which means it will do virtually nothing in terms of reducing emissions. The negotiators will get a mandate to negotiate another agreement that will be even weaker than the Kyoto Protocol and that will be intended to replace it in 2020. The Great Escape III is the name of this movie that deals with the governments of rich countries and transnational corporations looking to escape their responsibility for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.

Far from strengthening the fight against climate change the governments are only offering soft and flexible, voluntary commitments to reduce emissions. This raises the question who will stop this time to report the fraud at the end? Will everyone accept the rehash of Copenhagen and Cancun?

The truth is that beyond the scenery and the last scene, the end of this film will be the same as the Copenhagen and Cancun: humanity and Mother Earth will be the victims of a temperature rise not seen in 800,000 years.

(*) Pablo Solon is an international analyst and social activist. He was chief negotiator for climate change and United Nations Ambassador of the State of Bolivia (2009-June 2011). http://pablosolon.wordpress.com/

The Canadian government does not only renege on promises to other countries, it also reneges on the promises it makes to its own citizens, even it members of Parliament.

After promising Green Party members of its Parliament . that it would accredit them for the Durban, South Africa climate talks it reneged on its promise and it did so after the deadline for the MPs to register as NGO observers had passed. So did that prevent the delegates who had already booked their travel from going to Durban? The resourceful MPs asked Papua New Guinea to accredit them and they agreed. Another story of a developing country having to come to the rescue of a rich developed country.

Outside the State meetings the Indigenous Peoples came together en masse to call for stopping REDD+ as it is currently concieved and implmented. This is perhaps the largest most consolidated rejection of REDD+ that any COP has seen. Whether States will listen is not at all certain.

Former Minister of Finance and co-chair of the Transitional Committee that was to establish the Green Climate Fund (but failed to do so), laid into it former colleagues saying that "the real problem with the negotiations on finance was the lack of will by States." he said that they should reject the narrow minded concerns of a few rich countries and adopt a series of levies that could provide climate finance needed for adaptation and mitigation. "That's the kind of leadership that the international community misses at the moment, " he lamented.

Earlier in the day, former Bolivian lead negotiator Pablo Solon, scolded the negotiators for not taking their responsibilities serious enough saying that it would be better if the conference failed then provided as insignificant fig leaf to cover up its virtual failure.

In what they called "Breaking News" the Meridian Institute announced a special event at which Central African Countries would publicly declare their intention to their people and the world to subject their people to the damage of REDD+ in the Congo basin. It was like announcing a new state of colonialism with almost as much pomp and pageantry as only private enterprise can muster.

Around the same time the Indigenous people of the Amazon announced that they were against REDD, REDD+, REDD++ or any other form of exploitation that attempts to force them to sell or give up the rights to the land to private enterprise. The indigenous people said that they would not willingly allow themselves to be robbed of their land for a few cents today when they generations of interests were at stake. 

The Hilton Hotel is locked down so that no one can enter it from Wednesday to Friday. At least one delegate was also not allowed to leave on Wednesday. UN Security at the front door suddenly shut down around 16:30 for about a half hour. The reason given food security...the security were all on diner break.

UN Security apparently does not want some people to stay at the International Conference Centre too long, but in a very odd way. On Tuesday night UN Security came through the building telling NGO representatives that they had to leave because the last meeting had finished. One NGO delegate checked and found out via SMS that there was still a meeting going on and he was also curious about this new rule. When he confronted the chief of UN Security the next morning he was told that the UN Security Officer the  night before had lied. The real reason they wanted NGOs out is that they had to sweep the area for bombs using dogs, in the UN Security Chief's words, that "were vicious and would bite people." When asked well what about the State delegates? His answer was "they are an exception." Does that mean the dogs are trained to only bite NGO representatives or that they just did not car whether State representatives were bitten?uutsde ogethertte

Nowegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, of gas and oil rich Norway, used COP17 as a platform to encourage support for private sector investment, instead of public funds, to combat climate change.

Hosting a panel that included a banker, but no civil society representative, Norway called for closing the financing gap with private sector funding and carbon trading. Hypocritically several speakers also admitted that the private sector was inadequate. These calls also seemed to ignore the clear terms of the UNFCCC that call for States to come up with new and additional and adequate funding. It also seems to reverse the agreements pushed by developed countries in Copenhagen and Cancun.  

States have started to play their hands, but the trust that is needed for an ultimate agreement seems to be lacking.

When China announced it may accept binding emissions limits, the EU's first reaction was to question China's good faith? When the EU offered to make unconditional emission limitations commitments while people were congratulating them, the US was encouraging them to revise them to a lower level of ambition. Meanwhile no one in the US delegation was talking about any commitment leading several delegations to claim that the US would go away from the talks as public enemy number one.

The US and EU do not trust China. India seem to be questioning the BASIC position. African, Asian and Latin American delegates do not trust the US and the EU delegates. Nobody trust the UNFCCC Secretariat and least of all the UN Secretary General who had disengaged from the climate talk a year ago and now seems to have resurrected his interest without apparent reason.

While more delegates seem to be speaking with each other, few seem to be on the same page outside their negotiating groups and sometimes often within them.

The small progress that is being booked was acquainted to putting frosting on a burnt cake by one African delegate.

Perhaps frustrated by the whole fiasco, the international head of Greenpeace called for peaceful civil resistance to inaction on the planet's climate. He said he hoped the People in South Africa would force the needed international action in the same way they ended apartheid. Uhmm...but that wasn't very quick or very peaceful.