Eric Young's Blog
The Traditional COP All-Nighter
December 14, 2007
Posted by Eric Young in Solving Global Warming
Well here I am. 2:19am Bali time, and the rumor mill is going full bore. There is a press scrum to my left waiting for ministers to come out of the meeting room and there are rumors on my right (figuratively) that they will come back tomorrow at 7am so I might as well go home right now. I learned in the Montreal COP (finished at about 6am) that there is a rhythm to these things. There is word that ministers will begin to leave tomorrow morning so this can't go on too long. If they did reach an agreement and many ministers were gone, the absent ministers would not be around to do press. This is a big deal.
There was actually a rumor last night that this COP could have ended on Thursday evening/Friday morning. Rumors are very common at a COP. The sheer volume is reminiscent of junior high but less personally vindictive and focused on the future of our climate system. This rumor of an early ending was ludicrous but some people stayed around anyway. David Doniger brought up the point that no minister wants to be the one whose capitulation resulted in an early ending. It reminded me of one of my favorite political quotes. This one from Lyndon Johnson and he said (I am paraphrasing) that if you are winning votes in Congress by landslides "you aren't asking for enough." The same is true here. There are too many people who want to interfere with the outcome that an early ending would signify that they did not hold out as long as they could. This means I am going to be up all night.
One thing to look for (and I am not sure this will be a huge first-day story but some reporters here are interested) is the role China has played here in Bali. They showed up with constructive proposals and appear to be taking global warming seriously. Without getting too far into the details it is safe to say they are a far more positive player here than the U.S. Yes, I know that being more constructive than the U.S. at a COP is nothing to put on a résumé but it is still significant because this may begin the process of removing the "We can't do anything because China won't" arrow from the 'delayers' quiver. It was always a disingenuous argument because the U.S. is the world's largest polluter and we, at least in theory, pride ourselves in taking responsibility for our actions. Oh well, China's recent moves on mitigating global warming are worth watching.
I just got word that the plenary session will reconvene at 7 am. This means that draft text that is safe to write about will be floating around a couple of hours in advance. I guess we are close. More to follow, so stay tuned.
(bookmark or email this entry)
- Eric Young
- Senior Press Secretary - Climate and Energy
- Washington DC
- I've basically had two jobs in my adult life: communications staffer at an environmental group...
- more→
