Justice at Copenhagen

Why people of faith MUST stand behind the Kyoto Protocol

By Michael Northcott, 15th December 2009

350 church bells ringing out across the world on Sunday was a wonderful testament to those of us not in Copenhagen that this meeting matters to people of faith. But what is happening right now in the conference proceedings is not in the spirit of the ringing bells.

The Kyoto Protocol is an international legally binding treaty - like the Montreal Protocol that phased out CFCs and has worked very successfully in shrinking the ozone hole. The second phase of the protocol - from 2012 - is the one that was supposed to do the work of bringing about legal commitments to large emissions reductions among developed countries. Now the developed world - and even the UN's Chief Negotiator (see his comments at Copenhagen COP 15) - intends to abandon the Kyoto Protocol because the US Senate refuses to ratify it.

Instead we are being offered a so-called 'twin track' deal with some nations remaining committed to the Kyoto Protocol and others 'agreeing' a non-legally binding set of aspirations for emissions reductions combined with offers of future financial help to developing nations.

After Copenhagen we would then enter a period where there is no internationally binding environmental law governing carbon emissions. To have the USA, EU, Australia, Russia, Saudi Arabia and so on in the new track and the developing world still in the Kyoto Protocol - the compromise the Africans were offered in Copenhagen  yesterday - is clearly an admission that the developed world intends to default on the only legal emissions treaty that regulates carbon emissions.

It was George W Bush who invented the idea of an alternative climate 'agreement' to the Kyoto Protocol and he got Australia and a few others to sign up, though Kevin Rudd did ratify the Kyoto Protocol when he was elected Prime Minister of Australia last year leaving the USA as the only developed nation not to ratify it. What has happened since Obama came to the White House is that the Bush plan remains in force. But Obama has been more successful than Bush in persuading Europe and other developed countries to join it. COP 15 is moving towards the Bush/Obama plan to ditch the Kyoto Protocol because its legal limits on emissions are perceived as a threat to America's oil-dominated economy and foreign policy. The presence of President Obama in the White House has actually made it easier for the EU, and others, to abandon the Kyoto Protocol. With Bush/Cheney in the White House the world would stand against the USA. With Obama it will not.

The principle enshrined in the Kyoto Protocol was justice with regard to the balance between the historic and continuing responsibilities of developed world polluters and the very small historic emissions of the developing world. Justice is central to faith commitment on climate change. If our church leaders - and all people of faith - can stand with Africa behind the Kyoto Protocol for the next five days perhaps the testament of faith will be heard with a clear voice at Copenhagen COP 15 as it did at the first and many subsequent COPs.