Indigenous people steal the Bali show with real life experiences on the effects of Climate Change
Indigenous people describe real perils of global warming
GEOFFREY YORK - December 14, 2007
NUSA DUA, INDONESIA -- Indigenous people, including Canadian Inuit and Indian leaders, are emerging as some of the top stars of the Bali climate-change conference.
From the Arctic to the South Pacific islands, indigenous people said they are among the first to suffer the worst effects of global warming.
They drew connections between the planet's north and south, describing how the melting glaciers in the Arctic are jeopardizing the existence of small island states in the Pacific, and how severe ocean storms are imperilling people in both regions.
When the indigenous leaders spoke at a side event at the Bali conference this week, the room was packed with a standing-room-only audience of environmentalists and others. The leaders also spoke at other conference events, giving accounts of how global warming is threatening their traditional ways of life.
Arctic aboriginal villages are facing erosion, fragile ice is endangering their hunters, caribou herds are at risk from shifting weather and severe storms are becoming more frequent in the north and the south, they said.
"Some Inuit have already made changes to the traditional times of the year which they travel on the land," said Violet Ford, a Canadian Inuit leader from northern Labrador and a vice-president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council.
"Some find themselves collecting their winter wood and other supplies in the spring when they only used to do so in the fall. Why? Because the fall freeze-up is later and more dangerous."
The shifting climate is interfering with ancient hunting patterns, Ms. Ford said in an interview. "We can't predict the weather any more, so it's very difficult to plan our hunting. It puts a lot of stress and fear into our communities."
Similar threats are faced by the aboriginal people of the Western Arctic, who depend on caribou as their main source of food. "Over the last few years, the caribou have been very unpredictable," said Cindy Dickson, a member of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation in a remote corner of the Yukon.
"Their migration routes are all over the map," she said. "It has led our people to go up river, down river, sometimes hundreds of miles, to look for the increasingly elusive herd."
Aboriginal leaders were not consulted when the Kyoto treaty was negotiated in 1997, but they are insisting that they must be consulted in future negotiations on how to cope with global warming.
"We bring a unique knowledge to these discussions," said Patricia Cochran, an Alaskan Inuit who is chairwoman of the Inuit Circumpolar Council. "We have to make sure that our voice is heard."
Because of global warming, Inuit people no longer feel safe travelling on ice where they travelled for centuries, and some Inuit communities are sliding into the sea, forcing their relocation to new sites, Ms. Cochran said.
"It's a very frightening thing for all of us. It's the loss of our culture and livelihood. How can we remain intact as aboriginal people?"
Dave Porter, a Kaska Dene leader from northern British Columbia, came to Bali to tell delegates that his people are under massive pressure from a climate-induced infestation of the mountain pine beetle.
"We are faced with our greatest threat ever," he said in a speech to a conference side event. "The area of dead trees in British Columbia is the size of Portugal or South Korea. It rivals the destruction of the Amazon and Indonesian rain forests. More than 100 First Nations communities are directly impacted. If the epidemic eats its way across Canada, the impacted communities could be in the thousands."
Because winters are not cold enough to kill the beetle infestation, millions of hectares of pine trees have died, Mr. Porter said.
"It dwarfs any other insect epidemic ever seen before in Canada. The interior of British Columbia is now filled with immense regions of dead and dying forests, creating a massive tinderbox just waiting for a spark to literally set it ablaze. Left unchecked, this devastation could spread through Canada's boreal forests from coast to coast, a distance of nearly 9,000 kilometres."
For centuries, aboriginal people were able to adapt to the environment, he said. But they have never faced anything like the current threat. "Now in a very short period of time, the industrial society has put us at risk."
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Bali deal reached
JOSEPH COLEMAN - Associated Press
December 15, 2007 - BALI, Indonesia — In a dramatic finish to a U.N. climate conference, world leaders adopted a plan Saturday for negotiating a new global warming pact by 2009, after the United States backed down in a battle over wording supported by developing nations and Europe.
The U.S. stand had drawn loud boos and sharp rebukes — “Lead ... or get out of the way!” one delegate demanded — before Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky reversed her position, clearing the way adoption of the so-called “Bali Roadmap.”
“The United States is very committed to this effort and just wants to really ensure we all act together. We will go forward and join consensus,” she said.
The sudden reversal was met with rousing applause.
The upcoming two years of talks, which will hammer out a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, could determine for years to come how well the world will cut emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. A year of scientific reports have warned that rising temperatures will cause widespread drought, floods, higher sea levels and worsening storms.
“This is the beginning, not the end,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We will have to engage in more complex, long and difficult negotiations.”
The document does not commit countries to specific actions against global warming. It was limited to setting an agenda and schedule for negotiators to find ways to reduce pollution and help poor countries adapt to environmental changes by speeding up the transfer of technology and financial assistance.
All-night negotiations had appeared on the brink of collapse several times. Ban made an urgent plea for progress in the final hours of talks, expressing frustration with last-minutes disputes. He later praised the United States for compromising in the end.
“I am encouraged by, and I appreciate the spirit of flexibility of the U.S. delegation and other key delegations,” he told The Associated Press.
European and U.S. envoys duelled into the final hours of the two-week conference over an EU proposal to suggest an ambitious goal for cutting the emissions of industrial nations — by 25 to 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.
The guidelines were eliminated after the U.S., joined by Japan and others, argued that targets should come at the end of the two-year negotiations, not the beginning. An indirect reference was inserted as a footnote instead.
Just when it appeared agreement was within reach Saturday morning, developing nations argued that their need for technological help from rich nations and other issues needed greater recognition in the document.
China angrily accused the U.N. of pressuring nations to sign off on the text even as sideline negotiations continued. That prompted an emotional spat that ended when tearful and exhausted U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer was escorted out of the hall.
In an apparent resolution, India and others suggested minor adjustments in the text that encouraged monitoring of technological transfer to make sure rich countries were meeting that need.
The EU backed the changes, but the United States objected, calling for further talks. Delegates by turns criticized and pleaded with Dobriansky to reverse course.
“We would like to beg them,” said Ugandan Environment Minister Jesca Eriyo.
The applause that followed the Dobriansky's reversal was one of the few times the U.S. won public praise at a conference studded with accusations that Washington was blocking progress.
She told reporters later that other delegations had convinced the U.S. that developing nations did not intend to dilute their commitment to take steps to stop global warming.
“After hearing the comments ... we were assured by their words to act,” she said. “So with that, we felt it was important that we go forward.”
Environmentalists and other critics of the U.S. position cheered the reversal.
“We have learned a historical lesson: if you expose to the world the dealings of the United States, they will ultimately back down,” said Hans Verolme, director of WWF's Global Climate Change Program.
Environmentalists praised the final agreement, though some critics complained it lacked specific greenhouse gas cuts for industrialized nations, and did not include strong commitments for rich countries to provide poorer ones with green technology.
For developing countries, the final document instructs negotiators to consider incentives and other means to encourage poorer nations to curb — voluntarily — growth in their emissions. The explosion of greenhouse emissions in China, India and other developing countries potentially could negate cutbacks in the developed world.
The road map is intended to lead to a more inclusive, effective successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which commits 37 industrialized nations to cut greenhouse gases by an average of 5 per cent between 2008 and 2012.
The United States — the largest producer of such gases — has rejecting Kyoto, seriously weakening an initiative that scientists agree was already not strong enough to have an impact on the environment. President Bush has argued that the required gas cuts would hurt the economy, and he opposed the lack of cuts imposed on China and other emerging economies.
Critics — including former Vice President Al Gore — accused Washington of stonewalling progress at Bali. But many pointed out that with Bush's departure from office in early 2009, chances were high that the next American president would be much more supportive of ambitious cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
Another clash at the conference was between rich and poor nations.
Developing nations, led by China, have demanded that industrialized countries — which have grown rich by polluting for many decades — acknowledge their primary responsibility for resolving the problem. Poorer countries fear that they will be forced to sacrifice economic growth for the sake of cleaning up a mess caused by the industrialized world.
Richer nations, meanwhile, are concerned about skyrocketing rates of greenhouse gas emissions in the developing world. China is a primary concern, and many have estimated that it has already eclipsed the United States as the No. 1 emitter.
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Other Globe and Mail stories about these Climate Change negotiations ...
* Baird a no-show at key negotiating session 15/12/07 1:04 AM
* EU accepts compromise proposal 14/12/07 11:47 PM
* U.S. rejects developing nations' proposal 15/12/07 1:25 AM
* China to reach limits of available water by 2030 14/12/07 1:38 PM 25
* Bali on verge of climate deal
* G7 nations dig in heels in Bali
* Europe-U.S. feud explodes into threat of boycott
* Technology transfer becoming Bali talks' deal breaker
* Business pushes for clarity at Bali