Wakey, wakey!

It was hot yesterday. Even in pyjamas. Fitting, really, as we staged a pyjama protest here at the Maritim to wake up negotiators to the dangers of a warming world. There are only three days left to yet another two weeks of negotiations. And on too many issues, governments are going backwards or are stalling. Fights we fought years ago, when the Kyoto Protocol was being negotiated, are back (giving some of us a sad sense of deja-vu). Some, for example, are daft enough to suggest that nuclear power should be subsidized through the Clean Development Mechanism. Understandable, really. For the economics of nuclear power just don't stack up. But tiresome. Nuclear power, to put it mildly, simply will not deliver (anything but nuclear waste). And we really have better things to do than fighting that particular old battle all over again .... - Of course, not all delegations are to blame. It's the usual suspects - especially the US, Canada, Japan and - even under Rudd - Australia, that are the worst. The US, in fact, is being outright offensive. They, like other industrialized nations, have broken their promise made at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 to transfer technology to the South. They have failed to put financial resources behind their rhetoric that they care about the need to adapt to unavoidable climate change. But when the developing world points out this failure and demands action, this is what the US replies: "the UNFCCC is a climate change convention, not a development aid convention." In other words: We do not care. I wish I was making this up. But they said it - and even circulated the statement in writing! - So, despite the heat, it felt good to give governments a wake up call. And many delegations seemed to like us more in pyjamas than in suits. Several came up to me in the corridors later to say that "we are awake now". Let's hope so. I, for one - after a night of doing ECO - need another coffee first ... (at least the coffee at the Maritim is fair and organic, unlike at the UN in Bangkok!)