Transcript 2 - Curtin University

From Hopenhagen to Brokenhagen?
Reflections and Images
Bob Pokrant
Professor of Anthropology
SSAL
Curtin University of Technology
Perth, Australia
• Copenhagen as official process-agreement to
supersede Kyoto
• Copenhagen as meeting place
• Copenhagen as performance politics/alternative
public space
• Copenhagen as microcosm of fluidity of global
power
• Copenhagen Accord and adaptation
Copenhagen as official process
• Bella Center- a convention center built in 70s•
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retro-fitted to be green
Site of official business
Fenced off and policed
Internally divided between side events and
plenary sessions-variable access to Parties,
Observers and Press
Many other official venues around Copenhagenside events
Official Outcome
• Copenhagen Accord (2½ pages long)– non-binding
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and noted-full consensus not achieved
Decided behind closed doors by small group
Rise of BASIC group-some internationalisation
long-term goal limiting climate change to no more
than 2° C
systems of "pledge and review" for developed and
developing country mitigation commitments or
actions (BUT no quantified emission reduction
objectives)
new financial resources (US$30 b; US$100 b)
Bella Center: site of the COP 15
Security at the Bella Center
Copenhagen as meeting place
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Authorised space at the Bella Center
Over 40,000 delegates
Diminished access
Quota system
Observers most affected
Security, control of dissent?
Alternative Public Spaces
• The Klimaforum: “promoting and debating
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environmentally sustainable and socially just
solutions to climate change,”
displayed 50 exhibit stalls; 190 panels and talks;
30 documentary films; workshops, debates,
theatre, and music.
Cost €1 m. (COP 15 €160 m.)
Refuge for those excluded from Bella Center
Global movement sought
Klimaforum Images
Climate Bottom Meeting
• staged grass-roots counter-positioning to events at
the Bella Center. Themes included conservation
displacement; resistance to carbon markets;
distribution of responsibility for greenhouse gas
emissions; eco-city and village initiatives.
Images from Climate Bottom
Windows of Hope
Performance Politics and Protest
Copenhagen Climate Challenge
• Skeptics forum:
• Danish group Climate Sense and the lobby group
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Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow
(CFACT)
Low attendance-mainly middle aged men!
…the world should have the courage to “do
nothing until the science is clear”.
Global warming skeptics from CFACT pulled off an international climate caper.
Climate skeptivists
On the streets
Copenhagen Accord and adaptation
• Non-binding and not adopted but noted
• Mitigation-focused reflecting dominant state power
• Adaptation commitments insufficient, unclear
• Concern among LDCs and SIDS over linking
adaptation funding to mitigation
• Reciprocity versus historic debt
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http://www.denmark.dk/NR/rdonlyres/C41B62AB-4688-4ACE-BB7BF6D2C8AAEC20/0/copenhagen_accord.pdf
• No clear specification of most vulnerable and worthy of
support
• Concern over funding amounts and their administration
• Criticism by wealthy countries over redistribution politics
• Possible fragmentation of UNFCC process-BUT!
• (Feb 4): “…91 countries, including the 27-member
EU, are likely to or have engaged with the accord,
representing 80.5% of global emissions."
From Hopenhagen to Brokenhagen?
• Reactions range from a mess to hopeful
• Many developing countries stepping up emission
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reductions actions
Official consensus: Development within industrial
capitalist parameters will continue-ecological
modernisation. No alternatives contemplated
Climate change only one global stressor among
many all of which are a product of a particular
way of thinking of our relationship to the nonhuman world.