The other day, I blogged about the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, also known as COP15. One thing I didn’t mention was the tiny Pacific island of Tuvalu.
Officials from Tuvalu showed up at the conference along with other officials of the Association of Small Island States (including the Cook Islands, Fiji, and Sierra Leone) to plead for a change. In case you haven’t heard about Tuvalu, it is a country that is about to disappear, literally. Tuvalu is only 4.5 meters above sea level at its highest. With the changes brought about by global warming, Tuvalu is getting smaller and smaller and this tiny country is actually looking to evacuate its inhabitants to another location if necessary.
Officials from Tuvalu showed up at the conference to ask for a tough, legally binding treaty for climate control. Tuvalu had submitted a new proposal six months ago, asking that the Kyoto Protocol be extended and made stricter and that a Copenhagen Protocol be developed, which would commit the U.S. to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. While Obama has submitted goals for reduction, they are not legally binding. Negotiator Ian Fry pleaded with Obama, saying “The fate of my country rests in your hands.
But, when their proposal was blocked by Danish conference president Connie Hedegaard, officials from Tuvalu and the others walked out. Hedegaard blocked the proposal after several countries said they would be hurt by the strict limits on using fossil fuels. The treaty proposed by Tuvalu was also opposed by India, Saudi Arabia, and China among others. Those countries felt the Bali Action Plan, which was developed at COP13, should be stuck to in order to prevent further diluting the negotiations.
As far as I understand it, the problem is that the Bali Action Plan calls for a 2 degree rise in global temperature, but Tuvalu wanted that lowered to 1.5. Scientists have said that the 2 degree rise in global temperature could cause the sea to rise to a level that would make Tuvalu uninhabitable.
Seems to me like a case of David vs. Goliath with David losing this time.
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