Walking into the conference centre on Saturday morning, everything is different. It feels an eerie place, bereft of campaigners and negotiators – as if a Christmas party has taken place, and the clean up is beginning.
The centre looks messy, grey and desolate. There are only a few people walking the cold corridors, picking up the pieces of what happened last night.
We all expected Poznan to be less dynamic than the talks in Bali last year – expectations were lower, along with the temperature! But it turned out to be more dramatic than we had predicted, with ministers battling it out until the early hours of the morning.
Battling it out for what? Well the main points of contention were around the institutional arrangements for adaptation, and extending the funding mechanisms for it.
Adaptation should be less controversial than mitigation. It is a fact that countries will need to adapt given we are already locked into average temperature rises of around 1.8C.
Developing countries, who are being hit first and worst by the impacts of climate change and have done the least to cause it, are asking for support – both technical and financial – to adapt to the impacts.
This seems fair and just. If you crashed your car into someone’s house, you’d have to pay for the damage. And so it should follow with climate change.
So why has this been so contentious? The answer is unclear. But many of the less progressive nations can’t see their obligation to pay. They think developing countries are just asking for more money.
But this is not so. The “polluter pays” principle, enshrined in the UN Convention on Climate Change, means that these funds are not charity.
The situation is not that developed countries give to developing nations as and when see fit. The money is obligatory because the richest countries have caused the damage.
Developed countries do not have a choice as to whether they fund adaptation and, what is more, they have a moral obligation to do so.
For adaptation to be such a litigious issue highlights how much work we have in front of us for next year, when even more controversial discussions will take place around mitigation – and why the moral voice is so crucial.
So goodbye from Poznan, where the outdoor temperature has decreased in line with the disappointment from these talks. We now begin the countdown to Copenhagen.
Just 12 months to ensure a just, strong and binding deal. Together we can do it.
Posted by LizG
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