Posted by John Lanchbery, Principal Climate Change Adviser, from the climate conference in Panama
Sunday in Panama City began with a huge thunderstorm at about six o’clock but the UN climate talks continued as usual; first with country grouping coordinations at eight or nine o’clock and then the start of negotiations at ten. The environment and development groups, like the RSPB, WWF and Oxfam, also have get-togethers, first over breakfast and then more formally at nine –exchanging information and planning for the day.
The meeting in Panama is preparing for the annual ministerial meeting in December, this time in Durban. These meetings have become increasingly high profile and labelled by the news media as either successes of failures with nothing in between – whereas, in fact, most meetings are a bit of both.
This year, however, we really do need to save the Kyoto Protocol, whose first phase expires next year. The Protocol is far from perfect but it embodies key features that us environmentalists want. It is science-based, legally binding and has rules that all countries have to abide by – like a proper treaty should. If it lapses we may not see its like again. We need to build upon it and make a new and better treaty.
Luckily, we have some influential allies. Today, a small groups of us environmentalists met (again) with the head of the Brazilian delegation, who also speaks for all of the developing countries, the so-called Group of 77 (G77) although it is a lot more countries than that. The hope is that the EU and the G77 can keep the Kyoto Protocol going, although I am not allowed to say, yet, precisely how.
Later, we talked on the same subject to the European Commission, the Belgian head of delegation and tomorrow we will talk to the USA and then the Brits, although we have obviously talked to them many times before.
Melanie and I will then sneak of for the evening with Rosabel Miro, the director of our Birdlife Partner in Panama, to watch the great raptor migration to S America at dusk. Did you know that Panama has about 950 bird species, about 3 times that of the UK, many of them migratory?