Islands ' big pitch at climate conference

Environment

By Ian Williams

United Nations correspondent PACIFIC Islanders were among the few people happy with the first session of the international body negotiating a new conven tion on climate change.

As initiators of the newly formed Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), they made sure the countries most immediately affected by Global Warm ing were not overclouded by the wafts of hot air from less threatened and more polluting nations. But then, the Pacific needs some good news since studies indicate that nations like Tokelau, Tu valu and Kiribati would disappear completely with a one metre rise in sea levels.

The “Intergovernmental Negotiating

Committee for a Framework Convention on Climate Change”, held on the outskirts of Washington DC, follows the Second World Conference on Climate Change held in Geneva last year. It is hoped that by June next year the Committee will have prepared a suitable draft convention on Global Warming in time for the UN conference on Environ ment and Development in Brazil, June 1992.

As the 10-day session finished late on

February 14, unhappy participants in

cluded scientists and NGO’s who felt the committee spent too much time on

organisational details, and developing

and non-aligned nations who disliked the US insistence on vagueness over terms of reference, and resistance to concepts like transfers of technology and finance.

“Some people had a monumental lack of realism. They expected there to be a draft treaty ready by now!” suggested a UN official, who did admit to some disappointment that the meeting did not

move beyond organisational details.

However, there was also a realisation that small differences of direction at the beginning could lead to major conse quences in the end, hence the dogged battle now over matters like terms of reference.

The acknowledged success was AOSIS, which unites the Mediterranean island of Malta, and the islands of the Caribbean with those of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

“They were much more identifiable and recognisable and of course there was a great appreciation of how much they have to lose,” one observer noted.

Forming almost a quarter of the nations represented, they made their presence felt in an organised way.

AOSIS Chairman, Vanuatu’s UN ambassador Robert Van Lierop, de

scribed it to Pacific Islands Monthly as “An ad-hoc alliance, which grew out of our common concern on this issue at the Second World Climate Conference last year.” He said the two dozen members, “must ensure that our agenda is taken into account our small size sometimes makes people forget what we are talking about.”

AOSIS was able to marshal scientific and legal support which the individual states could not have afforded

themselves.“ With the alliance, we can divide up responsibilities, and ensure that all of our concerns are raised in the

different meetings.”

AOSIS faces a serious problem in

ensuring continuity of representation

over the coming 16 months of intricate negotiations. Many of its members are countries whose budgets are strained by the cost of sending a single delegate.

Professor W Jackson Davies, scientific adviser to Nauru, pointed out there was more at stake than simply flooding.

“No one has paid much attention to the effects of temperature change on coral. It could bleach and kill it, causing dead reefs. And of course increased

temperatures will affect the frequency and severity of cyclones and tropical storms.”

He adds, “because of the threat, we’re very highly motivated!”

As Kiribati delegate Nakibae Teuatabo told the conference, the failure to include commitment to reduced greenhouse gas emissions “would cer tainly fail to ensure the survival of low lying island states”.

Fiji’s delegate, Finau A. Mara, stressed the need for the countries causing the emissions to assist those who were not to make the necessary adjustment. Pointing to Fiji’s record in reafforestation, he said that the Pacific had been subjected to some of the worst forms of exploitation nuclear testing, chemical weapon incin eration, toxic waste dumping and driftnet fishing. Although not covered by the convention, they diminished the ability of the region’s environment to sustain life. The implication was that, as with greenhouse gases, the Pacific paid the price for others’ affluence.

Fiji Wendt, Samoa’s delegate, con sidered the promises of financial aid to developing countries, and reiterated the theme that promises of money would be in vain if those nations were the first to become extinct.

The conclusions reached late on the last day of the session reflected the tough

battles fought by the developing

countries and AOSIS. It set up two working groups, one to consider the scientific and technical aspects of the proposed convention and the other the broader legal and social aspects.

Concessions gained by the developing

countries included an unequivocal state ment that “Funding mechanisms and means for transfer of technology to developing countries, as well as matters concerning international scientific and technological co-operation should be an integral element in the negotiations.”

The UN General Assembly had de cided that the Committee’s Bureau should have representatives of each of the

five major UN geographical regions, but

the AOSIS’s presence was such that it secured a promise of consultation and at least informal representation.

By the end of the session around 51.5 million had also been pledged to the fund for ensuring the representation of the least developed and small island countries through the next three sessions scheduled to take place in Nairobi or Geneva. Altogether, it is a promising start which will help the low-lying islands maintain their high profile. □