What the COP15 Needs is Money and Commitment

Everybody Wants the Money.There is a long and common thread throughout the history of the world- every nation, every culture, every system of government- it goes, simply, that the haves tend to do what they like and the have-nots do their best and try to get the haves to help them.

That’s pretty much the story going on with rich and poor nations around the climate change issue, and especially around the COP15 summit preparations. In general, poor countries feel that they are doing everything they can to make a climate change treaty happen and that the lack of money and emissions cut commitments from the rich countries is hurting the chances at a treaty. Funding is crucial to a workable pact between all countries, as poor countries need the money to implement adaptations to climate changes in their countries and economies and green their current economies.

"There has to be a quid pro quo, you have to see a significant advance on the finance. Otherwise, what's the point?" Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat.

De Boer continued by agreeing with the poor countries, saying they have done a significant amount and that rich nations are standing in the way of progress.

"Unless we see an advance on ambitious industrialized country targets and significant finance on the table, it is very difficult for negotiators in this process to continue their work in good faith. And that is the stark reality of where we are at the moment."

Basically, rich countries want the poor countries to commit to emissions cuts and poor countries want rich countries to commit to giving them money. But it seems like no one is willing to make basic commitments.

"If people don't start showing their cards there's not going to be a card game in Copenhagen. It's like we're kicking over the table because no one wants to play the game," said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists to Reuters.

There is one more 5 day negotiation session set for Barcelona next month after the current session in Bangkok ends. That’s not a lot of days for almost 200 countries to narrow down the tough issues to have something pretty much ready to go before the Copenhagen summit in December.

It turns out that rich nations as a whole actually emit LESS carbon than poorer nations, a group that includes China, India, Indonesia and Brazil.

Each of these countries has made a significant pledge- Brazil to cut deforestation by 80%, Indonesia to cut emissions by 26%, and China, though saying nothing specific, says that they will come down by a notable margin, for all countries by 2020. It turns out that this is why we won’t have a climate change bill- money and commitment.

It’s like marriage, right? Those are the two things you need- you need both people to take the leap and say yes, I commit to these things, and then you need them to share resources and money to make their collective dreams actually happen. So, in essence, we need global nuptial bells to ring out across the Earth from Copenhagen, and we need one, big, married family of nations. Oh, boy.