“International Climate Negotiations (a la COP 15): Playing ‘Twister’ using energy policies instead of colored dots!”
Have you ever heard of a game called “Twister”? Rows of red, yellow, blue and green colored circles on a plastic sheet about two meters by two meters. That is the playing field. A person (called referee) spins an arrow and it stops on a color, which then causes everyone to contort his or her body to be the first to place a hand or a foot on the circle of that color. The end result, after a few spins of the arrow, is a set of people who appear to have interlocked their legs and arms in a pile of contorted humans. The smallest number playing is two. The largest number of players was reported in the Guinness Book of Records as 20,000 on a twister mat that covered an area the size of an American football field (100 yards or more than 90m in length).
For those readers who never played Twister, there are rules for the game. How to Play:
The referee spins the spinner, then calls out the body part and the color that the arrow is pointing to. For example, the referee may call out: “Right hand, red.” All players, at the same time, must then try to follow the referee’s directions as explained below.
Each player must try to place the called-out body part on a vacant circle of the called-out color. For example, if the referee calls out “Right hand, red,” each player must try to place a right hand on any vacant red circle.
If your called-out hand or foot is already on a circle of the called-out color, you must try to move it to another circle of the same color.
There can never be more than one hand or foot on any one circle. If two or more players reach for the same circle, the referee must decide which player got there first. The other player(s) must find another vacant circle of the same color.
Never remove your hand or foot from a circle, unless you’re directed to by the referee after a spin. Exception: You may lift a hand or foot to allow another hand or foot to pass by, as long as you announce it to the referee beforehand, and replace it on its circle immediately afterward.
If all 6 circles of a color are already covered, the referee must spin again until a different color can be called out.
As I read about the various climate and energy conferences, workshops, and public statements of top political leaders at summits like the G-20, the G-77 + China, or even within the US government and as I watch the US two Houses of Congress twist and turn to protect the special interests that they represent — coal industry, oil & gas sector, outspoken scientists (true believers as well as skeptics) — I am now convinced that they are unwittingly engaged in a Realpolitik version of the game of “Twister”. Instead of colored circles though, there are various policy options for coping with the causes and consequences of a human-induced climate change resulting from increased amounts of greenhouse gas emissions due to human activities. Positions are bent, twisted, turned, mitigated (e.g., softened), even changed permanently or in flip-flop ways. Negotiations proceed with each player (a country or a group of countries) seeking the best advantage point for itself or his/her country, while at the same time trying to gain advantage over the other players.
In the game of Twister, there can only be a winner or two, with so many players participating in the game. Where there are winners, losers (absolute and relative) cannot be far behind. So, playing the game requires some level of skill mixed with a modicum of cunning. Those without these attributes are likely to find themselves on the sidelines as observers, having been forced out of the game.
An example in my mind of a poor strategy for the climate change political twister game is a fairly recent statement by a representative or two of African countries that if Africa does not get $200 billion a year from the industrialized countries, Africa would boycott the December negotiations in Copenhagen, eg, COP 15. Bad idea. Africa is not, has not been and will not be a major emitter of greenhouse gases. As the victim of the potentially devastating consequences of a human-induced global warming, it will find itself in line with other victims seeking assistance and many would need assistance to cope with climate change well before other (including African) countries, eg, the AOSIS countries, Bangladesh and major low-lying coastal mega-cities worldwide, at risk of inundation resulting from sea level rise. Africa does not have a climate change card to play except in the humanitarian arena and in the UN General Assembly where countries vote on issues. A better strategy is for African countries to find the appropriate level of negotiating points twists and turns to get what it wants without the risk of being sidelined and voiceless.
In a game of twister bluffing is a weak option. It may work once or twice, faking out opponents but eventually they become increasingly aware of someone’s propensity to bluff. As in politics, one hopes that eventually words will have to match deeds. Over time if one’s words have not done so, then his/her credibility is lost. Once lost, it is hard to get back. In this regard governments often pledge to do a wide range of good things but in reality it turns out that they often fall well short of their stated (maybe even desired) goals, especially in the absence of mechanisms to verify if pledges have been met.
Meanwhile the planet is heating up. No longer do people talk about a 2 deg C limit for acceptable climate change; now they talk of 3 deg C. Today we talk about billions of dollars in the same way we used to talk about millions of dollars, as the worldwide financial crisis ballooned out of control. And now we are starting to talk about trillions of dollars like we used to talk about billions just a year or two ago.
It seems that the resolve of governments and of the US Congress is slipping away from finding solutions in the near term to address the increase of greenhouse gas emissions in order to avoid a dangerous changes in the global to local climate systems. It looks as if the climate change twister game runs the risk of having no winners.
Nero is said to have fiddled as Rome burned. It seems we have heard about this lesson of history but unfortunately, not to use it as a lesson learned in order to avoid it, but to conscientiously repeat it. So it goes, when human and political nature is in conflict with the natural environment.
