Law and International Development

According to UN secretary-general, Ban Ki- Moon, the most recent findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggest that the impacts of climate change will be “so severe and so sweeping that only urgent, global action will do.”

The challenge at the pending UN meetings in Bali will be to set the tracks for just that: a regime that includes all major greenhouse gas (ghg) emitters and imposes meaningful emission reduction targets on them.

Canada’s Environment Minister, John Baird, has called the IPCC findings “powerful” and “overwhelming.”  Assuming, then, that Canada’s goal is to promote urgent and global action, what of its negotiating strategy for Bali?

There is something surreal about the current climate talks in Bali. Think about it this way…

Life is good in the penthouse suites.  The open and airy lofts boast the latest in sleek Italian furniture, the ultimate in German kitchen design, and screening rooms with state of the art plasma screens and surround sound systems.

Money is no object. The owners are, well, “financially comfortable” (some would say plain rich).  They enjoy the best wines from around the world, champagne from France, beef from Japan (sometimes Argentina), caviar from Russia and bottled mineral water from the finest springs.

Only one thing is puzzling about the penthouse suites. The blinds are drawn. And the air-conditioning is running in the winter.  Delivery staff rushes in and out, leaving sooty clothes and oxygen tanks at the door.  Because, you see, there is trouble in penthouse paradise. It sits atop a building that is now surrounded by fire and is beginning to smolder.

Haiti is currently in the headlines again due to the ravages of a cholera epidemic that has hit citizens still reeling from a humanitarian disaster brought on by last year's earthquake, and has been compounded by hurricanes, floods, a problematic election and general unrest. Some Haitians have been pointing their fingers at the UN as the author of their latest misfortune, blaming foreign aid workers or peacekeepers for bringing cholera with them. At the same time, close to the scene, humanitarian workers, staff, doctors and nurses have been calling for more help from abroad as they survey the miserable conditions that Haitian citizens are forced to deal with after they have been "helped".

Frustration and anger are surely heightened by the fact that millions (or billions) of dollars of funding pledged in support of reconstruction is still sitting in the hands of foreign aid entities. One cannot help but think of the famous play by Beckett, Waiting for Godot. In the play, the two main characters try to entertain themselves while waiting for Godot, an acquaintance that never shows up. Despite agreeing at the end that they will no longer wait, neither of them leaves. Similarly, Haiti seems to be expectantly waiting for foreign aid, without knowing when and whether it will come.  

This commentary was first published on the Foreign Policy magazine website on Feb. 2, 2011.

The nationwide decline in housing prices that began in 2006 was supposed to be, we were told, impossible. Because its impact was limited initially to the sub-prime mortgage market, which was a relatively small part of the overall home-mortgage market, policy makers at the Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve assured us that its effects would be contained. That prediction, we now know, turned out to be horribly wrong.    

So, too, the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt were said to be impossible. Even after the shocking events of Tunisia, pundits were quick to deny their relevance to Egypt. Egypt was a much larger country; its population was less educated, less politically savvy, and too habitually passive to become revolutionary; moreover, Egypt's security service was much larger and tougher than those of Tunisia, and in any event the Egyptian military could be relied upon to come quickly to the aid of the regime in the event of any crisis. Indeed, some pundits were quick to dismiss Tunisians entirely from the Arab world.