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From: Tsegai Emmanuel (emmanuelt40@gmail.com)
Date: Sat Dec 04 2010 - 12:05:11 EST
*
The Beijing talks failed to lead to a global deal at Copenhagen. But the US,
the world's biggest historical polluter and long isolated as a climate
pariah, had something to cling to. The Copenhagen accord, hammered out in
the dying hours but not adopted into the UN process, offered to solve many
of the US's problems.
*
*Trust is in short supply on both sides of the developed-developing nation
divide. On 2 February 2009, a cable from Addis Ababa reports a meeting
between the US undersecretary of state Maria Otero and the Ethiopian prime
minister, Meles Zenawi, who leads the African Union's climate change
negotiations.*
*The confidential cable records a blunt US threat to Zenawi: sign the accord
or discussion ends now. Zenawi responds that Ethiopia will support the
accord, but has a concern of his own: that a personal assurance from Barack
Obama on delivering the promised aid finance is not being honoured.*
************************************************************************
WikiLeaks Cables Reveal How US Manipulated Climate Accord
Embassy dispatches show America used spying, threats and promises of aid
to get support for Copenhagen accord
by Damian Carrington
Hidden behind the save-the-world rhetoric of the global climate change
negotiations lies the mucky realpolitik: money and threats buy political
support; spying and cyberwarfare are used to seek out leverage.
The US diplomatic cables reveal how the US seeks dirt on nations opposed to
its approach to tackling global warming; how financial and other aid is used
by countries to gain political backing; how distrust, broken promises and
creative accounting dog negotiations; and how the US mounted a secret global
diplomatic offensive to overwhelm opposition to the controversial
"Copenhagen accord", the unofficial document that emerged from the ruins of
the Copenhagen climate change summit in 2009.
Negotiating a climate treaty is a high-stakes game, not just because of the
danger warming poses to civilisation but also because re-engineering the
global economy to a low-carbon model will see the flow of billions of
dollars redirected.
Seeking negotiating chips, the US state department sent a secret cable on 31
July 2009 seeking human intelligence from UN diplomats across a range of
issues, including climate change. The request originated with the CIA. As
well as countries' negotiating positions for Copenhagen, diplomats were
asked to provide evidence of UN environmental "treaty circumvention" and
deals between nations.
But intelligence gathering was not just one way. On 19 June 2009, the state
department sent a cable detailing a "spear phishing" attack on the office of
the US climate change envoy, Todd Stern, while talks with China on emissions
took place in Beijing. Five people received emails, personalised to look as
though they came from the National Journal. An attached file contained
malicious code that would give complete control of the recipient's computer
to a hacker. While the attack was unsuccessful, the department's cyber
threat analysis division noted: "It is probable intrusion attempts such as
this will persist."
*The Beijing talks failed to lead to a global deal at Copenhagen. But the
US, the world's biggest historical polluter and long isolated as a climate
pariah, had something to cling to. The Copenhagen accord, hammered out in
the dying hours but not adopted into the UN process, offered to solve many
of the US's problems.*
The accord turns the UN's top-down, unanimous approach upside down, with
each nation choosing palatable targets for greenhouse gas cuts. It presents
a far easier way to bind in China and other rapidly growing countries than
the UN process. But the accord cannot guarantee the global greenhouse gas
cuts needed to avoid dangerous warming. Furthermore, it threatens to
circumvent the UN's negotiations on extending the Kyoto protocol, in which
rich nations have binding obligations. Those objections have led many
countries - particularly the poorest and most vulnerable - to vehemently
oppose the accord.
Getting as many countries as possible to associate themselves with the
accord strongly served US interests, by boosting the likelihood it would be
officially adopted. A diplomatic offensive was launched. Diplomatic cables
flew thick and fast between the end of Copenhagen in December 2009 and late
February 2010, when the leaked cables end.
Some countries needed little persuading. *The accord promised $30bn (£19bn)
in aid for the poorest nations hit by global warming they* *had not caused*.
Within two weeks of Copenhagen, the Maldives foreign minister, Ahmed
Shaheed, wrote to the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, expressing
eagerness to back it.
By 23 February 2010, the Maldives' ambassador-designate to the US, Abdul
Ghafoor Mohamed, told the US deputy climate change envoy, Jonathan Pershing,
his country wanted "tangible assistance", saying other nations would then
realise "the advantages to be gained by compliance" with the accord.
A diplomatic dance ensued. "Ghafoor referred to several projects costing
approximately $50m (£30m). Pershing encouraged him to provide concrete
examples and costs in order to increase the likelihood of bilateral
assistance."
The Maldives were unusual among developing countries in embracing the accord
so wholeheartedly, but other small island nations were secretly seen as
vulnerable to financial pressure. Any linking of the billions of dollars of
aid to political support is extremely controversial - nations most
threatened by climate change see the aid as a right, not a reward, and such
a link as heretical. But on 11 February, Pershing met the EU climate action
commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, in Brussels, where she told him, according
to a cable, "the Aosis [Alliance of Small Island States] countries 'could be
our best allies' given their need for financing".
The pair were concerned at how the $30bn was to be raised and Hedegaard
raised another toxic subject - whether the US aid would be all cash. She
asked if the US would need to do any "creative accounting", noting some
countries such as Japan and the UK wanted loan guarantees, not grants alone,
included, a tactic she opposed. Pershing said "donors have to balance the
political need to provide real financing with the practical constraints of
tight budgets", reported the cable.
Along with finance, another treacherous issue in the global climate
negotiations, currently continuing in Cancún, Mexico, is trust that
countries will keep their word. Hedegaard asks why the US did not agree with
China and India on what she saw as acceptable measures to police future
emissions cuts. "The question is whether they will honour that language,"
the cable quotes Pershing as saying.
*Trust is in short supply on both sides of the developed-developing nation
divide. On 2 February 2009, a cable from Addis Ababa reports a meeting
between the US undersecretary of state Maria Otero and the Ethiopian prime
minister, Meles Zenawi, who leads the African Union's climate change
negotiations.*
*The confidential cable records a blunt US threat to Zenawi: sign the accord
or discussion ends now. Zenawi responds that Ethiopia will support the
accord, but has a concern of his own: that a personal assurance from Barack
Obama on delivering the promised aid finance is not being honoured.*
US determination to seek allies against its most powerful adversaries - the
rising economic giants of Brazil, South Africa, India, China (Basic) - is
set out in another cable from Brussels on 17 February reporting a meeting
between the deputy national security adviser, Michael Froman, Hedegaard and
other EU officials.
Froman said the EU needed to learn from Basic's skill at impeding US and EU
initiatives and playing them off against each in order "to better handle
third country obstructionism and avoid future train wrecks on climate".
Hedegaard is keen to reassure Froman of EU support, revealing a difference
between public and private statements. "She hoped the US noted the EU was
muting its criticism of the US, to be constructive," the cable said.
Hedegaard and Froman discuss the need to "neutralise, co-opt or marginalise
unhelpful countries including Venezuela and Bolivia", before Hedegaard again
links financial aid to support for the accord, noting "the irony that the EU
is a big donor to these countries". Later, in April, the US cut aid to
Bolivia and Ecuador, citing opposition to the accord.
Any irony is clearly lost on the Bolivian president, Evo Morales, according
to a 9 February cable from La Paz. The Danish ambassador to Bolivia, Morten
Elkjaer, tells a US diplomat that, at the Copenhagen summit, "Danish prime
minister Rasmussen spent an unpleasant 30 minutes with Morales, during which
Morales thanked him for [$30m a year in] bilateral aid, but refused to
engage on climate change issues."
After the Copenhagen summit, further linking of finance and aid with
political support appears. Dutch officials, initially rejecting US overtures
to back the accord, make a startling statement on 25 January. According to a
cable, the Dutch climate negotiator Sanne Kaasjager "has drafted messages
for embassies in capitals receiving Dutch development assistance to solicit
support [for the accord]. This is an unprecedented move for the Dutch
government, which traditionally recoils at any suggestion to use aid money
as political leverage." Later, however, Kaasjager rows back a little,
saying: "The Netherlands would find it difficult to make association with
the accord a condition to receive climate financing."
Perhaps the most audacious appeal for funds revealed in the cables is from
Saudi Arabia, the world's second biggest oil producer and one of the 25
richest countries in the world. A secret cable sent on 12 February records a
meeting between US embassy officials and lead climate change negotiator
Mohammad al-Sabban. "The kingdom will need time to diversify its economy
away from petroleum, [Sabban] said, noting a US commitment to help Saudi
Arabia with its economic diversification efforts would 'take the pressure
off climate change negotiations'."
The Saudis did not like the accord, but were worried they had missed a
trick. The assistant petroleum minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told US
officials that he had told his minister Ali al-Naimi that Saudi Arabia had
"missed a real opportunity to submit 'something clever', like India or
China, that was not legally binding but indicated some goodwill towards the
process without compromising key economic interests".
The cables obtained by WikiLeaks finish at the end of February 2010. Today,
116 countries have associated themselves with the accord. Another 26 say
they intend to associate. That total, of 140, is at the upper end of a
100-150 country target revealed by Pershing in his meeting with Hedegaard on
11 February.
The 140 nations represent almost 75% of the 193 countries that are parties
to the UN climate change convention and, accord supporters like to point
out, are responsible for well over 80% of current global greenhouse gas
emissions.
At the mid-point of the major UN climate change negotiations in Cancún,
Mexico, there have already been flare-ups over how funding for climate
adaptation is delivered. The biggest shock has been Japan's announcement
that it will not support an extension of the existing Kyoto climate treaty.
That gives a huge boost to the accord. US diplomatic wheeling and dealing
may, it seems, be bearing fruit.
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