Bolivia on climate: ‘Copenhagen has no clothes’

Bolivia has been mounting an aggressive foreign policy effort to lead an alternative climate bloc. Next month, it will host a multinational conference on climate in Cochabamba. And its embassies around the world have been promoting the conference to foreign journalists and governments. Bolivia is a poor and relatively small country, at least demographically– it has a population of roughly 10 million. So it’s interesting that the country, led by President Evo Morales, is taking such a leading role.

And here’s Bolivia’s stark message: the Copenhagen climate conference was not a “good start” on climate change, it was a sham pushed through by industrialized countries addicted to the carbon status-quo. Pablo Solón-Romero, Bolivia’s ambassador to the United Nations, published an op-ed in The Guardian today making that message clear, and positioning Cochabamba as a place to counter the Copenhagen paradigm:

Bolivia … believed that Copenhagen marked a backwards step, undoing the work built on since the climate talks in Kyoto. That is why, against strong pressure from industrialised countries, we and other developing nations refused to sign the Copenhagen accord and why we are hosting an international meeting on climate change next month. In the words of the Tuvalu negotiator, we were not prepared to ‘betray our people for 30 pieces of silver’

In fact, Solón-Morales writes that the Copenhagen deal, in the way it was constructed, opens the door to increased not decreased carbon emissions because of the non-binding nature of voluntary targets.

The Copenhagen accord opens the dam and condemns millions. Various estimates suggest that the commitments made under the accord would lead to increases of between three to four degrees Celsius – a level that many scientists consider disastrous for human life and our ecosystems.