Copenhagen; the Comedy of Compensation Carrot

Officials from Different Countries in Cop15

The greatest comedy (or tragedy!) of the year 2009 has already been screened on the Copenhagen theatre hall and the title of the comedy was The 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference. Yes, it is Bella centre, read Bella theatre hall, where actors and actresses from more than 170 countries gathered to draft a new treaty, supplement to Kyoto protocol, depicting with compulsory clauses as Kyoto is going to be expired in 2012. So it is lucid to all that they did not come to play a comedy but congregated with a grand view to saving the world from the threat of extinction instigated by the devastating clutch of environmental degradation. This was an accumulation of 15,000 delegates and officials, 5,000 journalists and 98 world leaders who even can destroy the whole world hundreds of times with a single signal of finger. Actually this COP15, the surname of the conference, is a part of a series of conferences organized by the UN. This summit got a maximum media coverage and priority of chatting as people believed that the recurrence of natural disasters in past two years indiscriminately everywhere in the world might make the world’s leaders more cooperative and more considerate about environmental degradation particularly concerning the emission of carbon dioxide, the real culprit of global warming. But alas! World leaders could not even draft a treaty let alone a promise to follow it. Instead of a well accepted all-signed pact we observed merely a comedy in which the climax point was a compensation carrot. Let’s turn to that climax point.

Protesting People from Different Part of the World

This was a carrot hung by the developed powers, the decisive carbon producers, to turn the concentration of the developing countries, the real scapegoats of environmental degradation, from real bargain, the issue of reducing carbon emission, to a fade and undefined affairs. They, the developed powers, thus could spend most of the time in the name of compensation collection and promise. Why is this compensation? The easy answer is to compensate for the losses of underdeveloped and developing countries created by natural disasters as a result of excessive emission of Co₂ by developed countries. But with the continuation of more emission! What a comedy it is to make a compensation deal for stolen goods letting the door open for further stealing! Yes, the developing countries, being trapped by the lofty carrot offered by the counterpart developed countries, engaged all their endeavors not to stop future emission but to get past reparation. Through this tricky policy the developed could manage to make a crack among developing countries in the question of ratio from the recompense fund. Whenever the developing countries should have to take a united action and stand to ensure reduction of Co_2, they started quarreling one another about the proportion of compensation fund spent time to find a formula whether on population based or geographical area based. Thus both consumption of time and widening of fracture became possible for the environmental criminals. A 12 day-gathering, 06 to 18 December, of world leaders went in vain only by signing a symbol of treaty. The world got a pen without ink, a book without page, a day without hope and a night with day dream!

A Moment of Conference

You may ask why the developing countries let to stage so great a comedy of compensation without any hesitation. The calculation is very simple. Who went to the summit? Are there any tsunami affected people or people lost every thing by sidre or orphan missing his parents by nargis? No, there were people composed of politicians, NGO agents, people from so called civil society and bureaucrats. These four parties are more concerned about their benefits. They know, no matter from which country they are, any amount of compensation money will fatten their never ending gulp of wallet. As this money may be disbursed by NGOs, they showed big interest in this issue and placed to the priority place. Through the same process the bureaucrats, with their red tap power, want to smuggle the money and hopping this they insisted government to engage them in this misleading issue. Thus the civil society has greed to steal the money in form of seminars, symposium research papers. Who remains in bottom? Oh the politicians! No there is no need to describe their character as people round the globe know them from head to tail. Thus in face of elite interest the common interest of the whole world went to the back bench of discussion. The comedy of compensation carrot could be played on the stage of Copenhagen. Don’t think this is the last play, the last one play will be staged and the real play maker will be nature itself. At that time you will realize, no matter who you are, what’s the difference between comedy and tragedy.