09th January 2010
Editor’s note: Prolific. That’s one of the words that apply to Sir Ronald, one of our most highly-rated and respected columnists. This week, in addition to the article appearing on page 6 of this paper (which is the second of a two-part piece submitted last week) we publish here his current weekly contribution.
Hot talk, but no Climate Change help from Copenhagen

Concluding the week before Christmas, the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change was no gift to small islands and countries with low lying coastlands.
What emerged from it was a political accord rather than the much talked about legal agreement that would bind all countries to tackling climate change that has its most calamitous effects on small developing countries.
The political accord itself was highly contentious. Drafted and agreed by only five countries, it was only “noted” by the Conference; it was not adopted as reflecting global consensus and it attracted vociferous opposition.
From the Caribbean, Camillo Gonsalves, St Vincent & the Grenadines Ambassador to the United Nations was particularly scathing. He is reported by the Caribbean Media Corporation as saying: “St. Vincent and the Grenadines feels no less threatened today than we did when Copenhagen began”. He expressed the hope that the next climate change conference, scheduled for Mexico later this year, will be marked by “openness, inclusivity, transparency and legitimacy.”
At Copenhagen despite the facade of a huge conference room with thousands of representatives of nations from around the world, the big players engaged in their usual excusive discussions and then handed down their agreement which, even amongst themselves, was tortuously reached.
The difference this time is that the big players were not the Western industrialized nations. The big boys were China, India, Brazil, and South Africa with the United States of America.
The tides of history are washing-up a new order on the shores of international decision-making for sure. But, while the new order includes the large developing countries, the smaller ones continue to be marginalised, remembered more as a postscript than as a priority even though they are the primary sufferers.
It is significant that the large developing countries in the new club have so far shown no greater concern for the plight of small and vulnerable countries than did the G7.
In part, this points to a failure of diplomatic action by small developing states themselves. Under the umbrella of the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) at the United Nations, they work assiduously among themselves to reach consensus positions, but the governments of these countries have not adopted a joined-up policy in their relations with the four large developing states.
Hence, in their individual relations with Brazil, India, China and South Africa, Caribbean governments, for instance, have not adopted a cohesive policy in which diplomatic support for these four, as well as trade with them, is linked to issues such as climate change.
Similarly, the governments of AOSIS have made no high level, joint approach to the big four developing countries spelling out the challenges and problems that climate change causes them. Yet, together, and with a joined-up policy, they would command some attention. Individually, they are simply picked off and silenced.
It was significant that during the Copenhagen conference, the Prime Minister of Tuvalu, whose country is gravely imperilled by sea-level rise, claimed at a press conference that “there are some countries like Australia who have been trying to arrange a meeting with us to probably water down our position on 1.5 degrees Celsius. We did not attend that meeting, but I heard from other small islands that Australia was trying to tell them if they agree to the 2 degrees limit, money would be on the table for adaptation process.”