Still time to check out plans for a new coal-fired Power Station for West Bali?
In the weeks directly preceding the UNFCCC meeting on global warming in Bali Greenpeace activists staged high profile demonstrations and even attempted to take over heavily polluting coal-fired powder stations in Czechoslovakia and the UK. The timing was designed specifically to embarrass their governments and reveal their environmental double talk in the run up to UNFCCC Bali.
Compare such activism to the inaction and lack of information at the Bali global warming meet in Nusa Dua to the fact that in March this year Bali is expected to begin the development of a heavily polluting coal-fired 400-MW thermal power plant (PLTU) around Celukan Bawang port, Beleleng district, in an effort to meet the power needs of tourism development. Why didn’t Greenpeace and other usually vociferous if not strident NGO’s stand by their Bali hosts and lend a hand in their time of need?
The new Bali-based power plant is part of a package of 6 new power stations in Indonesia said to be financed by US bankers Morgan Stanley and is expected to start operation in stages in 2008. The PLTU plant will use coal to fire the electricity generator so operational costs could be lower than other plants in Bali, which so far use diesel oil. Construction is to be completed in 2009. “With the additional 400MW, the need for power supply in Bali would be met for five to ten years to come,” a PLN spokesman said said.
Coal-fired, cheaper? Cheaper for whom? How dirty is it going to be and what is it going to do to the surroundings, near and far? For sure it will produce thousands of hectares of toxic waste. There will be ash, limestone treatment of slag, plus unacceptable levels of Co2 and other chemical emissions. Its not just what it does to the air, its what it does to the land.
Why are we doing this? Aren’t there cleaner, better ways of powering this plant? Has anybody checked out what the effects will be and kept the proponents honest? Last time around they wanted to foist a stinking old retired power plant on North Bali from the 1970’s. Then they tried a geo thermal proposal for Bali, which was protested, and it was stopped.
Can’t we do something, at least check it out? Bali is a special place and as host of the most important environmental conference since Kyoto, does it not deserve some more imaginative solutions to its power needs? Why not use Bali as Indonesia’s showcase for being part of the solution, not just another example of despoiling irreplaceable places for short term gain.
Behind the Scenes at UNFCCC Bali
Saving the World...or the New World Economic Order?
The answer’s probably both. It’s almost 50 years since the Club of Rome and Paul Ehrlich blew the whistle on our abuse of the planet with “The Limits of Growth” and “The Population Bomb”, published in 1968. Radicals and eco freaks went overboard with it, finding a heaven sent message to attack feral capitalists and beastly humans befouling planet. Scientists dismissed it all as neo-Malthusian rubbish, non-scientific and grossly overstated. The public in the developed world were unwilling to give up many, if any, creature comforts and were confused about it all anyway. Politicians could safely dismiss the whole thing and/or boot the eco ball far off into the future. And that’s exactly what they did.... for half a century.
So now it’s 2008, 50 years on and what have we done?
Apparently our world is in such bad shape that almost everyone now accepts that something should be done, but by whom?
Well, here in Bali we’ve agreed to talk about it all and, we’ll really really start talking about doing something about it seriously in 2009.
“We’re here to agree a process”, said the urbane and usually unflappable Yvo de Boer, UNFCCC‘s Executive Secretary. And that’s about all we got. We very nearly didn’t get that. Before wrapping up UNFCCC Bali had run an extra day, provoked a public scolding from the UN Secretary General, reduced poor Yvo to tears and very nearly ended in a total failure on account of the last minute bloody-mindedness of the US delegation, who finally agreed to the minimum word fudge while in true Bushie style extracting the maximum humiliation and odium in the process.
The “Bali roadmap” initiates a 2-year process of negotiations designed to agree a new set of emissions targets to replace those in the Kyoto Protocol by Copenhagen 2009 to include:
• emissions targets for industrialised countries (possibly but not necessarily binding)
• softer targets for major developing countries
• means for CO2 trading to fund adaptation projects
A consensus was also reached rewarding poorer countries to protect their forests, widely acknowledged as the cheapest single way of curbing climate change. That’s good for Indonesia, if (a very big if) they can rein in their illegal loggers as the nation could plummet from being the 3rd biggest carbon emitter in the world to #41.
While things remained fairly polite in open session it was clear behind closed doors the gloves were coming off. The Europeans didn’t like the message they were getting from the Americans, that the IPCC goal of a 25-40% target by 2020 is based on insufficient evidence.
“We don’t need new studies and research,” stated German Environment Minister, Sigmar Gabriel. “If we ask the scientists, they’re going to tell us the same thing. It’s not a question of known science. It’s a question of mathematics.... clear since the Egyptians taught us to count. The American position is hubristic, if not arrogant”, he added. Off the record, a French member of the EU delegation agreed, adding “if there’s no agreement here, they can forget their meeting in Paris this January” (referring to the US own-organised Major Economies annual meeting on global warming).
For its part the US didn’t hesitate from wielding the big aid stick. The G77 grouping of developing countries and China complained bitterly about the pressure they were coming under to make concessions. The US, and proxies Canada, and Japan threatened trade sanctions if the developing world refused to take on commitments to reduce or limit emissions, a G77 delegate told me. After such acrimony, asked if the Bali roadmap could be agreed Pakistan’s UN Ambassador speaking for G77 said he “doubted whether such a major result could be achieved in just two years.”
The Bali Roadmap now leads inexorably to January 20, 2009, when the world will sigh a huge sigh of relief as they wish good riddance to the worst President in US history, as a new President is sworn in and a new US team takes on the task of negotiating the Bali Roadmap. Even then, decisive U.S. action is not assured. “The real problem is Congress,” says Michael Bloomberg, NY’s climate-activist mayor. “They’re unwilling to face any issue that has costs or antagonizes any group of voters.”
With upwards of 12,000 people attending the UNFCCC to save the world from global warming it shouldn’t altogether come as a surprise that there are a lot of people who came to feather their own nests or pursue some hidden politico-social agenda. For a start there were over 5,000 NGO delegates from some 340 organisations ranging from the political arm of the Red Brigades to Exxon PR shock troops, compared to a little over 3,200 from all the 190 plus countries attending. Most of these environmental organisations had their hearts in the right places, if not their heads in a dark place. A rabid few would rather see children die in developing countries than modernise, equating modernisation with global capitalism. A doctor from Kenya who ran a small hospital, told me of his battle to get electrical power. Malarial and other children died unnecessarily because he had no refrigeration for vaccines. An ecologically dogmatic apparatchnik from a major international NGO refused to help him with a readily available gas powered generator, insisting he use solar power in the full knowledge this was totally inadequate and children would die.
The largest NGO delegation by far with 317 members was an organisation called the International Emissions Trading Association. That should give you some idea of the priorities here and why it took 50 years to get to this point. In a word, money. It’s been that long for businessmen to work out a way to make money out of all this. Carbon trading is now expected to pay for the trillions of $’s this cleaning up act is going to cost. What’s not clear is how well this is going to work in practice. Nobody knows and what goes up comes down, often with a bump. Expect some South Sea Bubbles of Co2 in the not-too-distant future.
Perhaps the most telling, if not chilling remark of the entire conference for me came via a very senior executive aide to the UN Secretary General himself. Missing the bus from Sanur I bummed a ride into Nusa Dua in this man’s limo. Very amiable he was too, and after some most illuminating conversation I put it to him. “What’s really going on here?”, I asked as we entered Nusa Dua. “If you really want to know I’ll tell you, but don’t quote me. It’s all about China and America. It’s the preliminary rounds of the new emerging world economic order”. So now you know, straight from the horse’s mouth.
