Influencing opinion for selfish gains
IF A government wants to tilt opinion in its favour on an issue, all it has to do is sponsor a meeting of select "experts". That is what NGOs at Geneva accused some West European countries of doing when they organised meetings on Joint Implementation (JI) in Bermuda and New Delhi, JI is a proposal to allot greenhouse gas emissions credits to industrialised countries for providing money and technology to developing countries to reduce their emissions.
The NGOs wrote in their bulletin ECO that organisers of both the meetings, held in January, raised serious questions by inviting sympathisers of JI and keeping others away.
The Bermuda meeting, organised by the US-based Woodshole Research Center, was held responsible for getting the climate change convention secretariat paper on JI changed. "Possibly the biggest change is that the proposed criteria would allow JI in developing countries," stated the front page article in ECO. Most developing countries do not want because they are not sure if it will be beneficial to them.
Similarly, the Delhi meeting, organised jointly by the Norwegian Center for International Climate and Energy Research and the Tata Energy Research Institute, did not invite several NGOs with opinions on JI. "Several of the participants reportedly tried to use the seminar to give selective Northern and Southern blessings to a pilot phase of JI," ECO said.
"There is a danger that the process taking shape will turn the tables on those countries which remain skeptical of joint implementation," con- cluded ECO, The controversy made the G-77 countries in Geneva post- pone their decision on JI until they study its implications.
According to some Northern NGOs, the Bermuda and New Delhi meetings were organised at the behest of industrialised countries, which had agreed to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions but are discovering that their emissions are still increasing.