[IPSM] Copenhagen: African Countries have been asked to sign a suicide pact

[Vincent Pang]

Adam Welz's Weblog
http://adamwelz.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/emotional-scenes-at-copenhagen-lumumba-di-aping-africa-civil-society-meeting-8-dec-2009/

Emotional scenes at Copenhagen: Lumumba Di-Aping @ Africa civil society 
meeting – 8 Dec 2009
Posted in ALL BLOG POSTS, nature & environment by adamwelz on
December 8, 2009

Dear All

The leak of a so-called ‘Danish text’ that would sideline
the UN in future climate deals is reverberating around the
Copenhagen negotiations.
(see 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/08/copenhagen-climate-summit-disarray-danish-text)

Today I witnessed an unexpected and extraordinary outburst of
candour from one of the key players in these negotiations —
Lumumba Di-Aping, Sudanese by birth and chief negotiator of
the so-called G77 bloc (which mostly consists of poor
countries).

I attended an ad-hoc meeting in a meeting room of the Bella
Center attended by about 100 African representatives of civil
society and a few African parliamentarians (among them Lance
Greyling, an MP from South Africa) this afternoon. The meeting
was called at short notice and its agenda was not announced.
After a few minutes of introductions Di-Aping was given the
floor to speak to fellow Africans. Requests were made by
organisers to turn off all microphones so as not to record
what was going to be said, although Di-Aping made a point
of turning his on, saying half-jokingly “they are probably
listening anyway”.

He did not start his speech immediately. Instead he sat
silently, tears rolling down his face. He put his head in his
hands and said We have been asked to sign a suicide pact.”
The room was frozen into silence, shocked by the sight of a
powerful negotiator, an African elder if you like, exhibiting
such strong emotion. He apologised to the audience, but said
that in his part of Sudan it was “better to stand and cry
than to walk away.”

Once he had composed himself, Di-Aping launched into an
eloquent and direct attack on the apparent subversion of the
climate negotiation process by certain developing countries,
the leaked so-called “Danish” agreement that has become the
talk of the conference. Since I did not feel it appropriate
to stand up and video the proceedings, I live-tweeted what
I could (www.twitter.com/adamwelz).

Speaking in measured tones, Di-Aping first attacked the 2
degrees C warming maximum that most rich countries currently
consider acceptable. Referring continuously to science, in
particular parts of the latest IPCC report (which he
referenced by page and section) he said that 2 degrees C
globally meant 3.5 degrees C for much of Africa. He called
global warming of 2 degrees C “certain death for Africa”,
a type of climate fascism” imposed on Africa by high carbon
emitters. He said Africa was being asked to sign on to an
agreement that would allow this warming in exchange for
$10 billion, and that Africa was also being asked to
“celebrate” this deal.

He then went on to forthrightly address the weakness of many
African negotiating delegations, noting that many were
unprepared and that some members were either lazy or had been
“bought off” by the industrialised nations. He singled out
South Africa, saying that some members of that delegation had
actively sought to disrupt the unity of the bloc. He said that
civil society needed to hold its negotiators to account, but
warned of a long and difficult struggle for a fair climate
deal (words to the effect of ‘you have no idea of the powers
that are arrayed against you’, spoken in the tone of someone
who has spent years interacting with these powers.)

He said that people all over the world had to be made aware of
what a bad climate deal means for Africa (“I am absolutely
convinced that what Western governments are doing is NOT
acceptable to Western civil society”).

He explained that, by wanting to subvert the established
post-Kyoto process, the industrialised nations were
effectively wanting to ignore historical emissions, and
by locking in deals that would allow each citizen of those
countries to carry on emitting a far greater amount of
carbon per year than each citizen in poor countries, would
prevent many African countries from lifting their people
out of poverty. This was nothing less than a colonisation
of the sky, he said. “$10 billion is not enough to buy us
coffins”.

Obama, he said, would probably be brought to Copenhagen to
’sanctify’ this deal. “What is Obama going to tell his
daughters? That their [Kenyan] relatives’ lives are not
worth anything? It is unfortunate that after 500 years-plus
of interaction with the West we [Africans] are still
considered ‘disposables’ “. “My good friends… we’ve got
to get together and fight the fight.”

Di-Aping accused a group of US industrialists behind an
organisation called the Climate Works Foundation of being
behind the efforts to sideline the process and African
countries, noting that rich governments did not want to pay
the true cost of climate change or confront their own
citizens with the urgent need to change their lifestyles.

Lumumba Di-Aping at African civil society meeting during
climate talks at Bella Center, Copenhagen, 8 December 2009

Calling the current deal that was being proposed “worse than
no deal”, he called on Africans to reject it — “I would
rather die with my dignity than sign a deal that will channel
my people into a furnace.” Africans had to make clear demands
of their leaders not to sign on. He suggested a couple of
slogans: “One Africa, one degree” and “Two degrees is
suicide”

Di-Aping’s speech crystallised the room into action. A
demonstration was immediately planned, and a few minutes
after its end the people in the room converged on a central
point in the Bella Center and began chanting and shouting —
attracting a storm of media interest. (Di-Aping later
addressed a formal press conference where he repeated some
the points made in the African meeting, apparently no less
eloquently but far less emotionally.)

Some commentators have suggested that the leak of the so-called
“Danish” proposal will not significantly affect the progress
of the talks here. After witnessing Di-Aping speaking to the
African group, I am not so sure. It’s becoming increasingly
clear that many rich countries are seeking a deal that falls
well short of what the vast majority of current science
indicates we need to do to avoid extremely damaging climate
change, and that representatives of people in poor countries
are becoming increasingly fed up at their ongoing
marginalisation by the rich governments. The divide between
the civil servants and NGO managers lazily discussing career
options on the train across Copenhagen and those that have
grasped the urgency of climate change is becoming more apparent.

With clear, credible voices like Di-Aping’s articulating the
frustration of so many, are we seeing a fracturing of the
Copenhagen process? Is this conference, which seems to be
trying so hard to be just another ‘normal’ conference,
with ordered meeting halls, name tags and too many glossy
brochures floating around, going to turn into something really
historic and interesting?

A note: Di-Aping mentioned in his speech that he was named
after the famous Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, even though
he was Sudanese (“My parents were Lumumbist”). Patrice Lumumba
was of course murdered after asserting himself too strongly
against western powers, and replaced by the famously corrupt
but US- and Belgian-friendly Mobutu Sese Seko.

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