Bangkok fight

Bangkok, Thailand may be the world's capital of 'smiles' but it's no smiling business at the climate change negotiations here. It's another big bare knuckle fight over the future of the earth.

Yours truly heading into the climate talks in the world's capital of 'smiles' - Bangkok

Parties, mainly Annex I (rich countries) have clashed with non-Annex I Parties (developing countries) yet again. Negotiating parties are split down the middle pretty much on every single substantive issue at the informal inter-sessional on climate change underway in Bangkok, Thailand. It's more than a fight over agenda and/or process. It's really about the future of the planet, how to save it from possible meltdown. 

Rich countries want two of the three negotiating tracks terminated at the end of 2012 in Doha, at COP 18, but developing countries which stand to lose the most from an overheating planet, think and rightly so, that the work streams of these two tracks (AWG-KP and AWG-LCA) under the Bali Action Plan have yet to be completed and therefore can and should only be closed when they have delivered on their mandates as per the Climate Convention. The third and newest work stream is the AWG-ADP (Durban decision).

Shutting down the work of the AWG-KP and the AWG-LCA at this stage will effectively leave rich countries off the hook to jump ship (to the AWG-ADP) without actually honouring their prior international commitments under these two tracks. And the big question is what will be the guarantee that any agreements reached under the Durban mandate in future will be honoured by wealthy countries given their failure, morally and legally, to do what they pledged to undertake under the two older negotiating tracks. So, this fight is about trust as much as it is about substance.