Bolivia versus the rest of the world (News Feature)

By Georg Ismar ( Dec 11, 2010, 15:01 GMT

Cancun, Mexico - It is 3:31 a.m. and Patricia Espinosa has had enough.

'The objections and complaints will be noted duly.' Then she bangs the gavel. 'The decision has been made.'

The Cancun compromise climate deal, including efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions, billions in aid to island nations faced with inundation and a 2-degree goal limit for global warming, is adopted at last. Espinosa looks very pale.

For minutes she has been stressing that the door remains wide open for the Bolivians, but that one nation cannot torpedo years of work towards an historic agreement.

German Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen afterward said Mexico's foreign minister's very broad interpretation of UN rules was the crowning highlight of impressive conference leadership.

Forgotten are the images of Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, who helplessly chaired the Copenhagen summit. Even so, there are whispered doubts in Cancun as to whether Espinosa would have steamrollered all resistance had the United States been involved.

Espinosa's opponent in the climactic climate conclusion, with everything at stake, is Pablo Solon. He speaks quietly, calmly. All is still in Ceiba Hall of the Moon Palace Hotel complex. The head of the Bolivian delegation says he was treated badly. Says security guards did not let him in. And Espinosa did not let him speak.

His main objection: The draft proposals are too lax to stop global warming. And so he became stubborn and stressed, 'We are representatives of a small nation, but representatives of a nation with principles.'

One country versus about 190 others, and that went on for hours. What started as a highly touted stellar moment for multi-lateralism is reduced to a climate poker game with uncertain outcome.

Repeatedly, Espinosa is called upon to make it clear to Solon that he is totally isolated. But he blithely explains again and again why he has no intention on this evening of changing his opinion.

Environment Minister Roettgen meanwhile waits to see whether Bolivia can be mollified through new wording in the agreement. In front of him is an empty box of sandwiches, the coffee is all gone, and everyone wants to go to bed.

Roettgen has a hunch at about 2 a.m. that the conference chair will simply bang the gavel to end Solon's harangue. And when that finally does happen, Roettgen speaks of a near historic jurisprudence decision by Espinosa. One single nation cannot be permitted to block climate progress, stresses Roettgen.

Espinosa pulls it off beautifully in Cancun. The foreign minister receives praise and extended applause. As long-year representative of Mexico with international organisations in Vienna, the 52-year-old diplomat well knows how the United Nations ticks.

Espinosa gave impetus to the summit more than anything else through her idea for a group comprising some 50 nations to push forward proposals for the negotiations. Then came a compromise document which cunningly included all positions and which can lay the groundwork for a long-sought global climate treaty.

While the compromise does not bring climate protection decisively forward, it at least salvages the UN process.

'It brings a glimmer of hope that threshold countries like China and India can also begin to reduce their harmful emissions under a UN framework,' says Martin Kaiser of Greenpeace.

Ironically, the Cancun meeting, where expectations had been so low, shows that the United Nations can budge climate protection forward. Indeed, it is the second big success for the UN this year following the breakthrough at the endangered species conference in Japan.

Every is stressing that Cancun has revived the dormant UN process. People are saying Mexico was on top of the situation in taking the initiative to hammer out such an all-encompassing compromise.

The Germans played a small role as well. In Cancun, Roettgen hyped the economic advantages of climate protection. He pointed to Germany's pioneering efforts to cut emissions by 40 per cent by 2020 and prioritizing the 'green economy' as the only future-oriented stance.

'Those who wait until they see an upward curve in the newspapers will have waited to long,' he says.

But Mexico's inclusion of all rival participants cannot hide the fact that the European Union will emerge from this meeting more divided than ever over whether to cut greenhouse emissions by 2020 by 30 per cent instead of 20, so as to maintain the impetus of the Cancun meeting.

Right after the end of the meeting, the almost euphoric German environment minister stepped before the news cameras to state that the EU must quickly go for 30 per cent - and then went straight to bed.

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