Papua New Guinea Pressure Leads U.S. to Sign "Bali-Roadmap"

Guy Djoken

Papua New Guinea pressed the U.S. to a 180 degree turn at the recent U.N. climate change summit. At the end of the two week United Nations climate change summit last Saturday, the Bush administration flip-flopped under the pressure lead by the representative of Papua New Guinea and decided to sign on to the "Bali Roadmap" towards a new comprehensive agreement to stop human activity from causing irreversible damage to the earth's atmosphere and ecosystems.

Nobel Peace Laureate & Former Vice President Al Gore who was present at the conference protested the obstruction of a compromise by the US delegation and advised participants last Thursday not to get angry, but to wait for the 2008 U.S. Presidential election according to a report by AP.

The U.S. delegation resistance resulted in a "We cannot accept" from the U.S. speaker at the conference. Afterward, Mr. Kevin Conrad, a brave member of the Papua New Guinea representation stated the following words that are now claimed to have prompted the 180 degree turn by the U.S. delegation at the conference "We ask and seek your (U.S.) leadership but if you are not ready to lead, please get out of the way".

Following these remarks, the U.S. delegation relented its opposition to a request from developing nations for more technological help in fighting climate change and signed on the compromise. For those following the Bush administration, this humiliating flip-flop is a total reversal of the doctrine with which the Bush-Chaney led administration hoped to remake the world. Their rhetoric has been filled with Wild West slogans of getting enemies "dead or alive" or "you are either with us or against us" along with a failure to follow International treaties during the past 7 years.

One of the most outrageous illustration of the administration arrogance was the Bush-Chaney new concept of "Unsigning" Treaty well documented by Human Rights watch in an article titled United States "Unsigning" Treaty on War Crimes Court. The article may be found at http://hrw.org/english/docs/2002/05/06/usint3903.htm

This misguided stubbornness and reversal witnessed this weekend may be more clearly understood after reading "The End of Cowboy Diplomacy" published by Time in June 2006 by Mike Allen and Romesh Ratnesar -
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1211578,00.html

They wrote the following: "The biggest illusion of the Bush Doctrine was the idea that the U.S. could carry out a strategy as ambitious as reshaping the Middle East and changing unfriendly regimes without a degree of international legitimacy and cooperation to back it up."

In any case, the reversal was welcomed by those who had been looking forward for a fruitful United Nations climate change summit.

The "Bali roadmap" deal does not address any level of emissions reductions or any international commitment by any country but rather, underlines the commitment from major players such as the European Union, Developing Countries and the U.S. to work closely together with sound proposals by 2009.

By then we hope to have a new President in the White House who believes in science and real diplomacy.