Postcard from Doha – Tick-tock

Photo: Beekeeping in Ethiopia’s Bale mountains is helping farmers to earn an income from the forest without resorting to deforestation.

By Michelle Winthrop

I’m pretty sure that’s been used already. Maybe a previous COP? Or Bono or someone? About sums things up here on Monday evening. By my reckoning, there’s probably no more than about 50 viable hours of negotiations left, and that doesn’t factor in much sleeping time either.

Monday closed with a very sobering President’s stocktake of progress to date. The list of areas where lots is still to be done is very long. Adaptation, climate finance, loss and damage, continuity plans for the Kyoto Protocol after 1 January…

And agriculture? Two words: No deal. For now anyway. In 2013 the countries will reconvene and try – again – to at least agree on what our major knowledge gaps are. Given how crucial agriculture is to poor people’s experience of climate change, and to finding the right solutions, the inability to agree is depressing indeed. At least most of the delegates shared my disappointment; the interventions by all the groups of countries this evening could best be described as a big old collective grumble.

And at least civil society has woken up a bit. Today the conference centre echoed with a spot of shouting and argy-bargy, compelling negotiators to reach a deal. Much to the visible alarm of the Qatar security chaps, who don’t seem overly used to dealing with argy-bargy!

Not much cause for optimism today, but at least the politicians start to arrive tomorrow. It’s now political. Officially.

– Michelle is Farm Africa’s country director in Ethiopia.