Postcard from Doha - Tick-tock

04 December 2012

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 title has been used already. Maybe a previous Conference of Parties? Or Bono or someone? It about sums things up here on Monday evening. By my reckoning, there's probably no more than 50 hours of negotiations left, and that doesn't factor in much sleeping time either.

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

And agriculture? No deal. For now anyway. In 2013 the countries will reconvene and try - again - to 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. Most of the delegates shared my disappointment; the interventions by all the groups of countries this evening could best be described as a collective grumble.

At least civil society has woken up a bit. Today the conference center echoed with a spot of shouting, compelling negotiators to reach a deal. 

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. Follow her postcards from the UN Climate Change Conference in Doha, Qatar.