With “dragon woman” out, Philppine climate team loses teeth

By: Patricia Faustino on January 31st, 2010

COPENHAGEN, Denmark – On the eve of President Gloria Arroyo’s arrival for the most important meeting on climate change in over a decade, the Philippine delegation is in apparent disarray. Some of the country’s foremost climate change experts suddenly found themselves excluded, including diplomat and staunch negotiator Bernaditas de Castro Muller, nicknamed “dragon woman” by her adversaries.

Meanwhile, it is still unclear who is in the official Philippine delegation. Some experts were already in Copenhagen when they learned that they had been excluded. Without accreditation, they could not enter conference venue the Bella Centre for several days. Some Filipinos are literally out in the cold, lining up with other would-be delegates at the centre’s gates in freezing temperatures.  Heavy snow is expected in Copenhagen this week.

While the final list of delegates, including those accompanying Arroyo as she touches down here on Wednesday, is still a mystery, it is already widely known who has been omitted.

Aside from Muller, other key persons removed from the Philippine delegation included Joyceline Goco of the Inter-agency Committee on Climate Change at the Environmental Management Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and Dr. Rodel Lasco, an internationally-renowned forestry expert and member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Representatives from a number of civil society groups were also removed.

Exclusion of a hardliner

The most stunning omission was of Muller, who has more than 20 years of negotiating experience and has become famous in climate change circles for her hard-line stance towards rich countries, earning her the nickname “dragon woman” from grudgingly respectful Western peers.

Muller, a retired Philippine diplomat now based in Switzerland, has been one of the most vocal negotiators in calling for developed countries to fulfill their obligations under the Kyoto Protocol (1997) to fully fund emission reduction and climate adaptation efforts in poor countries.

Muller’s role in negotiating for the interests of the developing world ‘cannot be underestimated’, said Lim Li Lin, legal adviser to the Malaysia-based NGO Third World Network. ‘You really have few negotiators with the institutional memory and depth of understanding about the process, convention, and issues being discussed here. Clearly, [Mrs. Muller] was seen as a threat to the developed countries who have a lot at stake in these negotiations.’ Muller has since been “adopted” as an adviser by Sudan, enabling Muller to continue negotiating on behalf of the G77 bloc of 130 poor countries but without waving the Philippine flag.

Without an official explanation, conspiracy theories abound about Muller’s exclusion from her country’s delegation, including US pressure to have the “dragon woman” removed.

‘A lot of things have changed in the Philippine position since Hillary (Clinton) visited the country’, said Ma. Teresa Nera-Lauron of Ibon Foundation, one of several Filipino NGOs currently in Copenhagen to observe the talks. ‘We believe that [the President’s] visit here with other world leaders will only affirm the Philippines’ support of the US position in the climate talks.’

She was referring to the overnight visit of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Nov. 12-13 to visit victims of the recent cyclones and meet with Filipino youth.

Lauron said that the President’s arrival on Wednesday will be met with protests by Filipino civil society groups currently here in Copenhagen.

Muller herself has not commented on her exclusion but a close associate of hers told GMANews.TV: ‘We received information from a number of sources that it was [President Arroyo] herself who decided that Ditas [Muller] should not be in the Philippine delegation in Copenhagen.’

Presidential Adviser on Climate Change Heherson Alvarez rejects the notion, saying: ‘The President doesn’t know Mrs. Muller and the cutting process undertaken by the executive office was arbitrary. Presidents are not aware of the nitty-gritties’, said Alvarez. Alvarez said that the staff of the office of the Executive Secretary slashed the recommended list of delegates in order to keep the delegation “lean.”

‘In previous climate talks I have been the one preparing the list of negotiators… This time the President is the head of delegation – because of protocol I had to give way to her’, Alvarez said.

Alvarez has served as the Philippines’ chief negotiator to the yearly U.N. climate talks since his appointment in 2008.

Philippine position on carbon emissions

Philippine civil society groups have expressed concern that these recent developments, particularly the non-inclusion of Muller in the delegation, may signal a shift in the government’s previous position that developed countries need to make “deep and early cuts” in carbon emissions.

Last November during a cabinet meeting in Bohol Mrs. Arroyo said that the Cabinet must form a position that ‘does not insist on deep and early cuts but must be binding.’ Calling it useless to push for ambitious reductions in carbon emissions when rich countries such as the US and China are not willing to commit, the President said that ‘cuts and amounts should not be sticking points’ but that sacrifices must be made to get binding commitments.

In Copenhagen, however, Alvarez gave assurances that the Philippine government has not changed its stance: ‘Our position on deep and early cuts still stands and any suggestions to the contrary, that the Philippines is reneging or budging on this, are not true.’

With its small carbon footprint and meager political clout, the Philippines is not considered an influential country in climate change negotiations. However, the Philippine delegation has traditionally played a leadership role within the G77 bloc of 130 poor countries by taking on progressive positions championed by experienced Filipino negotiators like Muller and Tony La Viña of the Ateneo School of Government (who remains on the Philippine delegation).

In previous years, Muller has often stood up to remind intransigent countries such as the US about the ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ in the climate negotiations among signatories to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Although rapidly growing China has overtaken the US as the world’s largest polluter, Muller points out that 80 per cent of the accumulated greenhouse gases in the atmosphere came from the Industrial Revolution since the 19th century and not to activities in recent decades.

In terms of per capita emissions, even big developing countries such as China and India lag behind industrialized countries, in which each citizen produces huge amounts of carbon emissions compared to individuals in poorer countries.

On Monday, the talks were suspended for several hours when developing countries under the G77 bloc walked out to protest the refusal of developed countries to discuss new emission reduction targets under the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol. Negotiations only resumed when informal talks assured the boycotting countries that talks on emission reductions would go on.

As the climate talks reach the high-level segment on Wednesday, with government ministers arriving and making hard decisions on the negotiations, rich and poor countries are still wrestling over major issues.

The sticking points include how much and how fast developed nations must cut emissions; what emerging economies like China, India, and Brazil must do to slow the growth of their own emissions; and how much money rich countries should channel to the poorest countries so they can shift to low-carbon economies and cope with the adverse impacts of climate change, such as destructive cyclones.

Developing countries are indignant over what they perceive as developed countries’ reluctance to set emission targets high enough to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. Developed countries have insisted that emerging economies must also promise to set carbon reduction targets.

In previous interviews, Muller has described the insistence on reductions from big developing countries such as China, India and Brazil as an “inequitable demand that constrains the economic growth of newly-developing nations”.

She said developing countries are expecting “full, effective and sustained implementation of the convention and not change it, revise it, or have another agreement” in Copenhagen.

Delegation’s revolving doors

Muller’s exclusion from the Philippine delegation may now bring into question the Philippines’ relationship to the rest of G77, according to Lin of the Third World Network. ‘We really hope this does not signify a change in position for the Philippine government because it would be a real shame if the Philippines went from being a leader in the G77 to becoming a country that is creating problems within G77 and undermining the positions of developing countries’, she said.

The G77 bloc is already plagued by rumors of rifts between larger developing nations, the most vulnerable and least developed nations, and oil-producing countries.

The Department of Foreign Affairs has so far not agreed to provide Filipino journalists here with the most recent list of accredited and nominated members of the Philippine delegation…but reports of who’s in and who’s out conjure up the image of a revolving door.

As acting head of the delegation prior to the president’s arrival on Wednesday, Alvarez used his authority last December 10 to reinstate at least eight technical staff and civil society representatives who were previously removed from the delegation.

This included three technical staff members of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Climate Change (or ‘OPACC’): Jasper Inventor of Greenpeace International, who for the past two years has been the Philippines’ key negotiator for developed countries’ new carbon reduction commitments under the Kyoto Protocol’s second phase; environmental attorney Ron Gutierrez of Upholding Life and Nature (or ‘ULAN’); and Nong Rangasa of the Albay provincial governor’s office.

Rangasa told GMANews.TV that before they were reinstated, ‘We had to remain on the sidelines because we were not recognized by our government. We were not on the list. Those who could not get reinstated to the list had to join other delegations of other countries and NGOs. So the Philippine representation here is now scattered.’ Albay province has become an international model in recent years for climate adaptation efforts at the local government level.

Nong Rangasa says that non-inclusion of other members of the delegation will hamper its effectiveness. ‘Now we are undermanned and therefore we can’t cover all the issues. We will have difficulty delivering on the interests of the country.’

Alvarez also said that the absence of these persons with specific expertise in the climate talks has forced current members of the delegation to take on extra tasks.

During the first three days of the conference in Copenhagen, only six persons were present as part of the Philippine delegation to the climate talks. These included two officials from the Departments of Agriculture and Foreign Affairs plus four others from non-government organizations and academe.

Since then, more members of the delegation have arrived in Copenhagen, including an undersecretary from the DENR and representatives from the Philippine offices of World Wildlife Fund and Conservation International.

– With Yasmin Arquiza in Copenhagen, and Howie Severino