Let's all have a conference about how we might re-arrange the deckchairs.
I was speaking earlier this week with some people who are endeavouring to get a 'project' off the ground. The project appears at first glance to have some very laudable commercial aims, but after a short while it became apparent that the people involved were focussing on which Government and EU grants they could get and what the likely sums would be.
It would obviously be inappropriate to name the people or provide any details of the centre they wish to establish, but essentially it's all about exchanging information. This, I soon came to understand, was a euphemism for holding meetings, presentations and conferences. The good people involved reeled off a list of grants and schemes to which they might apply, referring to some with a degree of certainty. The ministry of this, the department of that – the list was surprisingly long, and not just in the sense that it stretched from London to Brussels.
Lunch followed and I learned that all the people involved had some degree of expertise in this area – and by 'this area' I mean getting hold of Government and EU funding and then holding meetings and staging conferences. It's what they do.
They talked fondly about how Prof. so and so from Scotland had secured funding for his project and how Dr. Wotsit had lunch with the Minister last week and had put a word in. This application was merely a formality but that one was quite a lengthy process and might take some time. Indeed they thought it might not be worth pursuing until someone sagely pointed out that they would have to be seen to be applying for it, lest they be accused of going for the 'low-hanging fruit'.
The people involved, all well-educated individuals uniformly urbane to the point of concern, had built well- paid careers from obtaining and living off funding whilst they 'exchanged information', 'provided a meaningful forum', 'published reports' and so on. It would need premises, and of course a secretariat, not to mention a website and some published information. An initial grant to explore how the project might be put together was almost certainly forthcoming, and so the costs of time, travel, meetings and sustenance for the exploratory talks was probably secure.
With the media seemingly obsessed with benefit scroungers at the moment, it struck me that I could find very little difference between said scroungers and these people, save perhaps a clutch of PhDs. They live in a
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kind of half-world in which the word 'funding' represents some kind of goal at which they can aim. Secure the funding and we can take it easy for a few years – but make sure it's all spent otherwise it'll be reduced in the future. It's junket time.
Which brings me to the point. (At last, you might well say..)
In doing my research for the Cancun Conference – something I'm finding difficult to develop any enthusiasm for – I read the following:
'The United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held in Cancun, Mexico, from 29 November to 10 December 2010, encompasses the sixteenth Conference of the Parties (COP) and the sixth Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP), as well as the thirty-third sessions of both the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), and the fifteenth session of the AWG-KP and thirteenth session of the AWG-LCA.'
'To discuss future commitments for industrialized countries under the Kyoto Protocol, the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP) established a working group in December 2005 called the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP). In Copenhagen, at its fifth session, the CMP requested the AWG-KP to deliver the results of its work for adoption by CMP 6 in Cancun.'
Those are the opening paragraphs on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. I promise that this is real. See for yourself at
http://unfccc.int/2860.php
Now am I the only one worried by the fact that they talk about which conference arising from which conference encompassing which meeting and so on? Am I naïve in thinking that the opening paragraphs of the site might – just might - be about the challenges facing the world – especially in the light of the dismal performance at Copenhagen?
As I learned from my earlier meeting earlier – the process itself has grown to the point where it has replaced the issue it is supposed to serve. Prepare for despair, say I.
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