Chapter 20
Harry sat in his downtown office looking out at the snow falling from the Ottawa skies. Large wet flakes settled in a gentle frosty cover over his Kent Street view. He enjoyed a rare quiet moment on a Wednesday afternoon. Initial negotiations with this HICCC entity were going quite well, even Minister Kendall’s office agreed. The OECD, with Canada as one of the more outspoken on budgetary responsibility, was certainly losing no ground. Unlike the COP gatherings, these negotiations were being carried out via digital media interface, just as any weekly business meeting. This week’s meeting postponement had contributed to this unnatural lull in activity and he glanced down his to-do list on screen. Selecting a wooden pencil from his standing-at-attention sharpened container, he noticed an almost forgotten item. Whirled the pencil into a practiced spin, he perused the forgotten note.
The Sens beat the Leafs that home opener game. He tapped the pencil end on his Senators red with black trim Post-It stickies. When he and Alan left the Scotia Place they hadn’t stopped talking about the game all the way home. That’s right, they never had talked shop again that evening. What a game it had been though, Spezza scored twice in two unbelievable plays. He smiled at his recall…no wonder this item never came up again that night. Should have been in his mind just by association with that game. Oh well, call Lewis at B&E, he would do that now. He grabbed his office landline and punched in the number with the back end of the pencil.
“Hey Lewis, how’s things at Braunstein and Eichel? You in management yet?”
“You are speaking to the new CEO, my friend. You considering a move?”
“Gonna stick with the Harold Heine team for a bit. Quite a few contracts drifting our way. Climate Minister, you know.”
“You guys are quite involved with the High Impact meetings, are you not?”
“That’s our second biggest contract now. You guys too?”
“Some, yeah.”
“On that note Lewis, can I pick your brain? Any chance B&E has a confirmed list of the countries claiming High Impact status?”
“We likely have the same as you,” Lewis said. “Pretty vague.”
“Really? ‘Cause they’re all self-designated as high impact, right? I mean after what, an entire year of negotiations we still don’t know what kind of hodgepodge we’re actually dealing with.” Harry tapped his pencil.
“We do know HICCC stands for High Impact Climate Change Countries,” Lewis said. “Common sense tells us which countries would most likely make up the consortium.”
“Yeah, okay. We know Bangladesh holds the chair right now, but there’s this long list of countries like Mozambique, Myanmar, Cambodia. Most of them are so obscure until you get to Thailand. Nice place I hear, I mean our friends have been there on vacation. But what about Pakistan?”
“Nuclear armed,” Lewis said. “That states plenty.”
“Right,” Harry stopped tapping.
“And then would Pakistan be signed up as affiliate or are they an associate member? You guys seen that speculated list of supporting non-members? Not one associate and certainly no supporting non-members participate in negotiations, nor are they holding the chair at any time. The big question is where do China or India stand in the picture?”
“Or Brazil?” Harry wondered.
“We’re still trying to find out.”
“The Minister has an interest in any booming new economy.”
“Off the record, we have those same membership questions bouncing around our office,” Lewis said. “Then there’s their research fund. That’s the issue our CEO wants to know more about than anything.”
“Sounds like we sail similar waters.”
“Nothing new,” Lewis said. “So what’s on your mind?”
“Hey, I just called about this infogram I got copied on. You know Allan Turkon with our firm? So this infogram...let me see...from a couple weeks back reads about some kind of African tour you were on…”
“African?” Lewis said. “Yeah that was part of what the HICCC calls a continental educational tour or what they officially call their HICCC global enlightenment program. Ecuador, Niger—that’s the one in Africa and Bangladesh, one country for each continent. I probably cc’d Al the Niger summary part of the trip. What do you wanna know?”
“So the tour was focused on informing, right? I mean from what you say I get the impression it wasn’t exactly at the table negotiating,” Harry said. “So on what are you now enlightened?”
“Okay let’s see, that was a one week tour back in the middle of September—a full seven days. The African component was in a city in Africa called Niamey, a French colony in the past so the name is French. Like I said, in Niger. For reference that’s geographically sub-Saharan in a region they call the Sahel. The HICCC runs their presentation kind of like a show and tell. They do run a show, but don’t tell all that much. You know how their publicity campaigns have been running where they negotiate around ethics and global cooperation. On this tour they attempt to show a connection between their upfront view of local climate change events like floods and droughts with global emissions. And they put the onus on recorded emissions sources.”
“But we all know how difficult it is to connect any weather event directly with climate change. Even the scientists admit that,” Harry cut in. “Anyone can see our negotiating edge right there.”
“Yeah, well, they quote scientific publications…they passed around a few recent studies.” Harry let others do the reading, picking up on research through conversation instead.
“Okay, anyway I think we’ve seen one or two of their high impact climate change brochures.” Harry switched pencil for silver Sens pen and leaned back in his chair. “But you say they take you right there. Like they want to bring you right into the action, to share in the experience firsthand.”
“That’s it in a nutshell. They took us around to a few rice paddies and peanut plantations. Not much of a crop this year, I mean don’t get me wrong ‘cause I’m not from the farm. But they did show us the crop reports at the Minister of Agriculture’s office. That part I get. Then they took us around, you know, to see the faces of the malnourished African children. Around the city, then out in the countryside to the villages.”
“Sounds like a sympathy call.”
“Nothing new, you could say. A basic ethical argument. Their birth rate is certainly part of their dilemma. ”
“Why countries like that have so many kids is always beyond me. A real no brainer when you’re short on food, right? Wouldn’t you want to allude to that birth rate with their representative? I mean no matter what actually gets heard? Whatever’s gonna come out of any African talks anyway? They’ve been trying to negotiate with this kind of stuff for years.”
“They do point out to industrialized countries that if we help educate their people, especially the girls, that that would be in our own best interests. You know the statistics, eh? Education of girls has the highest impact on population control. Anyway they present their issue as a self-benefiting investment. To us.”
“So we’re given an opportunity to finance their Education Department.” Harry gave his pen the maximum spin. “I can just see how that would fly with the Climate Minister’s office.”
“They had an HICCC representative there. She told us they want to hold the OECD HICCC negotiation meetings right there in Niamey. Like they’re petitioning a sign of good will from OECD.”
Harry poked his finger down to stop the spinning pen.
“You’ve got to be kidding. In some obscure African city? Can you imagine the logistics Lewis? Good thing the initial conference was in Paris.” Harry smiled, feeling an inner smirk. “I mean international meetings need real airport connections and a drone free zone where you can expect people to show up.”
“Yes, if I were the HICCC I’d think about setting up some kind of continental office first. In Niamey if they want. Or they could at least set up some kind of a regional operation there.”
??
?That’s a place I’ll never go.” Harry flicked his pen one spin at a time, wincing. “That’d be the day I come talk to B&E.”
Lewis told him the tour report came across his desk just yesterday for final sign off—should be with Minister Kendall’s office early next week. But, Harry wondered, what was in that the Minister didn’t already know? If they wanted to allude to their idea that countries like Canada caused climate change more than countries like Bangladesh or Niger, where would that get them in the real world? They could say industrialized countries dumped the most carbon into the atmosphere, and that OECD members benefited the most. But how could they take that to the table?
“Truth be told, Harry, I get a feeling they want us to deduce our own fault in the matter. To admit openly to them, to the world saying ‘my bad’ and even apologize. A developed countries grand mea culpa. A valiant effort on their part. But highly unlikely I would say…”
“…especially when it comes to shifting any budget.” Harry picked up on the thought. “That’s when the brakes screech the loudest. What grounds do they have to stand on anyway?”
“Let Minister Kendall’s office make that call. I mean, how do we interpret China?”
“Ouch! Always working on that one over here.”
“You guys too?” Lewis asked affably. He continued. “So after Niger, we were off to Bangladesh.”
“Right.”
“So tell me Harry,” Lewis said. “Are you guys following the HICCC fund?”
“Dunno, we know they can finance a few things.”
“Oh yeah, you can tell by their ad campaign. Sounds like that fund’s growing too. Anyone, any person, corporation or country can contribute anonymously. That’s what they say. We’re fairly sure that fund financed this tour.”
“China,” Harry quipped.
“Dunno. They say a large part of that fund is designated towards climate change research. Officially, anything any OECD country isn’t researching, they want to take on. They plan refugee migration routes and likely patterns pending various sea level scenarios. If I recall, one scenario went with an abrupt sea level change if the West Antarctic sea ice shelf slips off all at once.”
“Crazy stuff.”
“Yeah. Some of its more realistic. Storm surges from major weather events, so British Columbia and New Brunswick and their modified building codes—I think they project a sea level rise of a meter eighty years from now.”
“We consult with the Dutch.” Harry knew the prescribed response. “Adaptation does create employment.”
“You’d like the alternate food sources like insect farming—I could see that in Africa. What’s your take on that obscure idea of geoengineering. You guys following that one?”
“Yeah, maybe, no not really. What the heck for? Too many insane ideas out there. None of that’s really going to happen so why waste the time?”
“How about the legal end? They really pushed that one when we were in Bangladesh. You must know of the Bangladeshi and who else now, Philippines law suits in world court? Base on that Dutch precedent. They’re looking for fines levied on industrialized countries, binding or not, they expect a world reaction. That kinda thing make for real substance for you?”
“Well, depends who can hires the best lawyer, doesn’t it?” Harry leaned forward. “That’s the way the world works.”
“Yeah, I know. The U.S. doesn’t even recognize the world court, even if most European countries do. Anyways Harry, good chatting with you.”
“Later Lewis.”
Harry put his pen down in the open spot, giving it another maximum spin. Kind of a crap conversation—like what kind of crap was all that? In some shithole part of the world where you get snuffed out by a drone missile. And why would Allan be interested? Oh well. He had to give Angie a call; let her know about Sten’s hockey practice.