South Africa helps save Bali declaration

It's over, and Bali negotiators are limping home after a gruelling two weeks. But they nearly didn't reach closure. In the early hours of Saturday, US representative Paula Dobriansky again blamed developing countries for not showing commitment to targets for themselves. This has been an issue for the US since the original Kyoto Protocol was agreed, and was the reason Washington refused to sign on in 2001; and it has been a sticking point throughout the Bali conference.

The EU was pushing hard to have developed countries adopt emissions targets in line with the IPCC summary report issued earlier this year, but eventually backed down in the face of objections from the US, Canada and Japan, who insisted that developing countries needed to show stronger commitment. In the final hours of the conference, India had requested a change in the wording of the final declaration that would place greater emphasis on the need for sustainable development in developing countries, and for technology transfer to assist developing countries to migrate towards lower emissions. The US rejected India's change.

Global Deal reports that the eleventh-hour obstruction by the US was met by strong opposition:

Japan speaks next, giving the United States some kind of fuzzy support. But South Africa issues a ferocious and articulate denunciation of the American position. Developing countries have gone much further than they needed to. It's the United States that has failed to take on strong commitments.

According to Wired, South Africa was followed by the Papua New Guinea delegate:

"We seek your leadership," Kevin Conrad told the Americans. "But if for some reason you are not willing to lead, leave it to the rest of us. Please get out of the way."

After a bleak few moments, the US backed down and expressed a desire for a shared vision and a Bali roadmap. According to Global Deal, Dobriansky says "In a spirit of co-operation and responding directly to the words of South Africa, she is prepared to withdraw her objections and go with the consensus position." South Africa welcomed this new US position, and "the delegate 'interprets' the text that applies to developing countries and shows that it can be interpreted as meeting the needs of the poorest people."

A few minutes later, agreement was reached on a Bali declaration, but it was clear that many issues have been left for the negotiations that will continue from here. Bangladesh expressed a view that seems to be felt by a number of the poorest developing countries: that treating the G77 countries (the negotiating block of 155 developing countries) as equals unfairly discriminates against the poorer ones.

If this emerges as a significant split, it may make things tougher for South Africa, as one of the stronger G77 countries with high levels of carbon emissions. I suggested on Friday that targets should recognise historic advantage gained through carbon-intensive industrialisation. This approach benefits South Africa in relation to the developed world, but places a greater burden on South Africa in comparison to poorer countries.

The hard work is only just beginning.

[Update on 19 December: Here is the text of the Bali Declaration signed by 200 scientists on 6 December. Try as I might, I can't find the text of the final agreement reached on 15 December. Here is the unedited Bali Action Plan (the five-page document that all the fuss was about). Here is the Conference President's closing statement.]

Bali-hoo on day 12

It had to happen. The left hook I mentioned yesterday. We just didn't know where it would come from, although many would have guessed it would be the US. And they'd be right. Global Deal reports:

But the Americans have just dropped something of a bombshell. An hour or so ago, they read out new text to a meeting of ministers that are looking to push through a new agreement. A copy has just reached me here in the lobby outside.

The core of the US proposal is that developed and developing countries should be treated in the same way, with countries taking on targets according to "their level of economic development and significance" or some similar formulation.

Blogger David Steven suggests this is not just an amendment to text that negotiators had been working on in the early hours of Friday morning, but a completely new proposal, designed to provoke. The question is, why? Bali COP 13 is now in its final hours, and the answer may only become clear once everyone's gone home and the dust has settled.

What I'm wondering is whether it will really make much difference to the Americans, if they do pass the Climate Security Act. The Act is a protectionist measure that essentially hedges Washington's bets. If developing countries don't adopt carbon emissions targets, the Act will give America the means to block trade from those countries.

There's more than one way to slice the carbon cake, and more than one way to set targets. New Zealand is sensibly approaching their goal of becoming a carbon neutral country by slicing the cake into economic sectors. Bite-sized chunks, as it were, to make it easier to monitor progress and make adjustments along the way. There is no reason to be concerned about countries adopting such a practical approach, but what of the bumbling countries like Canada, or the fast-developing ones like China?

If internationally agreed targets for both developed and developing countries are going to be based on levels of economic development, as the US is suggesting, one way to be truly equitable would be to consider not only current emission levels but also the historic emissions from past economic activity. Just as an assessment of the sustainability of a new building considers the embodied energy in the materials used to construct it, or product labelling might include the carbon emissions from its manufacture (as the US Climate Security Act is proposing), so too entire economies have a level of "embodied carbon" that needs to be considered.

All the steel, concrete and other materials used to build the American Dream represent vast amounts of carbon emissions over centuries. To ignore that historic impact in setting emissions targets would be to severely disadvantage developing countries. This is not to say that they should be allowed to develop as irresponsibly as the more developed countries did; they can grow using leapfrog technologies that have lower ecological impacts. I am just suggesting that it would be grossly unjust to consider only current emissions in the targets.

Of course the US would not like this approach, because it would place a greater responsibility for climate change mitigation on their shoulders, but I think it's time the developing world stood up to Washington's bullying tactics.

a candle in the winds of change

After a week and a half of reading about climate negotiations, I'm experiencing Bali burnout. I can't imagine what it must be like for the poor sods who are actually there in the ring. But if I feel like switching off, it's not so much because it feels like a ten-day carbon binge, but rather because I find the politics disheartening. Week one was easy, no commitment required. Soften everyone up, issue encouraging statements, feel the lay of the land before delivering a left hook in week two.

In all likelihood, the real punchline on the final day will be that there is no knockout blow to global warming. No magic strategy to solve global ills. No elegant solution, just a messy tangle of promises to reach agreement sometime in the next two years. Indeed, that's all some people are hoping for as an outcome of these two weeks: a commitment to negotiate a global deal under the UNFCCC. Not the deal itself.

The trouble with negotiated settlements is that they tend to find the lowest common denominator as the only acceptable solution, and that's not what we're looking for here. We're looking for inspiration, innovation and integrity. Not just minor tweaking, but a dramatic mindshift in how we think about the way things work. One of the subtexts of this conference, ECO notes, is that "given the gravity of climate change, climate stabilisation must become a new lens through which the rules of trade and finance are viewed. Re-prioritised values must guide global governance to recognise ecological limits and to agree on equitable ways to live within them. Proper alignment of trade policy and climate response is an important task that should not to be taken lightly or quickly."

With 2007 feeling like a turning point as more politicians recognised the need to address climate change, I had subconsciously assumed that this would bring negotiators together with a sense of common purpose. Silly me. Politicians haven't changed, they've just been shoved into a dark room and the only thing they are sure of is that they have to find a way out. We need some enlightened leaders. (See Cutting through the Bali knot.)

development equity is key to climate negotiations

One of the sticking points in the Bali COP 13 climate talks is the impact of agreements on trade, and how climate mitigation strategies affect economic and social challenges particularly in developing countries.

A press release was issued on Thursday last week about the Nairobi Agreement, which is an attempt to spread the benefits of CDM across Africa, where only 2.6% of all CDM projects are located. (CDM is the carbon trade mechanism by which heavy emitters in developed countries can offset their emissions by investing in clean projects in the developing world.) The press release points out that much still needs to be done to spread benefits around. It's going to be tough getting political agreement on a workable solution at the global scale. The issues are complex, and the definition of fair and equitable depends on your political perspective.

A draft proposal tabled on Saturday at the Bali talks asks for deeper cuts in emissions by developed nations, but addresses other countries too:

The four-page draft, written by delegates from Indonesia, Australia and South Africa as an unofficial guide for delegates, said developing nations should at least brake rising emissions as part of a new pact.

But developed countries are living off the accumulated benefits of past carbon-intensive industrial activity, and with the extent of socio-economic catching up required by developing countries, any deal that is limited to current emission levels is not going to cut it. So far, there is no sign of changes that will address the exploitative aspects of global trade. The outsourcing of carbon-intensive industries to China and India is just another form of imperialism. The US, Canada and others are changing their economies to be less energy-intensive, but somebody has to make the products that the developed world buys. And now they turn around and tell China and India to clean up: Washington is presently considering legislation that will bar carbon-intensive imports.

Even South Africa, which is a relatively heavy emitter, is unlikely to agree to binding emissions targets in the short term - as suggested by countries like Canada, Australia and Japan - unless there is a clear path to addressing poverty and social development issues.

The Climate Change Performance Index ranks the 56 worst greenhouse gas emitters (where position 1 is the best). In the just-released 2008 index, South Africa is at position 33. Canada, Australia and the US are at the bottom of the heap, at positions 53, 54 and 55 respectively.

Reuters reports:

"Canada and Japan are saying nothing about legally binding emission reductions for themselves after 2012," said Steven Guilbeault of environmental group Equiterre. "They are trying to shift the burden to China and India."

This is a bit rich, considering Canada's poor carbon record and the fact that their commitment to the Kyoto Protocol has steadily disintegrated. The country started the Protocol period with good intentions, but Ottawa's strategies to reach emissions targets were all voluntary and achieved little. Now Ottawa simply doesn't have a meaningful plan, and puts the climate change blame elsewhere.

Political solutions tend to be based on simplified versions of reality. One of the realities that needs to be addressed with a post-2012 successor to the Kyoto Protocol is that carbon emissions are not the only issue. There are alternative ways to set targets, and these need to address developmental concerns.

UNFCCC Executive Secretary, Yvo de Boer, has acknowledged:

...the two-week conference needs to deliver on ongoing issues of particular importance to developing countries. This means moving forward on adapation, transfer of technology and deforestation, as well as strengthening capacity-building.

Let's see if Bali produces the goods. But don't hold your breath - this is just the opening play in what will be a drawn-out series of negotiations.

going slower on biofuels

Good news in South Africa this week is that national cabinet on Wednesday decided to prohibit maize from being used as a feedstock for biofuels. The country will focus on soya beans, sunflower seeds, canola and sugarcane. The hope is that this will help reduce inflationary pressures on the country's staple food source. Cabinet also downgraded the production target for biofuel to make up 2% of liquid fuels by 2013. The draft biofuels strategy had proposed 4.5%.

We need to address the liquid fuels issue, but there are too many risks related to biofuels to rush it as a strategy. If there was a clear and enforceable exit strategy, then biofuels might be a reasonable short-term strategy while we reduce demand for liquid fuels over a longer period, but I would think if we did manage to make biofuels a successful alternative to fossil fuels, we would just hang on to are car-centred way of life even longer, with continually growing carbon emissions and other impacts.

I don't have the inside track on how this cabinet decision was made, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a fairly arbitrary outcome of behind-the-scenes political negotiations, and we are just lucky that the decision-makers took heed of the plea to consider food security. So many studies are prepared as motivation for well-considered decisions, only to have recommendations altered and decisions made without any reference to sound planning. It's scary.

Even scarier is that the Bali negotiations are just as political. I know several people from Cape Town who are there, providing the technical backup, but I wonder how much influence they have on the final outcome. Considering the stakes, I can't believe we're leaving it to the politicians.

***

Update on 8 December 2007:

One of the growing challenges for biofuels (and for many sustainability issues, for that matter) is how to regulate, monitor and authenticate claims. Not all biofuels are created equal. Primafuel is one company that has come up with a way to assess which biofuels are genuinely beneficial, and which are not. How the feedstock is grown, what energy sources are used to process it, and other questions need to be answered so that producers can be held accountable.

boldly go... again

If tropical rainforests are the world's green lung, then coal deposits power its artificial heart.

In South Africa the forestry issue is a minor one in global terms, but the country's huge coal resource should generate a debate similar to the one now raging in Bali over the prevention of deforestation as a strategy to help mitigate climate change. One of the key issues in that debate is meeting local needs while contributing to the global good: establishing a politically acceptable mechanism that will improve sustainability in terms of social, economic and environmental objectives.

Forests and coal deposits are both carbon stores that should be left alone, but the temptation to use them can be irresistable.

The main driving force behind South Africa's exploitation of coal is, for now, the need for electricity to feed economic growth. I say "for now" for two reasons. Firstly because South Africa's national electricity utility, Eskom, intends to expand its nuclear power generation capacity, which will ease pressure on coal somewhat; and secondly because rising oil prices will inevitably increase the economic viability of producing oil from coal (a technology which South Africa's SASOL has developed and is exporting to other coal-rich nations).

South Africa's energy strategy seems to be focused on providing conditions suitable for other industries to grow - and produce jobs - while not seriously considering employment potential in the energy sector itself. (The new biofuels strategy is an exception, but that raises a raft of other issues that I won't explore now.) But Eskom has been caught with its pants down. While government at all levels has been pushing economic growth, and succeeded quite admirably by traditional measures, Eskom hasn't got up off the toilet seat. Result: not enough capacity region-wide, and electricity shortages expected for years to come. Eskom has no viable short-term game plan, and we're sitting in the shit hole. The only way to make up the deficit in the short term is to try something new.

Perhaps more than anywhere else, developing countries need to foster growth that is developmentally advantageous, not just a boost to traditional statistics like GDP, or even the Gini coefficient (which gives an indication of the wealth inequality between rich and poor).

The need to fight climate change provides an opportunity to do just that, but success needs leaders who are willing to step outside the box. Just as the turnaround of Curitiba's public transport system required a city mayor who was somewhat brash in his transformation agenda, other types of public infrastructure investment need someone to boldly go and take a few risks.

(Just where to find such a person is a question for which I have no answer. Ideas, anyone?)

In the area of electricity supply and demand lies an opportunity to reduce reliance on coal and forestall the expansion of South Africa's nuclear industry, while empowering communities by creating local jobs and giving them greater control over energy. I mentioned on Tuesday that the country should be doing all it can to encourage research and development and manufacture of technologies for renewable energy, and this could go hand-in-hand with a new model for electricity provision based on distributed supply.

A variety of small-scale or microgeneration technologies mixed with medium and large-scale facilities would increase the system's flexibility and adaptability, much as biodiversity increases ecological resilience. There are dozens of available technologies that can be installed immediately, unlike any large-scale power plant. And dozens of reasons why and how they can work. From a sustainable development perspective, a diversified system can meet a range of policy objectives. People could be trained to install and maintain power systems, supported by innovative financing; but jobs are only one part of the equation.

The good news for South Africa is that the legal framework is already in place for anyone to feed electricity into the national grid - we just need Eskom to stand aside and let us in.

Oh yes, and Captain Kirk.

boldly go where no public utility has gone before

This week's Bali COP debate around protection of rainforests is vital to a comprehensive climate change strategy, but as the Climate Action Network points out, there is far too little discussion of how to address the needs of people who depend on forests for their livelihoods - many of whom are from poor communities.

It's all very well to suggest that the rest of the world should pay Brazil not to chop down the rainforest, but that's a fraught strategy that can lead not only to disempowerment of local people, but also to struggles over national sovereignty. A large proportion of deforestation activity is illegal anyway, and beyond the ability of national governments to control.

Just who owns the rights to these oxygen factories? They are geographically-bound public utilities of global significance. We might just as well say that the world population should pay Brazil a monthly fee for the air we breathe. It's an invisible, global commodity trade that currently has no monetary value, so let's monetize it and see if that stops deforestation.

The UN could set up a financial system for micropayments from individuals, using an equivalent of the Internet's Paypal, and using mobile phones to transfer funds - who doesn't have a mobile phone? - and provide discounts to people who pay annually in advance. Just for good measure, developing countries could provide their citizens with a Basic Income Grant so that nobody need go without oxygen for want of money.

Imagine the illegal activities that would spring up, like trading oxygen credits on the black market. Enterprising individuals would set up hermetically sealed rooms, or entire buildings, and produce their own oxygen from the most efficient plants they could find. They would build up a supply, stop payments to the UN, and sell bottled oxygen cheaper than the UN rate.

Dedicated agencies (in South Africa, a special branch of the Green Scorpions) would be set up to enforce oxygen regulations and bust the grow houses. Some derelict city districts would become unenforceable no-go zones, guarded by gangsters sniffing pure oxygen.

Even residents of respectable suburban neighbourhoods would watch suspicious activity at rental houses on their streets, fearing an invasion of undesirable characters coming and going under the protection of the night. There would be accusations and denials in the press. Occasionally, a house would be sold, and the buyer would find evidence of an oxygen operation (known colloquially as an O2): unusual plumbing and electrical fittings; dampness and mould on the walls and ceilings; traces of liquid fertilizer.

A public outcry would follow. The local Councillor would assure residents that everything possible would be done to rid the city of this scourge of the carbon age, and eventually an official inquiry would find that the Councillor had been on the take.

"Politicians," we'd say. "Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em." And we'd think back to Bali 2007 and curse the crackpot who came up with the Oxygen Protocol, and the politicians who endorsed it.

two degrees of freedom

Two degrees don't make a whole lot of difference to a sunbather on the beach, but they make one helluva difference to plant and animal life. We can debate the nuances of climate change science all we want, but the fact is that farmers in many regions of the globe are already feeling the pinch - from French vintners finding that their Bordeaux wines are migrating to cooler slopes, to South African farmers experiencing shifts in microclimates affecting their rooibos tea crops and Kenyans chasing their coffee up the mountains.

The Climate Action Network is demanding that the Bali conference discuss emission reductions by Annex 1 countries at a level sufficient to keep global warming to below 2 degrees. Why 2 degrees? It's a number that's stuck in the public consciousness since some of the earlier climate models were published, and the latest IPCC AR4 report, released last month, says:

There is medium confidence that approximately 20-30% of species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average warming exceed 1.5-2.5oC (relative to 1980-1999). As global average temperature increase exceeds about 3.5oC, model projections suggest significant extinctions (40-70% of species assessed) around the globe.

It is sobering to note that 2 degrees of warming is a conservative estimate based on the IPCC's presentation of modelled climate change. Of six different scenarios presented in the latest report, all but one predict more than 2 degrees of warming by the end of this century. Along with the warming comes drought, flooding, pestilence and plague. In short: unpredictability.

Plant species also face extinction, and plant and animal life are obviously intertwined. The full implications of this scenario are impossible to predict, but this description of resilience from biodiversity by Thomas Linders hints at the problem:

Diversity (the number of species within a habitat, such as a wetland) is often considered a measure of ecosystem resilience (the ability of the system to accept disturbances): as the number of species increases, so does the complexity of the interactions of the different species with each other and with their environment; the greater the number of interactions, the more resilient the system is as a whole and the broader its capacity to adapt to change.

Humans are just one species among many, and are just as dependent on life support systems as any other. We need uncontaminated air, water and food; a healthy habitat with room to grow, and manageable levels of stress. And we are rapidly depleting all of these resources, not only through climate change, but also through many other processes that support modern life.

Much of what we do deliberately reduces diversity: tending weed-free suburban lawns and single-crop farms; clearing natural forests for cash crops; spraying pesticides that destroy organisms in the soil; breeding animals for specialisms like more milk or better meat; keeping birds and bugs away from fruit crops. We want uniformity, efficiency, productivity. Homogenised life.

Like rabbits in a cage, we are running out of options. Human resourcefulness might extend our ability to live in suboptimal conditions. Or not. A mathematician friend of mine recently pointed out that models of population growth and decline often show catastrophic decline in the face of resource stresses. Are we any different?

Enjoy your last two degrees. The ride might get a little rough from here.

renewables are closer than you think

I've been learning a thing or two from the current debate on clean coal vs. renewables and efficiency over at Grist. I haven't changed my view that we'll have to live with coal for a considerable time to come, but David Roberts gives me some hope that at least the pace of construction of new coal power plants may slow down. If you're interested, have a look at his full argument (spelled out over several posts, and apparently his debate with Jeremy Carl is not yet over). He presents several reasons why coal (clean or dirty) is a poor choice for China and India - the two countries he sees as presenting the biggest challenge to efforts at reducing carbon emissions.

What interests me in this debate is the assertion that a strategy of investing in renewables and efficiency is financially worthwhile right now even though R&E is not yet cost-competitive with coal, and that China and India should therefore switch strategies now rather than later. His point is that the cost of coal will continue to rise (transport and other input costs will increase) while the cost of renewables will continue to fall. Sooner or later their paths will cross, but electricity suppliers won't suddenly jump from coal to renewables at that point: they will continue to operate the coal plants at elevated costs rather than abandon the fixed investment.

Added to the equation is the direction America seems to be headed, which is to stop importing carbon-intensive products, while the rest of the world is busy fine-tuning a carbon strategy. Soon, many exporting economies running on coal will either have to switch to clean coal or abandon coal altogether. Clean coal implies carbon sequestration, and that is an unproven strategy. So switch to R&E now, the argument goes, to keep markets open and reduce long-term costs.

I have also read elsewhere that some renewable energy sources are tantalizingly close to coal (and possibly cheaper) in cost per kilowatt. Articles appear regularly on some or other technology breakthrough, and there is no shortage of pilot projects testing new ideas around the globe.

Which brings me, in a roundabout way, to South Africa. Years of research at what is now the University of Johannesburg have paid off with the development of thin-film solar panels that are said to be cost competitive with coal. But, for reasons that have not been clearly explained in the press, the first production facility will be in Germany.

Something is not right with this picture.

Many national governments go out of their way to attract investment that fits their profiles of industries that they would like to host, because they create jobs or are synergistic with other industries or simply boost their international image. The South African government, through the Coega Development Corporation, has been courting Alcan to locate an aluminium smelter - an extremely energy-intensive operation - in South Africa. Instead of increasing the country's dependence on centralised energy supply (of which there is a significant shortage in the southern African region), South Africa could use its home-grown solar technology to harness the sun (of which there is plenty) and develop its skills and experience to become a world leader in renewable technologies. This doesn't happen by accident; it takes a concerted effort by government to create an enabling environment.

It's all happening up north - have a look at the massive solar investment being considered along the Mediterranean desert shores of northern Africa and the Middle East to serve EU member nations. [via urban sprout] Hello? Where are the visionaries of the south?

engineering the future

When I think about the UNFCCC gathering of 15,000 climate change scientists, politicians, bureaucrats and activists that begins today in Bali, I can't help wondering about the complicity of planning and design professionals in the lack of progress in reducing global carbon emissions since the Kyoto Protocol was established ten years ago.

The IPCC tells us that climate change is a direct result of billions of lives lived today and over centuries past. The way those lives have been lived has determined the level of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Some of those billions of individuals have been able to exercise considerable choice over the carbon intensity of their lifestyles, while others have had almost no choice at all; but the vast majority been influenced by the decisions of a much smaller group of people - architects, engineers, planners and others who design the built form around us.

When I studied for my civil engineering degree, I had a sense that it was important to learn about the context in which I would be working. I would, after all, be designing "public works" to improve conditions for society, so shouldn't I know what was good for society? I wanted to add subjects from the humanities to my technical courses, but the degree was too restrictive and the best I could do was squeeze in a couple of half-year courses on geography and African studies. That hardly constitutes a well-rounded education.

Some would argue that it's more important that society can trust the technical competency of engineers, and rather leave planning and related disciplines to others. The professions dealing with roads, bridges, buildings and other structures have become more and more specialised over the years in order to be able to deal with increasingly complex design challenges. Design teams these days include a range of specialists, and together they should be able to arrive at an appropriate solution.

That's all very well, but assumes an integrated design process, which rarely happens, despite years of rhetoric on integrated planning. And even when it does happen, engineers are too narrowly focused to accept some of the planners' inputs. And when I say narrowly focused, I refer not only to our state of mind or to our limited education.

True, we talk about the need for a conservative design approach that is safe and efficient and based on tried-and-tested methods, making it difficult for us to accept alternative points of view. And we ignore the fact that many of our professional colleagues around the world have developed new approaches that adhere more closely to sustainability principles. Really, "professional conduct" is no excuse for digging in our heels. If we had a fuller understanding of the implications of our contribution to design, we would be open to new ways of thinking about challenges, while maintaining our civic duty in safe design.

But we are also constrained by design guidelines and standards that are imposed on us, and by client instructions that limit our roles in the design process.

This applies particularly - but not exclusively - to my field of transport planning and traffic engineering, which has a significant impact on city development, social wellbeing, economic development and the health of the natural environment. In many cases the impact of current best practice is negative, because the standards we use were developed before carbon became a currency.

Although I have just said that those standards are imposed on us, that's not quite true. As a profession, we are collectively responsible for developing and maintaining standards to ensure that we are acting responsibly in our design decisions.

From the perspectives of climate change and energy supply, it's time to update those standards. We have helped paint cities and towns into an unsustainable corner. If we were more aware of the implications beyond our narrow technical training, that might not have happened. So society's trust in transport planners is, to some extent, misplaced.

Similarly, structural engineers should be specifying materials, designs and construction methods that reduce the climate impact of buildings and other structures. We need to reduce their embodied energy, reduce the need for carbon-intensive heating and cooling systems, and make it easier to deconstruct structures and resuse their materials at the end of their useful lives.

Engineering is no longer just about applying mathematics and science to find the most efficient design solution for a narrowly defined practical problem. (See Wikip edia for a more rigorous definition of engineering from the American Engineers' Council for Professional Development.) The challenge is to frame the problem in terms that address broader sustainability imperatives. That means education and awareness in our professions and among our clients. We have actually reached a point where some developers have leaped ahead of the design professions, specifying more sustainable engineering systems in buildings, to meet the expectations of a much more discerning market. If engineers and architects don't catch up fast, they will be left behind.

To date, most engineers committed to sustainable development have been self-educated on the technologies, methods, legalities and related issues. Here I have to single out Vernon Collis in Cape Town, who happens to be a former classmate of mine from the University of Cape Town and is now forging new paths in building construction methods, using sheer force of will to overcome the resistance that he and his practice inevitably face in this early stage of turning the industry around. Vernon and his partner Anna Cowen have taken urban sustainable building design to new heights.

Beyond education, we need vision and committment, as Vernon demonstrates. There must be trailblazers, and there must be people following closely on their heels. It's difficult for an entire industry to turn itself around, so I suspect that true sustainability will only become ingrained in the various branches of engineering when there is both vision that has been translated into new guidelines, and legislation that mandates the adoption of new standards to be followed in the design disciplines.

Whatever comes out of Bali for the post-2012 phase of the Kyoto Protocol, success will depend on addressing these challenges.