UNFCCC in Nusa Dua Bali

THE UNFCCC (UN Conference on Climate Change) is going full steam ahead in Nusa Dua. Al Gore has received his Nobel Prize so he’ll be showing up soon no doubt. How has the conference affected Bali so far?

Here is Seminyak you would not be aware there is a conference going on. So far I have not detected groups of people who might be delegates and no one living here, expat or local has mentioned the conference to me. Nusa Dua is the perfect place for such a high scale event. Its enclosed design effectively keeping the world out, which in this case is good for the delegates and good for the rest of us.

One of the important groups attending the climate change conference is GreenPeace, who also report via their website. According to them the action’s all in Bali.

While the climate change experts are in Bali they should take to the opportunity to tour the island, admire its beauty and look at the environmental problems, which mirror the world’s environmental problems. Bali is extremely fertile and produces massive quantities of organic waste (leaves, branches, rice stalks etc.). The modern way of dealing with this is to burn it, but the amount of smoke it creates is enormous. Just this morning is Seminyak a local was burning leaves next to a construction a site, forcing the workers situated 10 ft away to leave. Any trip through Canggu will probably be accompanied by the sight of burning / burned rice stalks and dense white smoke. If the organic waste is ploughed back into the field when flooded it creates methane gas which is another climate menace. So the Balinese farmer could use some help as far as choosing the best option for him and the planet.

The amount of chemicals that get put into the ground are harming water courses and doing humans no good. Modern convenience comes without safety standards. Some banana sellers at the local market have a chemical they can spray on the fruit to make it ripen overnight. I’ll take mine unripened thank you.