COP 16 | Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

Lumumba Di Aping

Rich versus poor at Cancún climate summit

BY EMMA CLANCY

THE Cop16 UN climate summit is happening in Cancún, Mexico, with little of the fanfare that accompanied last year’s Copenhagen summit.
At Copenhagen, high hopes of achieving a strong and binding global climate treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, due to expire in 2012, were dashed by big polluting countries, particularly the US, that blocked a new treaty.
The Cop15 summit failed to come close to achieving an ambitious, legally-binding global treaty on reducing carbon emissions and actually represented a step backward from progress that had been made in previous climate discussions.

Recriminations
Political leaders of the powerful industrialised countries have blamed the Copenhagen summit’s failure on developing countries and emerging large economies such as China, claiming they refused to ‘play their part’.
But in reality what happened at Copenhagen was that the rich countries, led by the US, tried to force the poor into agreeing to abandon the Kyoto Protocol’s key principles - that targets must be legally binding, that rich countries have a greater responsibility to cut emissions, and that developing countries must be provided with adequate finance for adaptation and mitigation.
While the top climate scientists believe that industrialised countries must make cuts of 40% by 2020 and 80% to 95% by 2050, the US pledged to cut its emissions by just 4% by 2020. This is one-tenth of what is required to achieve a safe climate.
The end result of Cop15 was a ‘lowest common denominator’ announcement, the Copenhagen Accord, which was not legally binding, did not actually set any targets, and was merely ‘taken note of’ by the conference because it was rightly unacceptable to several countries.
The Accord makes reference to provision of US$10billion each year from 2010 to 2012 in immediate aid to developing countries but there is no clarity as to who will contribute what from the industrialised countries.
The spokesperson for the G77 group of 130 developing countries, Lumumba Di Aping, said:
“$10billion will not buy the coffins to bury us with.”
He pointed out at the conference that $1.3trillion -1.3 TRILLION - had been spent on the global bail-out of the financial sector.

Losing safe climate
So what has happened since Cop15?
Well, the worst flooding in Pakistan’s history submerged more than one-fifth of the country in July and August, killing thousands of people and leaving 20 million homeless. Monsoon rains caused flooding and deadly landslides in China in August, as drought and wildfires raged through Russia.
The human cost of climate change is mounting, with 10 million people now affected by hunger as a result of a severe drought in western Africa.
And the Arctic Sea ice is in a “death spiral” that it will not recover from, according to climate scientists.
Global temperature records have been smashed repeatedly this year. Seventeen countries have reported record-high temperatures so far in 2010. The first half of 2010 was the hottest six-month period on record in the hottest year on record in the hottest decade on record.

Battle lines drawn
Positions have hardened in the lead-up to Cancún and countries have once again largely lined up into two camps - rich and poor.
The US and other rich countries are trying to manage public expectations of what can be achieved and pushing for the Kyoto principle of ‘common but differentiated obligations’ between developed and developing countries to be scrapped.
G77 countries, and especially the ALBA grouping in Latin America, are rejecting the US-led push to bin Kyoto. They want to see a globally-binding treaty agreed that sets legally enforceable targets based on science.
The bloc of developing countries want such a treaty to adopt a target of limiting warming to no more than 1.5°C - as opposed to the 2°C target proposed in the UN IPPC (Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change) report in 2007, which they say has been superseded by scientific evidence showing this is not a safe climate target.
Emissions must peak by 2015 and then be rapidly reduced if catastrophic climate change is to be avoided. But Copenhagen represented a step back from Kyoto. If Cancún is a step back from Copenhagen, international confidence in the UN process, already faltering, will be further undermined.
More than 100,000 climate activists from around the world converged on Copenhagen city during the summit in the biggest ever climate demonstration in Europe. A counter-conference of 50,000 climate activists - Klimaforum - gathered in Copenhagen and formulated real solutions to the challenge based on renewable energy, sustainable transport and food production.
Then Bolivia’s President Evo Morales hosted a ‘People’s Summit’ of 35,000 climate activists in Cochabamba in April, supported by other ALBA nations.
The developing alliance between the poor countries, progressive forces in the industrialised states, and the growing global climate justice movement is up against hugely powerful governments and business interests who are determined to prioritise short-term profit over the survival of the planet.
As the rich countries and fossil fuel lobby try to define ‘success’ at Cancún as ‘building trust’ and finding vague agreement on peripheral issues - and as we can see a safe climate rapidly disappearing around us - the emerging climate movement needs to be heard.

MEP reports on ‘Prospects for Cancún and beyond’

SINN FÉIN MEP Bairbre de Brún is in Cancún as part of the European Parliament’s official delegation to the summit, which is being held from November 29th to December 10th.
Sinn Féin and its partners in the European United Left (GUE/NGL) have campaigned strongly within the EU for a strong, legally-binding global climate treaty that is based on science; that recognises the differing obligations between developing and industrialised countries; and that provides adequate levels of assistance to developing countries for adaptation and mitigation.
Speaking at a public meeting on the climate summit in Belfast along with representatives from Friends of the Earth and Stop Climate Chaos before departing for the conference, the Irish MEP told An Phoblacht:
“I will work with environmental NGOs and local communities to keep up the pressure for an ambitious climate deal that really counts for the world’s poor.
“I look forward to discussing with you the steps that we need to take now in the Assembly, in the EU and in the wider international community.
“The global economic crisis cannot and must not be used as an excuse for inaction or for denying climate justice. On the contrary, developing a low-carbon economy is our most promising path out of the present crisis.”