PANAPRESS
Panafrican News Agency
EU, NGOs welcome Cancun decisions on climate change
Cancun, Mexico (PANA) – The European Union (EU) has welcomed the results of the two-week UN climate change conference that ended on Saturday in the Mexican resort city of Cancun saying the balanced and substantive package of decisions adopted represents a further step on the road to building a comprehensive and legally binding framework for climate action for the period after 2012.
EU Commissioner for Climate Change, Connie Hedegaard, told journalists at the end of the conference on Saturday that the EU had helped to deliver the successful outcome the world expected and needed.
“The EU came to Cancun to get a substantial package of action-oriented decisions and keep the international climate change negotiations on track. We have helped to deliver the successful outcome the world expected and needed,” Hedegaard said.
“But the two weeks in Cancun have shown once again how slow and difficult the process is. Everyone needs to be aware that we still have a long and challenging journey ahead of us to reach the goal of a legally binding global climate framework.”
Greenpeace International Climate Policy Director, Wendel Trio, said: “Cancun had delivered the momentum – but we have not arrived there yet. In Durban, South Africa, (the venue of the next climate change conference) we need a global deal that helps countries to build a green economy and that holds polluters accountable.”
Trio said governments not only acknowledged the gap between their current weak pledges and where they need to get to but they actually stated that emissions cuts needed to be in the line with the science (25-40 per cent cuts by 2020) and that they need to keep global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius.
He, however, said more would have been accomplished in Cancun “if not for the negative influence of the United States, Russia and Japan. He said Russia and Japan were unhelpful by their statements against the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, expiring 2012.
Care International, which also welcomed the process made in Cancun, however, warned countries to be cautious because the difficult questions of mitigation and finance which remain unresolved.
“The result from Cancun comes as a pleasant surprise for everyone still reeling from the disappointment at Copenhagen. There is no outright cause for celebration but at least we heave a sigh relief,” Poul Lauridsen, CARE’s climate change advocacy coordinator, stated on Saturday.
Gordon Shepherd, head of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF’s) Global Climate Initiative, noted that governments made measurable progress in several important areas, but a lot more work and some big political challenges remain to be resolved.
“While they weren’t able to decide on a second phase for the Kyoto Protocol, a process has been set in motion to do so next year in Durban. Major difficulties remain, however, with objecting countries, namely Japan and Russia, who will now face mounting pressures to join the global community in extending the Kyoto Protocol,” Shepherd said.
“Countries under Kyoto recognised more firmly that they need to reduce emissions 25 to 40 percent by 2020 and acknowledged that their pledges for emission reductions are just a start and much more is needed to reach the shared goal of limiting temperature increase to two degrees. Over the next year, they need to roll up their sleeves and be prepared to work hard and creatively to close this gap.”
Oxfam International Executive Director Jeremy Hobbs said: “Negotiators have resuscitated the UN talks and put them on a road to recovery. This deal shows the UN negotiations can deliver. There is now hope for action to help the millions of poor people who are already struggling to survive the effects of climate change.
“With lives on the line, we must now build on this progress. Long-term funding must be secured so the Climate Fund can start to deliver, helping vulnerable communities protect themselves for the climate impacts of today and tomorrow.”
He noted that there are issues that need to be addressed, including finding the sources of new, long-term money to help fill the Climate Fund and that the concerns of women should be put at the heart of the new fund to ensure that those who are among the most affected, receive the funding they need.
“Governments backed a new global 'green fund', but now need to identify innovative sources of finance, such as levies on the currently unregulated international aviation and shipping sector, that would both address eight per cent of global emissions while simultaneously securing billions of dollars in long-term financing.”
Boliva, however, decried adoption of the Cancun agreements, describing the text as a hollow and false victory that was imposed without consensus and that its cost will be measured in human lives.
“There is only one way to measure the success of climate agreement, and that is based on whether or not it will effectively reduce emissions to prevent runaway climate change. This text clearly fails, as it could allow global temperatures to increase by more than 4 degrees Celsius, a level disastrous for humanity,” Boliva said in a statement after the end of the talks.
Elements of the Cancun agreements adopted on Saturday by the conference include acknowledgement for the first time in a UN document of industrialised country targets.
Parties meeting under the Kyoto Protocol also agreed to continue negotiations with the aim of completing their work and ensuring there is no gap between the first and second commitment periods of the treaty.
The conference also launched a set of initiatives and institutions to protect the vulnerable from climate change and to deploy the money and technology that developing countries need to plan and build their own sustainable futures.
A total of US$30 billion in fast start finance from industrialized countries to support climate action in the developing world up to 2012 and the intention to raise US$100 billion in long-term funds by 2020 is included in the decisions.
In the field of climate finance, a process to design a Green Climate Fund under the Conference of the Parties, with a board with equal representation from developed and developing countries, was established.
By Mildred Mulenga, PANA Correspondent
-0- PANA MM/MA 11Dec2010
EU Commissioner for Climate Change, Connie Hedegaard, told journalists at the end of the conference on Saturday that the EU had helped to deliver the successful outcome the world expected and needed.
“The EU came to Cancun to get a substantial package of action-oriented decisions and keep the international climate change negotiations on track. We have helped to deliver the successful outcome the world expected and needed,” Hedegaard said.
“But the two weeks in Cancun have shown once again how slow and difficult the process is. Everyone needs to be aware that we still have a long and challenging journey ahead of us to reach the goal of a legally binding global climate framework.”
Greenpeace International Climate Policy Director, Wendel Trio, said: “Cancun had delivered the momentum – but we have not arrived there yet. In Durban, South Africa, (the venue of the next climate change conference) we need a global deal that helps countries to build a green economy and that holds polluters accountable.”
Trio said governments not only acknowledged the gap between their current weak pledges and where they need to get to but they actually stated that emissions cuts needed to be in the line with the science (25-40 per cent cuts by 2020) and that they need to keep global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius.
He, however, said more would have been accomplished in Cancun “if not for the negative influence of the United States, Russia and Japan. He said Russia and Japan were unhelpful by their statements against the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, expiring 2012.
Care International, which also welcomed the process made in Cancun, however, warned countries to be cautious because the difficult questions of mitigation and finance which remain unresolved.
“The result from Cancun comes as a pleasant surprise for everyone still reeling from the disappointment at Copenhagen. There is no outright cause for celebration but at least we heave a sigh relief,” Poul Lauridsen, CARE’s climate change advocacy coordinator, stated on Saturday.
Gordon Shepherd, head of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF’s) Global Climate Initiative, noted that governments made measurable progress in several important areas, but a lot more work and some big political challenges remain to be resolved.
“While they weren’t able to decide on a second phase for the Kyoto Protocol, a process has been set in motion to do so next year in Durban. Major difficulties remain, however, with objecting countries, namely Japan and Russia, who will now face mounting pressures to join the global community in extending the Kyoto Protocol,” Shepherd said.
“Countries under Kyoto recognised more firmly that they need to reduce emissions 25 to 40 percent by 2020 and acknowledged that their pledges for emission reductions are just a start and much more is needed to reach the shared goal of limiting temperature increase to two degrees. Over the next year, they need to roll up their sleeves and be prepared to work hard and creatively to close this gap.”
Oxfam International Executive Director Jeremy Hobbs said: “Negotiators have resuscitated the UN talks and put them on a road to recovery. This deal shows the UN negotiations can deliver. There is now hope for action to help the millions of poor people who are already struggling to survive the effects of climate change.
“With lives on the line, we must now build on this progress. Long-term funding must be secured so the Climate Fund can start to deliver, helping vulnerable communities protect themselves for the climate impacts of today and tomorrow.”
He noted that there are issues that need to be addressed, including finding the sources of new, long-term money to help fill the Climate Fund and that the concerns of women should be put at the heart of the new fund to ensure that those who are among the most affected, receive the funding they need.
“Governments backed a new global 'green fund', but now need to identify innovative sources of finance, such as levies on the currently unregulated international aviation and shipping sector, that would both address eight per cent of global emissions while simultaneously securing billions of dollars in long-term financing.”
Boliva, however, decried adoption of the Cancun agreements, describing the text as a hollow and false victory that was imposed without consensus and that its cost will be measured in human lives.
“There is only one way to measure the success of climate agreement, and that is based on whether or not it will effectively reduce emissions to prevent runaway climate change. This text clearly fails, as it could allow global temperatures to increase by more than 4 degrees Celsius, a level disastrous for humanity,” Boliva said in a statement after the end of the talks.
Elements of the Cancun agreements adopted on Saturday by the conference include acknowledgement for the first time in a UN document of industrialised country targets.
Parties meeting under the Kyoto Protocol also agreed to continue negotiations with the aim of completing their work and ensuring there is no gap between the first and second commitment periods of the treaty.
The conference also launched a set of initiatives and institutions to protect the vulnerable from climate change and to deploy the money and technology that developing countries need to plan and build their own sustainable futures.
A total of US$30 billion in fast start finance from industrialized countries to support climate action in the developing world up to 2012 and the intention to raise US$100 billion in long-term funds by 2020 is included in the decisions.
In the field of climate finance, a process to design a Green Climate Fund under the Conference of the Parties, with a board with equal representation from developed and developing countries, was established.
By Mildred Mulenga, PANA Correspondent
-0- PANA MM/MA 11Dec2010
