Developed nations watering down UN climate negotiations

LIMA, PERU, DECEMBER 9, 2014 – Friends of the Earth International is deeply worried by the text emerging from the negotiations at the latest UN Climate Talks in Lima, which shows that wealthy nations are continuing to shamelessly water down their commitments to climate action.

“The text discussed in Lima so far indicates deliberate efforts to dismantle the UN convention on climate change by removing language that requires developed countries to meet quantifiable finance targets and to own up to their historical responsibility for climate change,” said Dipti Bhatnagar, Friends of the Earth International’s Climate Justice and Energy Coordinator.

“We are facing a planetary emergency and we need bold and just actions by world leaders. Instead, what we are seeing in Lima are attempts to water down proposals that were nowhere near strong enough to begin with. It is preposterous,” she added.

The UN climate agreement currently recognizes that developed countries have done the most to cause climate change and must take drastic steps to do their fair share to address the crisis. They must reduce emissions drastically and must also provide finance, technology transfer and capacity building to developing countries, who are already suffering the most from the effects of the climate crisis.

But here in Lima developed countries are again running away from those responsibilities. [1]

Any future UN climate agreement must be comprehensive, equitable and binding, according to Friends of the Earth International. Its emissions reductions targets must reflect a fair share approach to the ‘carbon budget’ [2].

Friends of the Earth International, the climate justice movement and most developing countries advocate for enforceable, legally binding obligations for developed countries through a UN agreement that is ambitious and just to people and planet.

Yet the so-called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) under discussion in Lima do not oblige developed countries to explain how much finance they intend to provide, nor what they will do about capacity building or technology transfer.

The text discussed in Lima also ignores the rights and needs of impacted people by fudging on adaptation issues.

In September 2014, hundreds of thousands of people, in cities across the world, marched for real solutions to the climate crisis: the proposals from Lima fly in the face of such popular demands by letting developed countries off the hook.

“The text is being discussed in a biased process which does not give equal voice to the parties negotiating at the UN table. The voices from the developing world have been marginalised,” said Geoffrey Kamese, Senior Program Officer of Friends of the Earth Uganda.

“If the outcomes of the Lima talks do not oblige countries to clearly state when and how they will meet their responsibilities to the world and its people, it simply won’t be worth the paper it’s written on,” he added.

Any agreement in Lima will pave the way for a key agreement in Paris in 2015, which will determine the action countries take on climate change from 2020 onwards.

But what about between now and 2020?

The proposals in Lima for climate action seem to be nothing more than the creation of a forum and the appointment of several expert technical groups – these are certainly not solutions to the problems we face. We need real action now.

Previous UN climate talks proposed some steps which could have brought us towards a just and equitable agreement. In the past 20 years of UN negotiations, we have seen ongoing efforts by developed nations to systematically destroy those efforts.

FOR MORE INFORMATION IN LIMA (December 1-12)

Dipti Bhatnagar, Friends of the Earth International Climate Justice and Energy coordinator:

+ 51 974 6969 42 (Peruvian mobile Dec 9-14) or email dipti@foei.org

Geoffrey Kamese, Senior Program Officer, Friends of the Uganda

+ 51 977 300 339 (Peruvian mobile Dec 9-10) or email kameseus@yahoo.com

Denis Burke, Friends of the Earth International Web & E-Communications Editor

+ 51 99 13 66 935 (Peruvian mobile Dec 9-12) or email denis@foei.org

NOTES TO EDITORS

[1] For more information about the UN climate talks see http://newsroom.unfccc.int/ 

[2] The carbon budget is the limited quantity of carbon pollution that can still be released while avoiding ‘dangerous climate change’.