Report on Poznan (COP 14)
As some of you may already know, Jenrick CPI is one of the key sponsors of the Catlin Arctic Survey, the findings of which will be put forward at the next Conference of Parties (COP15) in Copenhagen in November 2009.
The forerunner to Copenhagen took place in Poznan last week (COP 14), where the world’s leading nations attempted to lay the foundations for agreement next year. However, reports from Poznan suggest that the delegates are having some difficulty reaching agreements.
Delegates at the U.N. climate change talks, held over the last two weeks, say recession and the change of U.S. administration make it unlikely the world will meet a deadline for agreeing a full new pact to fight global warming in Copenhagen (COP15).
Developing nations are fed up with what they see as a lack of progress at the conference in western Poland, with some of the poorest fearing their calls for urgent help to adapt to a warmer world are being sidelined.
Activists from both rich and poor countries shivered outside in freezing temperatures on Tuesday to cajole negotiators into doing more.
Oxfam erected 10 human ice sculptures to remind negotiators of the impact climate change is already having on poor people around the world.
“For the millions … already affected by climate change, there is no time for delay at these negotiations. Rich countries need to take the lead before hope in saving the planet and its people melts away,” said Aboubacar Traore, Oxfam’s climate change campaigner in Mali.
“It seems unfair that so much has gone into this (conference) and not much has come out,” said his colleague Savio Carvalho, country director for the development agency in Uganda. “Developing countries are being taken for a ride.”
He said the mood of the talks was sombre, although he was still optimistic a push over the next couple of days could yield some results.
In a colourful and noisy display - including stilt walkers dressed as bankers in suits - others protested against the World Bank’s involvement in financing for climate change responses.
The bank has two Climate Investment Funds, into which G8 countries are pouring more than $6 billion, much of which will be provided in the form of cheap loans.
But a coalition of 142 campaigning organisations said financing for climate change adaptation and clean energy technologies should be handled by and accountable to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
“We don’t think climate financing should be in the form of loans, because this means we have to pay for the effects of a problem we did not create,” said Lidy Nacpil, coordinator of the Jubilee South - Asia/Pacific Movement on Debt and Development. “These (World Bank) funds will be used to impose policy conditions on us.”
In a statement, the coalition said the bank had helped cause climate change by lending to projects based on fossil fuels. This lending had increased by 94 percent between 2007 and 2008, it said, adding that the bank’s management structure marginalises developing countries.
Later in the day, Yvo de Boer, the U.N.’s top climate change official, told journalists that excluding the World Bank from climate change financing would be “a bit like cutting off your nose to spite your face” because of the major programmes it already has on both reducing greenhouse gas emissions and dealing with the impacts of global warming.
“What I do hear countries saying is ‘why should we make a commitment to engage in the context of the (UNFCCC) when all of the money is actually outside the convention through other institutions?’,” he said.
“Part of the challenge in Copenhagen is to … ensure that other financial institutions outside the convention are working towards the goals of the developing countries rather than only to their own.”
But many remain unconvinced. “The World Bank must get out of climate change issues because it is not their business,” said South African Makoma Lekalakala from Earth Life Africa at the protest. “The best thing would be for total cancellation of poor countries’ debts. That would help those countries take adaptation measures, and pay for environmental degradation.”
Tags: Catlin Arctic Survey, Conference of Parties (COP 15) Copenhagen, cop 14, cop 15
