A better world is possible - Global Commons Institute

Copyright Bruce Nixon 2010. All rights reserved. This electronic copy is provided free for personal, non-commercial use only.
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planet. However it is barely mentioned by political leaders in the current campaign for the UK parliamentary
elections.
In the run up to Copenhagen, there had been major campaigns around the world by NGOs, governments and
large corporations and many governments announced substantial low-carbon measures. These will continue.
The European Union has set an example by committing to implementing binding legislation, despite no
satisfactory deal at Copenhagen.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the US-backed climate deal in Copenhagen as an "essential
beginning". But he said the Accord must be made legally binding in 2010. The International Institute for
Environment and Development report described it as “an open space waiting to be filled in”.
A summary of the Accord is available on Wiki.
The weaknesses of the accord Earlier proposals, aimed to limit temperature rises to 1.5c and cut CO2
emissions by 80% by 2050, were dropped. Many countries were prepared to co-operate, but not under the
threat of legal sanctions. There is no quantified aggregate target for emissions reduction such as the 50% by
2050 in early drafts. Countries are to be assessed globally. But no verification measures will take place in the
developing world unless paid for by the developed world. There is very little detail.
The Accord relies on the implementation of national strategies within a policy framework with a progress
review planned for 2015. Perhaps that is the most pragmatic way forward. But as countries will be free to
make their own different pledges, it is unlikely that the necessary limitation to global warming will be
achieved. As said above, so a temperature limitation of 3c or now seems more likely. Some fear the rise will
be 6c which will be disastrous.
The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) say, the Accord does propose short-term
funding for adaptation in vulnerable countries but lacks essential details such as where the funds will come
from and whether they will be loans or grants; the target figure of US$30 billion over three years from 2010
to 2013 is not adequate for 100 vulnerable countries with about one billion citizens. Tellingly, this is about
the same amount that JP Morgan Chase bank will spend on salaries and bonuses in the current year.
The long-term finance of US$100 billion a year by 2020 that developed countries pledged to mobilise jointly
to address the needs of developing countries, does not say how much of this money would be allocated for
adaptation in vulnerable countries (as opposed to mitigation actions in less vulnerable countries such as India
and China). Moreover, this amount is just half of what vulnerable countries need to adapt in the long term.
The Accord makes no special provisions regarding technology transfer for the vulnerable developing
countries.
Reactions Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, the Sudanese negotiator, said the accord spelled "incineration" for
Africa and compared it to the Nazis sending 6 million people into furnaces in the Holocaust.
About 50,000 environmental activists from regions of the world most affected by climate change convened
Klimaforum09, simultaneously with COP15, with leaders such as Dr Vandana Shiva and author Naomi Klein. A
People's Declaration formulated at the People's Climate Summit and signed by nearly 300 civil society
organisations calling for "System change - not climate change" was handed over to the Conference on
December 18. This declaration opened thus:
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