Tearfund & The Copenhagen Summit

 

by Deborah Miarkowska

Copenhagen climate talks: outcomes
NOT FAIR. NOT AMBITIOUS. NOT BINDING.

19 December 2009: TEARFUND’S View

The United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen provided an unprecedented opportunity for countries to agree a Fair, Ambitious and Binding (FAB) global deal to tackle climate change and protect poor people hits hardest by the problem.

What was agreed in Copenhagen?

Saturday 19 December: We’re still waiting for a final outcome but here’s what’s been agreed so far.

Not fair. Not ambitious. Not binding.
After two weeks of UN climate talks, world leaders have failed to reach the FAB deal that developing countries desperately need.

The weak political declaration cobbled together by a small group of countries including the United States, China, Brazil, India and South Africa, will fail to cut emissions enough to keep global temperature below two degrees or provide the money needed for poor countries to adapt and develop sustainably. The EU has now backed this declaration but a few countries are deeply concerned so discussions are continuing.

Tearfund’s Advocacy Director Paul Cook says ‘The human cost of delay has failed to register with the developed world. They have bought themselves time while millions of people facing starvation, disaster and homelessness continue to pay the price. The longer we postpone agreeing a full legal outcome the more we condemn many people to the devastation of lives and livelihoods. Poor countries should be outraged; they rightly expected rich nations to play a leadership role in the negotiations. Instead they ignored the science and looked after their own national interests. Now we must keep going into 2010, not to accept this weak deal but to keep pushing world leaders for a deal that is Fair, Ambitious and Binding.’

What’s in the agreement?

A vague commitment to keeping temperature rise below two degrees and to low emissions reduction targets
The non-binding declaration promises short-term finance for developing countries of $30billion up to 2012 and $100billion by 2020, but it is not clear that this money will be new, additional or where it will come from.
What should have been in the agreement?

Tearfund believes that finance for adaptation and mitigation to help poor countries fight climate change and adapt to its consequences needs to be at least $200billion a year by 2020, additional to current aid commitments, and developed countries must cut their emissions by at least 40% by 2020, compared to 1990 levels.

Beware of Greenwash

Some leaders will want to claim that this is a two degree deal. The low ambition on reducing emissions means that we are heading for a three or four degree world. Don’t be fooled, there is nothing binding and nothing fair in place.

Read TEARFUND’S blog for updates on the Copenhagen Summit.

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