Posted on 29 January
2010 - Gland, Switzerland: Sunday’s deadline
for countries to lodge targets and details
of emission reduction programs under the
Copenhagen Accord, is
the opportunity for nations that pushed
the climate accord to show they are serious
about it, WWF said yesterday.
“Currently, the Copenhagen
Accord sets out one agreed goal – keeping
the world below the two degrees Celsius
danger threshold for global warming ,” said
Kim Carstensen, leader of WWF’s global climate
initiative.“Sunday is the self-imposed deadline
for countries to lay out what they are actually
going to do to keep the world out of the
danger zone.”
Carstensen said that
for the great majority countries this implied
a considerable increase on commitments so
far.
“Emissions reductions
on the table at Copenhagen were clearly
setting us up for a world three or more
degrees warmer, even without taking into
account various large loopholes allowing
for dubious emissions reductions claims
and double counting of claims,” Carstensen
said.
WWF is looking for targets
approaching the upper end of a 25-40 per
cent range of emissions reductions on11000
levels by 2020 for developed nations. At
the time of Copenhagen, only Norway with
a 40 per cent reduction target, met this
ambition level. Japan has announced that
it puts a target of minus 25 per cent into
the Accord, which is not far off the mark,
while Australia this week disappointed by
announcing it intended to stand by is five
percent reduction target.
For the developed nations,
who did the most to push the Copenhagen
Accord, we fear that there is still a gross
mismatch between their goal of keeping the
world out of climate danger and the steps
they are prepared to take to actually achieve
this goal,” Carstensen said.
Major emerging economies
– the BASIC Group of Brazil, South Africa,
India and China – last weekend announced
they intended to meet the January 31 deadline
with more detail on voluntary mitigation
programmes under the accord.
“This is a very helpful
move from this group of major developing
countries. We expect they will announce
high levels of ambition and follow up urgently
with clear national action plans meet this
ambition”, Carstensen said.
WWF today released The
Copenhagen Accord: A Stepping Stone analysing
how the world might begin the journey from
the political agreement of the Copenhagen
Accord to an internationally binding climate
treaty in Mexico City in December.
The global environment
organisation also said it was still waiting
on urgently required announcements under
the accord on financial aid to help developing
countries prevent and cope with climate
change.
“There is a general
awareness that the world failed to do what
it needed to do in Copenhagen,” Carstensen
said. “But climate change is not a problem
that will go away but a problem that will
get worse and more costly to deal with the
longer we delay effective action.”
