09
April 2009 - Bonn, Germany — Another round
of climate talks is over, this time in Bonn,
Germany. Once again negotiators are leaving
without a plan or having left any money
on the table to tackle climate change.
The diplomats and negotiators
have been wasting precious time for two
weeks while the rest the world watches as
ice caps melt, ice-sheets break off in Antarctica
and Australia suffers from flash floods.
What are they waiting for?
Yes we can
Thankfully there was a ray of hope on the
horizon. The presence of the Obama administration
at the climate negotiations and the fact
that the US is once again engaged in the
discussions seems to have lifted the mood.
However, there has been little or no real
progress made on the key issues and decisions
we need on climate change. A change in mood
just isn’t enough.
We need our heads of
state, world leaders, to take responsibility.
We need all of the Presidents, Chancellors
and Prime Ministers of the world to take
personal responsibility and commit to making
climate change important enough to show
up to these meetings themselves. Stop letting
weeks of negotiations go by without any
progress. We need our leaders to take responsibility
for this process, give their negotiators
clear and strong direction over the course
of this year, and show up to the UN climate
summit in Copenhagen in December, and make
sure that we all get the climate deal that
we need.
A little less conversation,
a little more action
We need real leadership and some hard numbers.
The US has to come back with solid proposals
in June, at the next round of negotiations,
and the rest of the industrialised world
has to knuckle down and close the gap between
what they have agreed to and what the science
says is necessary to to avert runaway climate
change.
We need targets for
reducing greenhouse gases and money on the
table for poorer countries to pay for climate
impacts they’re already experiencing and
to take action to control their own growing
emissions. This has a price tag - developing
countries need at least EUR 110 billion
a year (USD $140 billion). This money should
be raised through an international scheme
that asks rich nations to pay for their
carbon footprint, providing the certainty
developing countries need to leverage private
funds for green investment.
Besides financing green
measures in developing countries, both the
US and the EU will need to upgrade their
reduction targets in the light of recent
science.
To avoid runaway climate change, developed
countries as a group need to commit to 40
percent emission reductions from 11000 levels
by 2020.
Stephanie Tunmore, one
our climate experts, who was at the Bonn
meeting warned: “We are on the brink of
runaway climate change. World leaders need
to realise that they can’t change climate
science so they must urgently intervene
and change the politics. Greenpeace will
be working on behalf of the billions of
people who will suffer to make sure that
happens.”
