Deborah Phelan: Cancún: honing weaknesses into strengths

cancun: honing weaknesses into strengths

by Deborah Phelan, DailyKos, December 13, 2010

I wish I could chat again with South African delegate Themba Tenza.  It's hard to believe it was just Friday morning that an exhausted Tenza was so visibly dispirited as he headed back to the Moon for the last day of COP16.

"The globe is small, but the world is so big," he said. "These conferences are just too big, too complicated. Businesses, national governments NGOs, academics, and scientists -- they put you all into a melting pot and in ten days you are expected to come up with a solution. It can't happen."

Well, Mr. Tenza, perhaps destiny is not written in the stars. Because early Saturday morning, a COP whose tone and tenure was clearly dominated by women, replaced the hype of "Hopenhagen" with the reality of "Yes We CANcun!"

An image on tcktcktck's Pyramid montage. Photo by Deborah Phelan

In the grande finale, the voices of the people who have slid past the tipping point succeeded in regaining a grip on the slide. They succeeded by honing their handicaps to become their strongest bargaining chips.

In the end, reality resonated in all its stereoscopic splendor and the parties reconnected with the nub of the issue.

Perhaps it was Constance Okollet who told the story which will remain forever embedded in my mind. It was the first Friday night of the conference. Okollet was a member of Irish President Mary Robinson's kick off panel, and we were discussing how to expand the voices of women in the climate negotiations, as well as on the frontiers of the global climate justice movement.

That night it wasn't yet clear how powerful and pivotal a role women would ultimately play in the negotiations.

The women of Bangladesh. Photo by Deborah Phelan.

"What we can learn is that using something as crude and inaccurate as carbon to measure our efforts to reduce climate change takes away the true value, the truly complex relationship between humans, animals and plants and the entire system as a whole," said Green Belt Movement’s Francesa de Gasparis.

She also addressed the need to "break down the exclusive club" which creates and owns the acronym-laden language of climate "so that it can be understood by speaking plainly."

Okollet's story was nothing, if not spoken plainly. And without a doubt, her story was especially powerful to me because I could relate to it so experientially.

Okollet is from Tororo, Uganda, a small city on the eastern border of Kenya. She talked about the historic 2007 floods, how they were the first sign that something had dramatically shifted in the world she and her country’s people knew.

The Cancun Agreement: A valuable first step of viable building blocks

The 35-page Cancun Agreement, though admittedly modest in its achievements, succeeded in restoring faith in the UNFCCC process and exemplified the ability of the major players to make concessions which unified the parties in a shared vision of COP16's acknowledgment of much hard work ahead. It is a first step, which:

• Recognizes the commitments set forth in the Copenhagen Accord by both developed and developing countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions
• Sets up of a global climate fund tasks to provided $100 billion in financing by 2020 to developing countries
• Establishes the UN as controlling finances with the World Bank playing an advisory role for two years.
• Revives the legitimacy of the UNFCCC process which was seriously impacted by last year’s COP15
• Recognizes the need for "shared vision," transparency, the important role of education, and an initiative aimed at curbing deforestation.

Photo of WEDO sponsored negotiators. By WEDO.

My daughter had worked in a health clinic in Tororo in the summer of 2007. And I remember that summer so clearly because I was following stories on AllAfrica.com as the floods spread throughout Uganda. All I knew when they began was that she was traveling from a refugee camp in the north with Africa Aid. I learned later that their van just made it over a bridge from the north before all access was shut down by flooding. People died on the road she traveled that day.

So when Okollet  talked of the shock of those floods and how she and her friends, forced to leave Tororo, prayed to God for help, I was right there with her.  Before going to Tororo, my daughter spent a few weeks in Maundo, to the south, and has often mentioned how proud she was that she did not flinch when the tribal chief talked of how they still sacrificed animals to ask help from God to purify the water.

Just three years ago, climate change was not a part of the lexicon in Africa.

"The Floods covered the whole village and we all had to leave," recalled Okollet. "And when we came back almost nothing was left."

She, however,  was one of the lucky ones. Her house, which was still standing, became home for 29 of her neighbors, and they worked together, like a family, gathering materials to help one another rebuild.

"At times we would just sit and cry and ask God, 'What has happened?' "

And then the drought came. Six months so hot walking on the ground was like "putting a fire inside you. And we would pray to God and ask for an answer. Nothing."

When the floods returned to Tororo two years later, the evacuation lasted for nine months. Entire villages disappeared under mudslides. People began dying. From lack of food and water. Outbreaks of cholera and malaria.

In Tororo today, women still risk their lives at night looking for food. Domestic violence has increased. There is never enough food. Children often cannot get to school when floodwater is so high they cannot cross the streets.

Always, Okollet said, she was praying to God. Asking for an answer.

Constance Okollet of Uganda at the entrance to her kitchen in eastern Uganda, Asinget village, Osukuru sub county, Tororo district. Picture taken August 20, 2009. Photo by James Akena.

She received her answer when Oxfam arrived and called for a meeting in her city.

"That was when I first heard about climate change. 'What is this?' I asked. 'What is happening?' And they tell me that what is happening is that the rich countries are over polluting and that this is why we are having all these disasters with weather. And after hearing that, I cried again. I cried harder."

In eastern Africa, you struggle to get up and tomorrow you are brought down, she said. Granaries are washed away. Vegetables, now quick crop seeds, rot in small family gardens.

"Nothing is certain any more.  You are always gambling between life and death. Are we eating the last food? Is this the last rain? Are we planting the last seeds?"

Things like power, books, and medical supplies? These luxuries are no longer an option.

"We wait to cook and eat by moonlight because there is nothing extra. No electricity. Only the light of the moon," said Okollet. "That is what life is like now in my country."

"How can we adapt to this crisis?  The next generation may not be there."

Post Cancun: Incoming Volleys:

Climate Change UN Summit: from prayers to Mayan goddess to Bolivian anger
Seeing REDD on Climate Change
"Perverse" CO2 Payments Send Flood of Money to China
New climate battle looms in South Africa in 2011

A representative of the Global Alliance of WastePickers. Photo by Deborah Phelan.

In the end, it was, without doubt, the women of COP16 who wove together a  tapestry that throbbed with the life of common threads of stories like these. Stories which were repeated time and again. Day after day. In hundreds of forums both inside the COP talks and at side events, as well as in venues at Klimaforum and Via Campesina.

From the expert, determined leadership of COP President Patricia Espinosa, Mexico's Minister of Foreign Affairs, and UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres, the women of COP16 created a panorama representing all walks of life -- academics, scientists, farmers, waste pickers, fledgling delegates, mothers, students. Together, they succeeded in re-awakening the magical depth of perception from which mankind has been for so long disconnected that only faint memories remained, thankfully in sufficient enough numbers to rekindle this awareness.

In the final analysis, the success in Cancun is quite simply this: The real time immersion of thousands of participants into the pulsing core of our very existence re-awakened us. To the pounding heart of a vast intricate ecosystem which has been calling us all home. Begging to be heard. Nurtured. And loved.

We are there now. We have reconnected. Now, we can begin.

Ultimately, we are all Africa. I wish I had the chance to tell you, Mr. Tenza, that to lose you was never an option.

A young local woman participating in an evening of prayer to bless COP16 on the first Tuesday of the conference. Downtown Cancun. Photo by Deborah Phelan

The EcoJustice series discusses environmental justice: the disproportionate impacts on human health and all living things as a result of climate change, extreme weather, and pollution. A key focus of our writing is the environmental impacts on minority communities in countries around the world. A key tenet of Environmental Justice is that all living things have a right to clean, healthy, and sustainable communities.

Today, the concept of Environmental Justice extends to include such related issues as climate, food, and ecosystem justice.  

EcoJustice will resume publishing in January 2011 on Monday evenings at 7 p.m., PDT.  

Link:  http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/12/13/215629/35

"The Cancun Compacts: Nations of world choose hope in face of climate crisis," by Brad Johnson

The Cancun Compacts: Nations of world choose hope in face of climate crisis

The Wonk Room is reporting and tweeting live from the international climate talks in Cancun, Mexico.

by Brad Johnson, Wonk Room, Think Progress, December 11, 2010

“Confidence is back,” announced Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon at the conclusion of climate talks in Cancun at 3 am. “Hope has returned.”

Restoring hopes crushed by the collapse last year of Copenhagen’s climate negotiations, the nations of the world have rediscovered consensus on addressing global warming pollution tonight in Cancun. The top challenge for negotiators has been to figure out a successor framework to the Kyoto Protocol, which failed to set limits on the pollution of the United States (because the Senate refused to ratify the treaty) and nations like China and India (as developing countries, they are exempt from Kyoto’s binding targets). In Copenhagen, these nations sacrificed consensus and multilateralism to forge a new framework for cleaning their economies.

As hosts of the 2010 conference, the Mexican government had to not only bring parties together to come to agreement on policy, but also to restore trust in global governance — the concept that the world’s nations can work together as one on the problems that face all of humanity. (Not to be confused, unless you’re Glenn Beck or Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), with the entirely different concept of global government.) Could the nearly 200 nations of the world, from tiny islands to billion-person states, from oil-rich sheikdoms to Scandinavian states, trust each other enough to agree on a deal that included all nations?

Late Friday night, the representatives of these varied nations chose hope. With a roar of applause overwhelming one dissenting voice, they strongly endorsed a comprehensive document crafted under the leadership of the conference’s president Patricia Espinosa and the executive secretary Christiana Figueres. Countries from every corner of the world noted the mortal threat from destroying our atmosphere through fossil-fuel pollution and supported this international agreement:

South Korea: “We were warned, if we cannot achieve a balanced outcome, we’d be blamed by our children. I believe we have risen to the challenge.” 

Kenya: “We plead with all to allow Cancun to send a message of hope to the world.” 

Argentina: “It is really dangerous to delay any further. The compromises are reasonable, and the costs of any delay are geometric.” 

China: “The government of China will act in a fully responsible manner to the people of China and the people of the world.” 

United Arab Emirates: “This is a deal that works, and that works for us.” 

Maldives: “I certainly speak from a country whose survival depends on these negotiations. I don’t think we should waste more time to negotiate more text. It’s about time we move on to the next stage.”

Bolivia’s delegation led the resistance to the Cancun compact, after a week of its president, Evo Morales, acting as the socialist champion of the world’s poor, especially the international peasant movement, Via Campesina. They emphasized the insufficiency of the agreement’s pollution goals and questioned the role of the World Bank, among other concerns. The legitimacy of their arguments was weakened by the fact that the countries they purported to be defending — the vulnerable nations of Africa and the small island states — unanimously support the agreement, despite its imperfection. 

Bolivia’s intransigence was initially supported by Cuba and the petrostates Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, but in the final moment adoption, it stood alone in opposition.

The Cancun compacts are the first real step toward building an international systemthat involves all global warming pollution — not just that produced by the rich nations governed by the Kyoto Protocol. With one agreement that allows for the future development of the Kyoto Protocol system, the other establishes an international Green Climate Fund to be managed by the World Bank, and enacts mechanisms to fight deforestation and deploy clean technology in the developing world. Unfortunately, the review of the adequacy of these agreements with respect to the scientific threat is set to conclude in 2015 — even though the current targets were set in 2007 and are already out of date.

The first lesson of the Cancun talks is that the governments of the world can in fact work together on global warming, even though decoupling civilization from greenhouse pollution is a herculean task. 

However, the second lesson is that their leadership only gets humanity so far. Only the full mobilization of the present generation can overcome the institutional barriers to change and protect our fragile civilization from the raging climate system our pollution has created. The Cancun compact has restored hope around the world, but now the actual work has to begin.

Link:  http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/12/11/cancun-climate-compacts/

Civil Society supports growing rejection of carbon trading to finance REDD

Civil Society supports growing rejection of carbon trading to finance REDD

December 8, 2010, Cancun – Governments locked in negotiations are keen to finalise a deal on REDD (Reducing Emissions for Deforestation and Degradation) this week.  However, several key outstanding questions remain before a new UN mechanism to address deforestation can be finalized, including the lack of safeguards needed to guarantee rights for indigenous peoples and protection of natural forests, and how money for REDD will be mobilised.

Environmental organizations, social movements and indigenous peoples organisations stand firmly with Bolivia and other governments on the need to secure genuine protection for the world’s forests by guaranteeing the rights of forest dependant peoples and insisting that any agreement on ‘REDD’ (reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) does not allow developed countries to continue burning fossil fuels in exchange for forest protection. 

“It’s clear we are not ready here in Cancun for a decision on financing for REDD.  We are already seeing the negative environmental and social impacts around the world from carbon trading, and a serious discussion on the implications of extending this to forests is urgently needed. We call on the EU as a whole to extend the leadership they are displaying in their fight for stronger safeguards and to fight for an open discussion of the financing options, without highlighting carbon markets as UK and Dutch governments would like to,” said Kate Dooley, Forest Campaigner at FERN. 

 “Any decision in Cancun that opened the door to the use of offset trading to fund forests would be a disaster for the climate, the forests and the people who depend on them. Far from blocking progress, Bolivia is advocating for real solutions that will protect the forests and ensure that developed countries honor the commitments to solve the problem they created.  If emissions are not immediately and dramatically reduced in the wealthy countries, forests are at risk from an ever-warming climate,” said Kate Horner, Policy Analyst at Friends of the Earth. 

“The draft text has been gutted of any language that would oblige tropical countries to respect environmental concerns or local peoples’ rights. The stage seems set for the scheme that was intended to protect tropical forests to now become a feeding frenzy for corrupt and mismanaged countries to subsidise their oil palm, plantation and logging industries. It’s an extremely dark day for the global environment,” said Simon Counsell, Executive Director of Rainforest Foundation UK.

The text under discussion now contains three options on finance. Australia and Canada are pushing for a decision which includes the use of markets and flexible mechanisms. Bolivia, backed by Brazil, has asked for a decision that REDD will not constitute the establishment of market mechanisms or the use of offsets. This position has wide support from environmental groups, social movements and indigenous peoples organisations, but strong opposition from Australia, Canada and others whose main interest in REDD is for offsets in order to avoid any emissions reductions at home

Many governments support a compromise option to further discuss the implications of different financing sources on the effectiveness and impacts of REDD during the year leading up to the next round of climate talks in South Africa. Critically, the EU is unwilling to support an option which does not include reference to markets under pressure from the UK and Dutch governments to establish a global forest carbon market.

Call for a Fair Global Climate Fund at Cancún Climate Conference COP16

We are joining together as civil society to call for the establishment of a fair global climate fund  at COP-16 that will meet the needs and interests and protect the rights of the most vulnerable communities and people around the world.

Alongside rapid and deep emission reductions, developed countries must deliver on their long-term climate finance commitments under the UNFCCC and Bali Action Plan. The establishment of a fair global climate fund at COP-16 is essential for the effective use of long-term, new and additional, predictable and public climate finance provided by developed countries. Climate change is already negatively affecting the lives and livelihoods of people living in poverty. Poor people are losing out twice: they are hardest hit by a crisis they did not cause, and they are not yet served by funds that should be helping them. Most existing funds have benefited just a handful of developing countries, privileging mitigation over adaptation and offering little scope for the meaningful participation of affected communities, especially women.

There is an urgent need to establish a new fair global climate fund to help developing countries build resilience to the impacts of climate change, protect their forests, and adopt low-carbon development pathways. Public finance is vital to meet these needs; carbon markets are inadequate or inappropriate. To be truly equitable and effective, the new fund must mark a clear shift in the management of global flows of climate finance that delivers for poor people. It must:

• Be legitimate and effective
  - Acting under the authority of the Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC, with a specific mandate to focus on climate change and independent from institutions such as the World Bank
  - Ensuring developing countries are equitably represented on the Executive Board of the new Fund, such as the model used in the Adaptation Fund.
  - Ensuring the composition of the Fund Board gives consideration to gender and multicultural balance
  - Ensuring civil society and affected community representatives have a strong voice on the new Board
• Be designed through a UNFCCC process involving individuals with a range of expertise, including a strong role for civil society, to be finalized no later than COP 17
• Create a one-stop-shop for climate finance
  - Guaranteeing the vast majority of international public climate finance flows through the new fund
  - Establishing dedicated windows (sub-funds) for adaptation and mitigation that can channel allocated funding to countries
• Fill the existing funding gap for adaptation
  Pre-allocating at least 50% of climate finance to adaptation
• Improve access for developing countries and vulnerable communities
  - Allowing direct access to resources, in addition to access through international implementing entities, as decided by the recipient country
  - Ensuring vulnerable groups, especially women and indigenous communities, participate innational processes to determine how finance is spent locally and how it is monitored

The establishment of a fair global climate fund is long overdue. It must not now be held hostage to other areas in the negotiations. In Cancun Parties have an opportunity to mark a new course in the governance of global financial flows that puts poor people at its heart. This chance must not be wasted.

Signed by 215 civil society organizations

1Sky
350 Dominicana
350.org
Accent, Krasnodar region
Action Against Climate Change Liberia
ActionAid
AESMO
AFPAT - Chad
Afri
African Biodiversity Network
AGROSAL DE R. L
Agua sustentable
Altay XXI Century, Barnaul
AEVST
American Values Network
Arctic, Altay kray
Armenian Constitutional Right-Protective Centre
Articulacion Nacional Campesina
Asamblea de Afectados por TEXACO- Ecuador
Asociación Comunitaria Unida por el Agua y la
Agricultura, ACUA
Asociación de Desarrollo Comunal
Asociación de Mujeres Madre Tierra
Asociación de Sistemas Autónomos de Agua Potable
y Saneamiento, ASAPS
Asociación Fe y Derechos Humanos, Peru
Asociación Fundación para la Cooperación y el
Desarrollo Comunal de El Salvador
Asociación Interamericana para la Defensa del
Ambiente
Asociación Nacional de Productores Ecologicos del
Perú
Asociación Nacional de Trabajadores Agropecuarios
Asociacion para el Desarrollo de el Salvado
Asociación Proyección
Asociación Salvadoreña de Ayuda Humanitaria
Astrakhan State Nature Biosphere Reserve
Ateneo School of Government - Philippines
AWEPON
Baikal Ecological Wave, Irkutsk
Baikal movement
BCDP - Cameroon
Black Stork, Altay
Brigada Cimarrona
C21
Cacto Azul A.C
Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods
Caritas Kenya
CCONDEM
CDE-Centro de Documentación y Estudios
CEADESC
Centro de Estudios e Investigación en Desarrollo y
Reforma Agraria
Centro Mexicano de Derecho Ambiental
Centro Andino de Educación Promoción José Maria
Arguedas
Centro de Apoyo Solidario, Documentación y Estudio,
A.C.
Centro de Desarrollo Agropecuario
Centro de Estudios de la Región Cuicateca
Centro de Gestión Ambiental
Centro de la Mujer Flora Tristan
Centro de Referencia do Movimiento Da Cidanania
Pelas Aguas Florestas e Montanhas Iguassu Iterei
Centro Humboldt
Centro Mexicano de Derecho Ambiental
Cepes
CIDSE
Ciencia Social Alternativa Ac
CIIDH from Guatemala
CLAES
Climaccion
Climate Change and Sustainable Development -
Zimbabwe
Climate Change Network Nigeria
Club of Altay natural reserve Ayutchak supporters,
Altay Republic
Cnc Eloy Alfaro
Central Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas,
Indígenas y Populares.
COEP
Colectivo Sinergia María Teresa Munguía Gil
Comaletzin A.C.
Comandos de Salvamento
Computer Ecological Center, Nizhniy Novgorod
COMUCAP
Coordinadora Nacional de Mujeres Rurales e
Indígenas
Asociación de Agricultores Oñondivepa.
Confederacion Campesina del Perú
Confederación Nacional Agraria
Confeunasscnc
Consejo Latinoamericano de Iglesias
Convención Nacional del Agro Peruano – Conveagro
CooperAccion - Acción Solidaria para el Desarrollo
Coordinadora Civil Nicaragua
Coordinadora de Desarrollo de Comunidades de
Oriente.
Corpapa Perú
CSMM
CUT - razil
Development of Public Health System, Vologda
EcoEquity
Ecological Club, Barnaul
Ecological Society of the Philippines
Energy and Development
Environmental Forum - Rwanda
Environmental Justice Missioner, Episcopal Diocese of California
Environmental Management for Livelihood
Improvement
Environmental Monitoring Group
Environmental Watch on North Caucasus
Envi Watchers and Movers - Philippines
Equidad de Género: Ciudadanía, Trabajo y Familia AC
Equity and Justice Working Group (EquityBD)
Ethiopia Civil Society Network on Climate Change
Fastenopfer
Federación Indígena Ecologista de Chiapas
Federación Unidad Ecológica Salvadoreña
Fei
Fellowship of Christian Councils & Churches in West Africa
Femucarinap
Fenocin
FIAN Mexico
FOE, Swaziland
Foro Ciudadano de Participación por la Justicia y los
Derechos Humanos
Foro de Mujeres para la Integración Centroamericana
Friends of the Earth International
Fundación Ecuménica para el Desarrollo y la Paz
Fundación Hno Mercedes Ruiz
Fundación IPADE
Fundación Plenitud
Fundación Maquilishuat
Fundación para el Desarrollo
Fundación Salvadoreña para la Reconstrucción y el Desarrollo
Future for ALL, Moscow
Future Together, Novosibirsk
Gaia Tropical
Geographical faculty, Altay State University
Global Call to Action Against Poverty
Global Green USA
Global Movement for Children
Green Convergence - Philippines
Green Hill, Altay Republic
Greening the Beige
Greenpeace
Grupo Propuesta Ciudadana – GPC
IDEC
IDRS
IEDECA
Instituto de Estudos Socioeconomicos
Instituto Latinoaméricano para una Sociedad y un
Derecho Alternativos
Instituto Sur Andino de Derechos Humanos ISADH
Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo
ISAR - Siberia
Iterei - Refugio Particular de Animais Nativos.
Jubilee South
Kenya Climate Change Working Group
Khamkori Bakhri Tarrakiyot (Cooperation for Development)
Konstantin Vasilyevich Adramonov, Gelendjik,
Krasnodar kray
La Central de Copertivas Cafetaleras
Live & Learn for Environment and Community
Madre Tierra
MAUDESCO
MERCOSUR Social y Solidario
Mesa de Incidencia Política de Mujeres Rurales
Colombianas
Marcha Mundial de Mujeres, Capítulo Paraguay
MOSICC
Movimiento Indigena de Cotopaxi
Movimiento Juvenil Nicaragua (Unión de Jóvenes x la Vida)
MUCA
Mujer y Medio Ambiente. A.C.
Mujeres Rurales de Nicaragua
National Association of Professional Environmentalists
– Uganda
National Catholic Rural Life Conference
National Peace Corps Association
Nature and Youth, Murmansk
New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good
OCDIH
Organización Campesina Regional de Concepción
ODECO
OK+, Rostov-on-Don
Organizacion Estatal De Pequeños Productores
Agropecuarios AC.
Oxfam
Participatory Research and Development Initiative
Philippine Network on Climate Change
Practical Action
RAAA
Red de Municipalidades Urbanas y Rurales del Perú
Red de Promotoras y Asesoras Rurales y a
Comaletzin A.C.
Red Jubielo Perú
Rehabilitation of Disabled, Altay
Reseau Action Climate France
Revista Atajo
RWARII
SARILAYA (Women's Organization) - Philippines
Sociedad Internacional e Cambio Climático
Sodruzhestvo (Commonwealth)
Solar Generation France
Sojourners
SOS Sahel Network
Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community
Empowerment
Taiwan Environmental Protection Union
Taller Ecologista - Argentina
Tanzania Civil Society Forum on Climate Change
Tearfund
Terræ Organização da Sociedade Civil
The Chinese Civil Climate Change Action Network
The Converging World
The Leadership Conference of Women Religious
The Provincial Council of the Clerics of St. Viator (Viatorians)
Tomsk Ecological Students Inspection
Tukhmiparvar
Third World Network - Africa
Uganda Coalition on Sustainable Development
Ugoku/Ugokasu
UKYCC
UNISON
United Mission to Nepal
University of Russia
Uragus, Primorskiy Kray
Vital Civilis
Women Association, People’s Friendship
Women’s Environment and Development Organisation
World Vision International
WWF International
Zambia Civil Society Network on Climate Change
ZERO Regional Environment Organisation (Zimbabwe)
Zimbabwe Environmental Regional Organisation
Zona Especial Indígena de Nicaragua

Link:  http://www.oxfam.org/en/campaigns/call-fair-global-climate-fund-cancun-climate-conference-cop16

Richard Branson to negotiators at COP16 in Cancún: “Just do it, for God’s sake. Get off your asses and get on with it.”

The headline is actually the PG version. On Saturday night, at the World Climate Summit, the high-flying entrepreneur behind the Virgin Group, Richard Branson, delivered a message to the negotiators at the U.N.’s climate change meeting, COP 16, in Cancun, Mexico, which continues this week: “Just do it, for God’s sake. Get off your a**es and get on with it.”

The “advice” came out of an onstage interview with both Branson and CNN founder and environmentalist Ted Turner, and Turner echoed the call to action: “Let’s do it. Let’s do it now before it’s too late. Let’s stop doing the dumb things and let’s start doing the smart things.”

What both Branson and Turner are asking is for the group of negotiators at COP 16 to find common ground and to create some sort of agreement on countries’ carbon emission reduction goals. That’s looking like a very difficult task, given countries are split over whether to continue with and extend the Kyoto Protocol, which has a deadline of 2012 (what developing countries want), or to beef up the Copenhagen Accord (what the U.S. wants) and abandon Kyoto (what Japan sounds like it wants).

Branson urged the delegates to start with small targets, as did United Nations Framework Convention on Climcate Change (UNFCCC) Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres in a speech on Saturday morning. Branson: “As long as they do it fairly and equally and across industries and on a global basis, no one’s going to suffer. And it doesn’t have to be very much initially and then encourage people to go after clean energy.”

It’s clear that if the negotiations stall again in Cancun — as they did last year in Copenhagen — businesses will be ever more responsible for stepping into the role of implementing energy efficiency and clean energy as part of their corporate strategies. Branson, who co-founded the Carbon War Room, a group for business leaders to come together to fight climate change, said, “Between us all, with enough commitment, we’ll have to get on top of it.”

Sunil Paul, early stage cleantech investor and founder of the Gigaton Throw-Down project, expressed a similar sentiment to me last week, saying, “Even in the absence of government action, companies are taking actions.” Branson and Turner spoke in conversation during a dinner for Paul’s Gigaton Awards, held at the World Climate Summit, and which awarded prizes to businesses that showed leadership in carbon emissions reductions. 3M won the overall award, while Vodafone, Nike and Suzlon received awards in their respective categories.

The interview was one of the first times that Turner and Branson appeared in conversation together, and when asked if they would work together to help businesses fight climate change, Turner said,  “We’re toiling in the same vineyard, and we’re in contact with each other. When we can help one another, we’ll do it.” The two genuinely seemed to like each other, and when the interviewer pointed out that Branson’s space port was being built next to Turner’s ranch, Branson joked, “Anywhere in America is next to Ted’s properties.”

The COP negotiations continue this week, and will likely get more heated later in the week as countries’ ministers arrive.

Link:  http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS136791820420101206

UNFCCC Secretary Christiana Figueres meets with Adopt A Negotiator Trackers at COP16

UNFCCC Secretary Christiana Figueres meets with Adopt A Negotiator Trackers at COP16, December 4, 2010



Partial transcript:

It’s you. It’s the next generation. Look: We’re doing this, but this has nothing to do with us. It’s all about you. It’s all about you. We’re the ones that have caused the problem, but you’re the ones that are going to have to pay for it, right? The fact is, I’m the mother of two women about your age, and I realized many years ago that I had inherited a planet that was a diminished planet. And that if I didn’t do something about it, my daughters would grow up in a planet that had been severely diminished by what we’re doing. And I just can’t look at my daughters in the eyes and not do whatever I can.

So, it’s you. It’s about the kind of planet that you’re going to have. It’s honestly not my planet. It’s yours, okay? We borrowed it from you for a few minutes. But you will take it over very soon, because it’s yours. And you’re going to have to give it over to your children.

Honestly, there’s no perfect job here, okay? Nothing that we are going to do in Cancun is going to be perfect. Don’t expect perfection. Nothing is going to be highly ambitious. Nothing. Everything here is going to be one step, and everything is going to be insufficient. But it is the best that this group of people in these circumstances, with these political constraints, in this economic environment, can do for the time being. And as soon as this finishes we have to start pushing for the next step. And so it goes. But each one of us that is here has the moral responsibility to do the absolute best that we can at that moment under those circumstances. So what inspires me? It’s you.

Link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzOwjFYXG4I

Share your thoughts on climate change adaptation

Talk point: Share your thoughts on climate change adaptation

This month's Global development podcast will explore the issue of climate change adaptation. Ahead of the recording next week we would like to hear your thoughts on the issue. We'll put the best comments or questions to our podcast panellists

Record a message on Audioboo

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• Jaz Cummins
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 November 2010 10.23 GMT
• Article history

The Amazon forest burns next to the city of Mandaquiri last November. The world's biggest rainforest was suffering from seasonal drought. Photograph: Paulo Whitaker/Reuters

In the run-up to Cancun, this month's Global development podcast will focus on climate change and adaptation.

The podcast will be recorded next week, and we'd like to hear any comments or questions you'd like us to share with our panellists.

Madeleine Bunting will present the discussion and share her insights from her recent trip to Mali, where she saw first hand the effects of climate change on the delicate Sahelian landscape and sensed the coming demand for "environmental justice".

She will be joined in the studio by John Vidal, the Guardian's environment editor, and Davyth Stewart, the senior campaigner in the forests and climate change team at Global Witness.

Saleemul Huq, senior fellow in the climate change group at the International Institute for Environment and Development – and member of the Guardian's Global development site's advisory panel - will be joining us by phone from Cancun.

You can leave your comments either in the thread below or as an audio clip on Audioboo (pasted below are some instructions for recording your clip).

We'd also like to know some things from you: What does the impact of climate change and adaptation look like in your country? Last week we heard from a number of people from some of the countries most vulnerable to changes in weather patterns, who attended the Kiribati climate conference.

Stephane Ramananarivo, from Madagascar, wrote:

Poverty, illiteracy, vulnerability, famine, chronic disease, shifting cultivation, pollution, waste, lack of water, lack of hygiene: all are words attached to Malagasy society, from the city to the countryside. The living conditions of many people do not allow them to dwell for very long on the large questions, such as climate change. Since daily survival is first and foremost in the minds of the majority of our citizens, climate change is the least of their worries.

We'd also like to hear what your hopes (or fears) are for Cancun. What are the challenges (or opportunities) facing movements that work on both development and the environment? As one commentator who responded to our blog last week on Oxfam's climate court said:

I think the aim is not to ship in disadvantaged people each time there is a climate change related disagreement, but to educate. The fact that climate change is already affecting poorer people around the world NOW is often lost in the political and scientific brou-haha that surrounds anything to do with climate change. This is why organisations such as Oxfam (and many, many others) have decided to speak out and help poorer people adapt to changes.

If you have any problems posting a comment or recording a clip, email us at development@guardian.co.uk

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