Heads of state need to commit to being present at negotiations to solve the climate crisis before it is too late.
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 1990 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."
Read our demands for the UN summit in Copenhagen:
Long version,
Short version
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