Governments at the COP8 climate talks in Delhi are losing sight of the big picture of preventing dangerous climate change, and failing to remember what is at stake, Greenpeace said today.
"If governments here in Delhi want to achieve anything out of these talks, there are some basic facts that they have to acknowledge, and action they must take," said Steve Sawyer, Greenpeace climate policy director.
* Climate change is already happening
Global temperature is rising rapidly, the glaciers are melting, we are experiencing unusual droughts in Southern Africa and India, unusual floods in China, Vietnam, central Europe and Germany and other changes. These are just the beginning - and it's going to get worse. All governments must acknowledge this.
* Preventing dangerous climate change is an equity issue.
Developing countries are most at risk of climate change despite the fact that it is industrialised countries that are most to blame for human activities leading to dangerous climate change. As a matter of basic fairness and equity it is developed countries who must act first.
* A temperature increase of at least 1°C is likely to happen, even if we could stop the increase of greenhouse gas concentrations tomorrow.
This "committed warming" is predicted to cause irreversible damage to some unique ecosystems and the extinction of many of their species. This is not 'acceptable'. Governments must stop trying to weaken the only process we have to reduce emissions.
* Developing countries will suffer the most from this "committed warming"
Temperature and sea level rise is inevitable and will cause increased risk of disease, hunger, water shortage and coastal flooding for somewhere millions of people, mostly in developing countries.
* The initial Kyoto targets call for only a 5% reduction in emissions. Without much further, deeper and faster reductions after the initial Kyoto commitment period which ends in 2012, we will still continue to see climate impacts rise.
It is clear that we have to cut much deeper emissions cuts than those agreed in the Kyoto Protocol for its first commitment period, if we are keep below a 2°C temperature increase. All Governments must ratify and implement Kyoto immediately as a minimal first step.
* A temperature increase of 2°C or more would be disastrous for many developing countries.
Most regions in developed and developing countries will suffer experience economic. It is likely that there will be 50-120 million more people at risk of hunger as crop yields drop in regions affected by more drought conditions. Climate induced water shortages are likely to affect more than 3 billion. 100 million more people are likely to be at risk of coastal flooding. The meltdown of Greenland Ice Sheet could be become inevitable over the coming centuries. This would eliminate whole island countries in the Pacific, Indian Ocean and elsewhere, overwhelm Bangladesh and cause untold damage and suffering to regions with low lying coastal populations in the coming centuries. This would be totally irreversible on any meaningful time scale.
Governments must not only implement Kyoto immediately, but be prepared to cut emissions even more than this minimal first step.
"The scientific scenarios are not optimistic but the world faces dire consequences unless governments stop complaining about the costs of implementing the Kyoto Protocol, and quickly move on to much deeper reductions," said Sawyer.
"It's not that difficult. Do the people here in Delhi want to protect future generations from climate change, or be remembered as the ones who were too self-centered, too greedy, too lazy or too cowardly to make the decisions needed to help save us all?"
For the scientific breakdown on these facts see the Climate Action Network position paper "Preventing Dangerous Climate Change."
Notes: For the scientific breakdown on these facts see the Climate Action Network position paper "Preventing Dangerous Climate Change".