Little to celebrate about roller coaster UN climate process

Posted by Bronwen Maher on December 13, 2010 at 09:17 AM

Labour MEP Nessa Childers has given a guarded welcome to the deal at the UN climate talks in Cancun, Mexico but warned "Though the UN process has been saved, there is little or nothing to celebrate in terms of the ultimate goal - a binding global deal to reduce carbon emissions and avoid climate disaster.
"There is a roller-coaster game of expectations being played in this process. The expectations were extremely high for Copenhagen last year and were dashed. The expectations for Cancun this week were set extremely low and the outcome didn't disappoint. Now the bandwagon will move on to South Africa next year. Will expectations be set similarly low? The problem is the clock is ticking down to climate disaster, and we do not have time for such games.
 
She said : "The negotiators did manage to reach the best possible deal permitted in the circumstances due to lack of leadership from the major powers like the US and China, and for that the Mexican presidency must be commended. The  multilateral process  to extend the Kyoto Protocol is still  alive, but only just.  There will be a lot of pressure on COP17 in South Africa next year before  Kyoto, the only binding agreement on climate , expires. But it is important that the agreement reached in Copenhagen  last year is now an official  UN document backed by  virtually all countries. That represents some progress albeit of a limited nature.
 
She continued: "The result  this weekend in Cancun shows that we can change things if we work together.  I welcome the creation of a Green Global Fund to help developing countries adjust to climate change and mitigate its effects. However,  I regret the lack of specific instruments to raise the money and will keep pushing with my MEP colleagues for a global financial transaction tax.
 
"The bad news is that, despite the  recognition in the agreement  for ‘urgent action’ to cap temperature rises at no more than the critical benchmark of two degrees Celsius above 1990 levels we have nothing binding and nothing concrete here.  We need deeper emissions cuts and we need to decide on the legal status of a new global agreement . The clock is still ticking and time is running out."

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