"People Power" (radio version) by 350RadioWaves. Uploaded with Gobbler
Just days after the IPCC SRIC report warned that substanially intense rainfall, storms and droughts could wipe billions off economies and destroy lives, the governments from the richest countries are acknowledging they have little hope of forging a new climate change treaty before 2020.
The announcement comes just one week before the start of the UNFCCC COPY17, which opens next Monday in Durban, South Africa.
The United States, Japan, and the European Union, the countries least impacted by the dire consequences of escalating impacts of global warming are in agreement with plans to use Durban as a stepping stone towards establishing a new protocol for dealing with the climate crisis. The United Nations is apparently in agreement with this plan.
Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency (IEA), and one of the world's foremost authorities on climate economics, told the Guardian: "If we do not have an international agreement whose effect is put in place by 2017, then the door to [holding temperatures below 2C] will be closed forever."
The entire UNFCCC negotiating process has been geared towards reaching a legally binding climate treaty by 2012, the year in which Kyoto expires. Governments have agreed for some time that the need to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees in integral to avoiding a castrophic change in the world's climate.
The difficulties stem for an unwillingness (or inability) of developiong countries to invest in the adaptation and mitigation schemes required to control rising temperatures and to provide adequate assistance to the Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States already feeling the impact of global warming.
A Japanese official told the Guardian that Tokyo was aiming for an agreement to come into force in 2020, which was "realistic", though he later said Japan was aiming for agreement "as soon as possible". The UK's negotiators are now fixed on 2020, and the US is understood to expect a similar trajectory.
Christiana Figueres,the UN's top official on climate change, did not disagree with this roadmap. She said: "Making an agreement is not easy. What we are looking at is not an international environment agreement — what we are looking at is nothing other than the biggest industrial and energy revolution that has ever been seen." The Guardian
ACTION
"People Power" (radio version) by 350RadioWaves. Uploaded with Gobbler
Join 350 Radio Wave and help "shine a spotlight on the stakes of the climate crisis and the solutions that are bubbling up around the world."
For 350 Radio Wave, we’ve collaborated with some of the the most popular and talented musicians in Africa to create a song for the movement. It's called "People Power" and it’s all about raising our voices in solidarity for a better future. With the help of this song, we'll share the stories of our movement and create a wave of radio broadcasts the world-over -- calling for our fellow citizens to join the movement and calling on governments to act. We're encouraging local climate activists to share the song and take it to the airwaves.
It's time for the 99% to tell the power elite the world can't wait til 2020! We want action NOW!
11:13 PM PT: Kyoto Protocol should not be held hostage to a new treaty – India
November 22, 2011 in 10. Kyoto Protocol, 12. Financing, UN climate change negotiations
Geneva, 21 Nov (Meena Raman) – India’s Environment and Forests’ Minister, Ms. Jayanthi Natarajan, has said categorically that a new long-term binding agreement cannot and should not be a quid pro quo for a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (KP).The Minister was responding to recent positions taken by the European Union and other countries who are Parties to the KP that they are willing to make commitments for further emission cuts under a second commitment period only if there was a decision in Durban next month, for a new legally binding agreement post-2020 involving all “major economies” or “major emitters”.
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