‘Lima COP on verge of failing people and the planet,’ say activists

Lima, Peru – The 20th Conference of the
Parties (COP-20) of the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) is supposed to wrap up today. The headline
is taken from a press release from the activist group, the Third
World Network. They, along with other activists and envoys from
developing countries, are not happy about the direction in which
the negotiations are going here at the COP. Why? In a word,
money.

The COP was chiefly convened to set up a formal system under
which countries make pledges before March 2015 about how they plan
to handle climate change, most especially their greenhouse gas
emissions cuts. Secondly it supposed is to approve a draft
negotiating text for the global climate change agreement that is to
be adopted next year at the COP in Paris. It looks like a Paris
text will be accepted since it is mostly an un-curated wish list of
possible policies. Nothing is excluded, so every country can hope
for a nice policy gift just before Christmas next year in Paris.
 

This afternoon featured a succession of press conferences at
which various activist groups and self-styled representatives of
civil society got to throw the moral equivalent of temper tantrums.
I have now covered nearly ten of these meeting and the endgame
always, always, always comes down to a fight over money. The rich
countries refuse to pony up as much as the poor countries think
they deserve. So perennially disappointed activists are again
furious that the rich countries are not making explicit promises to
supply billions in funds to help poor countries. Here are some
representative comments:

Lidy Nacpil from Jubilee South Asia Pacific: “We demand a
finance roadmap—when and how much they [rich countries] will
deliver on their financial obligations before 2020.”

Jagoda Munic, Chairperson Friends of the Earth
International: “The inaction of wealthy nations at
the UN climate negotiations is outrageous. It flies in the face of
the most vulnerable countries and communities suffering from the
climate crisis. This is climate injustice.”

Samantha Smith from the WWF’s Global Climate and Energy
Initiative: “We are not seeing the political will, the money, and
the urgency that the climate crisis all around us demands.”

John Foran from the International Institute of Climate Action
and Theory at the University of California, Santa Barbara: “The
problem is that the neoliberal capitalist economy is at war with
the planet and its people.”

Michael Dorsey from the Joint Center for Political and Economic
Studies and Sierra Club board member: on the board of the Sierra
Club: “We are on a course for low ambition; we are on a course for
a Paris agreement with no binding commitments.”

Pascoe Sabado from Corporate Europe Observatory: “We have to
accept that climate change is not about the climate; it is about
the economy. Climate change is about system change.”

A
leaked memo from the so-called like-minded development group of
countries – basically some 40 of the world’s poorest countries –
suggests that they may not agree with the proposals being put forth
here and so COP-20 could end with no decisions on how to proceed to
the negotiations in Paris. This kind of threat surfaces at every
COP, so it’s doubtful that they will carry through with it, but
we’ll see.

I will analyze whatever is decided here at the COP next
week.