COPENHAGEN 2009:THERE WAS little consensus among leading political and UN leaders about the prospects of a successful outcome to the global talks on climate change in Copenhagen.
The British prime minister Gordon Brown and the Minister for the Environment John Gormley both gave gloomy assessments of the process, separately expressing doubt about a deal being brokered by tomorrow’s deadline.
Gordon Brown said it may not be possible to reach a deal on global warming in Copenhagen.
Speaking on BBC, he said the barriers that remained were “huge” but added that they were not insurmountable.
“Unless we have a solution we’re going to have [our children] growing up in a world where there are floods and droughts, where there areclimate change refugees and evacuees, where we have extreme weather,” he said.
The Minister for the Environment John Gormley said that the EU needed to to keep pushing for its “red line issues”.
He said without that, there was no hope of getting a comprehensive meaningful agreement.
“I am not hugely optimistic. My optimism around getting a meaningful deal at this stage is waning. I hope that if we put our backbone into it, we can get resolution,” he said.
Yves de Boer, the executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, told a press conference at the UN climate conference, said he still believed it was possible to reach a real success but that today’s talks involving some 115 political leaders and heads of state, would be critical.
“There are a number of issues that need to be resolved at ministerial level or higher, said Mr de Boer.
He said that they were the big issues of mitigation, financing by industrialised countries, adaptation, emission reductions targets and forests.”
His comments came during a fractious day at the Bella Centre on the outskirts of Copenhagen when Danish police fired teargas, and arrested an estimated 260 people, in efforts to disperse a protest involving some 3,000 climate change protesters.
With the UN and Danish authorities coming under fire for what was described as “shambolic” organisation, there were also a series of mass walk-outs and sit-down protests from environmental organisations, which disrupted some of the day’s proceedings.
The protests were caused by delegates, including the entire Friends of the Earth delegation, being refused access because of capacity and over-crowding problems at the venue – some 45,000 people were registered for a venue with a capacity of only 15,000. Other environmental campaigners protested against the lack of progress and the alleged lack of transparency.
In the context of the ongoing negotiations, Mr de Boer’s optimistic assessment of the prospect for success was not shared by all European leaders.
A new plan proposed during high level statements yesterday by Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi which would see richer countries pay $50 billion per year to African nations by 2015 received some support from larger EU countries.
The Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made the most impassioned speech of the day and accused capitalist mores of causing the crisis of global warming.
“It is the selfishness of consumers in the richest countries. It’s the lack of solidarity with those who are hungry, who are poor and are most in need,” he said.
“The main stumbling blocks remain the question of the financing of climate change mitigation and adaptation in developing and poorer countries by richer industrialised countries.
“There are alsosignificant differences on targets for emissions, as well as verification of numbers; and if the legally binding targets of the Kyoto Protocol will continue after 2012 or be superseded byCopenhagen.
“Developing countries attached to the G77 group are implacably opposed to this, ” the Venezuelan president said.