December 16, 2010 02:44 ET
Nigeria, others call on Cancun conference chair to rise above partisanship
CANCUN, December 15, 2010/location>)/ -- A number of developing countries present at the Cancun conference negotiations have decried serious gaps in the possible elements of the conference outcome, calling on its president to rise above partisanship, according to the Information and Communication Service (ICS) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) covering the event.
The NGO, Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA) issued a statement, a copy of which was sent to ICS, regretting that “issues of justice had been omitted in the chair's text”, which is “full of objectives and principles without substantive issues like loss and damage to poor communities largely impacted by the adverse effects of climate change”.
It accuses the North-South divide in the ongoing negotiations for being “an impediment to making substantial progress in Cancun”.
The statement points out that although the president repeatedly assured delegates of transparency and progressive achievements on certain elements, concerns expressed by Nigeria and a number of other developing countries “is a clear testimony that the manner in which consultations are being conducted leaves much to be desired, requiring the COP Presidency to rise above partisanship”.
Bolivia, Venezuela, Barbados and Tuvalu are among the other countries that complained about lack of transparency, the statement reveals.
“We believe that Mexico should be a neutral broker of this process, but what we are sadly seeing is that they have decided to be a front of Annex 1 countries in evading their responsibilities. The practice of exclusion and green room maneuvers should cease forthwith if parties are to build trust among each other”, the statement says.
It calls on Parties to resist “with the force it deserves, any deliberate attempt to sneak the World Bank and its affiliates into the centre of negotiations”, and praises Nigeria for “raising the red flag on the text's singular mention of the World Bank while leaving no space for other options”.
After a week of negotiations Parties fear the 16th COP is “not anywhere near a fair, just and equitable agreement that will lead to deep emission cuts and the provision of finances to help safeguard the planet and its people from the imminent peril occasioned by the changing climate.
The statement decries what it calls “adamant negligence of the warning that the sciences have given to the effect that if the world does not drastically reduce its greenhouse gas emissions urgently, we stand the risk of global warming of up to 4 degrees Celsius”.
The countries complaining of lack of transparency share the view that parties which are “wavering in their political responsibility to the Kyoto Protocol should not be a hindrance for the global community to agree on the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol”.
They insist that the outcome of Cancun and any other negotiations must be two tracks “to correspond to with the ad hoc working group and the long term cooperative action negotiations”
Unity among the developing countries in Cancun is seen as critical because “the divide-and-rule and the dangling of carrots stunts of the rich industrialized countries that are responsible for causing climate change must be rejected”, the statement concludes.
Source: Economic Commission for Africa (ECA)
Note:
The United Nations Climate Change Conference took place in Cancun, Mexico, from 29 November to 10 December 2010. It encompassed the sixteenth Conference of the Parties (COP) and the sixth Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP), as well as the thirty-third sessions of both the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), and the fifteenth session of the AWG-KP and thirteenth session of the AWG-LCA.
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