Draft Climate Deal Fakes Ambition in Order to Undermine Principles of Equity

PARIS - On the publication of the latest draft text from COP21, climate justice campaigners warned that the core principles of the UN climate process were at risk of being undermined by rich countries. They noted on the latest text:

• While the 1.5C global warming cap is welcomed and must remain in the final text, a glaring gap remains between this goal and the emissions cuts that 180 countries have tabled. Current pledges would bring the world nearer 3C and there is little hope of the financing needed to achieve global transition to clean energy

• Rich countries seem determined to ignore their financial responsibility for the loss and damage faced by people in Southern countries as a result of climate change.

• Carbon markets have been put back on the table under different names, allowing the rich to ‘pay to pollute’ and ensuring countries can actually increase emissions while claiming ‘net reductions’

• Cutting pollution from shipping and aviation remain out of the text,

• The EU has insisted there is no mention of the damage wrought on the climate by the ‘free trade’ model.

Nick Dearden, Director of Global Justice Now commented:
“Rich countries are pretending that they are the ambitious ones – and certainly 1.5C must remain in the text. But without an equitable means of achieving that, this deal will be unjust and unenforceable. What we’ve seen at this summit is a shocking attempt by rich countries to evade their responsibility. An unsustainable ‘free market’ model is being locked into place which will exacerbate inequality, poverty and climate destruction.”

Shalmali Guttal, Executive Director of Focus on the Global South:
“Of course we want binding targets of less than 1.5. Many of us from the South are working with grassroots movements and communities to challenge extractive, destructive development and over consumption of the rich in our own societies. But we cannot fall into the US-EU trap. The high ambition proposed by the US-EU is ambition for corporations, not for addressing the root causes of the climate crisis.”

Janet Redman, Director the Climate Program at the Institute for Policy Studies:
“Getting this climate agreement right is more than an environmental necessity – it’s an existential imperative. Limiting global warming to 1.5C means rich countries have to make bigger carbon cuts faster, and move public money to the global South now. We spend $2 trillion a year on our military and mobilized $14 trillion to bail out banks. Wealthy nations have to shift money from banks and tanks to clean energy and climate resilience.”