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Foreshadowing Paris, Failure in Bonn Chastised as 'Calamity' for Climate
Without substantial progress, climate advocacy groups said Friday, frontline communities around the globe face imminent threats.
"The deplorable inaction at the climate negotiations is a calamity for people across the world," said Dipti Bhatnagar, Friends of the Earth International's climate justice and energy coordinator. "We are facing a planetary emergency with floods, storms, droughts and rising seas causing devastation. The risk of irreversible climate change draws ever closer, and hundreds of thousands of people have already paid with their lives."
As the talks concluded, delegates expressed ongoing concerns that wealthy nations were still attempting to foist their aid obligations onto independent financiers like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), which the Group of 77 (G77) plus China coalition of developing nations said was an underhanded attempt to evade financial responsibilities at any cost--even if it meant derailing the entire treaty process.
Mattias Soderberg, chair of the ACT Alliance climate change advisory group, toldDeutsche Welle the pace of the talks was frustrating and disappointing.
"From our perspective, where we work with those who are affected by climate change, the progress is far from enough," Soderberg said. "Parties need to leave their comfort zones, to look for common understanding. Now they stay in their corners, sticking to old positions."
Susann Scherbarth, climate justice and energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe, added, "We need a fair agreement, a fair process and fair shares of climate action. What we have on the negotiation table now is increased effort by more than 140 developing countries but it won't avoid catastrophic climate change unless rich countries have a dramatic change of heart. We need rich countries to urgently commit to do their fair share."
The draft agreement that came out of Bonn was still riddled with "technical disagreements" and was unlikely to provide much guidance to minsters during the Paris talks, Soderberg said.
"An example is on loss and damage [where adaptation to climate change is no longer possible]. Some rich countries want to cut it out, while developing countries, led by LDCs [least developed countries] and small islands, want to include ambitious text. There is no middle ground," he said.
Harjeet Singh, climate policy manager for ActionAid, said the week's events showed "there is still a mountain to climb before a deal emerges on the horizon at the Paris summit in December."
"It seems that the [European Union] forgot its claim of standing together with the world's poor and vulnerable," Singh added. "For months it has remained undecided on how the Paris deal will help poor communities already being battered by climate change. The EU hangs at the threshold dithering on whether and how it should go out and help the people in the storm."
G77 delegates have asserted that the rift was not simply a disagreement between ministers--it was a matter of life and death. "It is not a photo opportunity; it is not an instagram or selfie moment. It is a reality we have to deal with on a day-to-day basis," said G77 chair and South African climate envoy Nozipho Mxakato-Diseko.
"Whether Paris succeeds or not will depend on what we have as part of the core agreement on finance," she said during a press conference Thursday.
Jamie Henn, strategy and communications director for climate advocacy group 350.org, reported from Bonn on Friday that the week had been "frustrating" for climate ministers and that many disagreements remained over the "level of ambition" by world leaders to move away from fossil fuels and financial support for developing countries.
He also said there were "huge preparations under way" for direct actions outside of the COP21 summit, including marches and other demonstrations around the world.
"No matter where you are, you can play a huge role in this movement by continuing to keep pressure up for strong action in Paris and beyond.... The only way we're going to see progress is with a strong grassroots movement that can take on the power of the fossil fuel industry," he said.
Scherbarth added, "People will have the last word in Paris. But the demonstrations in Paris will not be the end. The struggle will continue, as it must, because the job will not be done in Paris."
Watch Henn's video below:
Life and Death on the Line as Rich Nations Evade Climate Obligations
The latest blueprint of climate pledges reportedly omits key mechanisms that were included in previous drafts, such as financing for poorer countries and accountability for wealthier ones, according toAllAfrica.
"When you take out the issues of others, you disenfranchise them, and disempower those who suffer the most," said G77 chair and South Africa climate envoy Nozipho Mxakato-Diseko.
With the COP21 talks approaching fast, and no more chances to negotiate after the Bonn session ends this week, those roadblocks could mean a difference of life or death for frontline nations, Mxakato-Diseko said.
"It's a matter of life or death...and we are dead serious," Mxakato-Diseko told journalists in a media briefing on Thursday. While the G77 had come to an agreement on financial positions, she said, "developed countries have not negotiated, in the hope that it will be sorted [out] external to the agreement, where we are weakest."
Legally binding financial mandates for wealthy nations must be included in the agreement to guarantee that frontline countries actually receive funds to address the impacts of climate change, Mxakato-Diseko continued. "Otherwise we are left to the whim of charity, the whim of individual countries to decide if and when [to pay], depending on the circumstances."
According to a recent report by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a number of sources including government funds, private institutions, and development banks raised $62.8 billion in 2014 to stock up the climate war chest. Developed nations previously swore to mobilize $100 billion by 2020 to help frontline countries adapt to the impacts of global warming, such as sea level rise.
But on Thursday, the G77 said those figures were not accounted for and that the fine print included 'development aid' as a form of financial contribution, which raises "serious and valid concerns over the way that $62 billion figure was arrived at," said Angolan diplomat Giza Gaspar Martins. "It accounts for credit guarantees, loans that have to be repaid."
And because the World Bank and IMF, as private institutions, are not going to be bound by the COP21 climate agreement, delegates say there would be no way to guarantee that those funds would ever reach the developing nations.
The World Bank is "a competitor with developing countries for finance to give to us on conditions that are unregulated," while the IMF "has no status in the agreement," Mxakato-Diseko said. "Beneath the darkness, where there is no scrutiny from civil society, the hope is that our will will be bent so much that we are tired, we give up and then the issue is resolved by announcements that are external" to the UN climate process.
Gurdial Singh Nijar, a spokesperson for the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDC) coalition--which includes Argentina, China, India, Iran, and Vietnam, among others--told journalists that the new draft "completely ignored the submissions of G77 on finance."
"We demand that the text be balanced for negotiations to commence," Nijar said.
Harjeet Singh, policy manager for the humanitarian organization ActionAid, explained the G77's position this way: "If your house goes up in flames, the first thing you do is put the fire out. Developing countries are already fighting the fires of climate change and so are demanding strategies and money to deal with its impact. For rich nations who have the money, technology and skills, the devastation of climate change is not a pressing issue."
"The current climate talks are reflecting the contrasting order of priority of issues between developed and developing nations," Singh said. "Rich nations need to recognize the crisis is here and now. The money to prepare for and deal with climate impacts must be at the center of the deal in Paris."
The G77's call follows a report released Monday that found the U.S. and other wealthy nations' climate pledges to limit greenhouse gas emissions were not enough to prevent an average surface temperature warming of 2degC, the agreed threshold to prevent irreparable global warming and extreme weather events.
The success of COP21, said Mxakato-Diseko, will be judged by "what will be contained inside" the final accord.
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