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| Image: Tom Janssen |
The 17th UNFCCC (United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change) annual negotiations were concluded in Durban, South
Africa, last month. The Conference of the
Parties (CoP) as it is better known, is the annual meeting of Kyoto Protocol
signatories (as well as non-aligned observers) who attempt to assess progress
in dealing with climate change, as well as negotiate the Kyoto Protocol in
order to establish legally binding obligations for developed and developing
countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Several key issues were
discussed—chiefly involving the culpability of the industrial global north with
regard to historic pollution starting with the industrial revolution, the
vulnerability of the non-industrial global south, and the recalcitrance of
trenchant emerging economies referred to as BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India
and China) to commit to emission cuts, unless the rich, industrialized global
north were prepared to commit to more, owing to a longer history of high
emissions.Presented here are a compilation of quotes on these issues from
people who stand to be most affected by climate change.
On the United States’ refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol: |
“Principally,
a country like the United
States never signed the Kyoto Protocol, for
example. They never agreed to having a legally binding agreement on emission
reduction. They’ve always favored a situation where they stand apart and then
allow others to struggle against the tide. And now, because the US, as the
major emitter of greenhouse gases has never agreed to a fully multilateral
system of cooperating with other countries in the world, some nations like
Japan, like Russia, Australia, Canada, who is a heavily polluting nation, have
teamed up with the United States. And we’re seeing the European Union generally
speaking one language and walking the other way. So, the rich countries are
standing in the way of a real agreement that could avert disaster.”
– Nnimmo Bassey,
executive director of Environmental Rights Action in Nigeria and chair of Friends of the
Earth International (FOE)
Eight years is a death sentence on Africa.”
| On emerging economies, like China, outstripping the rich global north: |
“At one
level, the historical responsibility cannot be forgotten—cannot be overlooked.
The atmospheric space for carbon, for greenhouse gases, has already been
colonized by the United States and other rich, industrialized nations…(now) the
debate is about who is going to occupy that remaining space (yet) the efforts
of China to turn to green energy, to reduce emissions is not being recognized.
Scientists tell us that China
has done far more than the United
States in terms of reduction of emissions.
And in fact…developing nations…have committed to deeper emissions reduction
than the industrialized world.”
– Nnimmo
Bassey
“Three-fourths
of all the greenhouse gases that have accumulated in the atmosphere, and will
stay there warming us up for thousands of years, come from the developed
countries of the Global North, led by the United States, right, which is responsible
for more than one-quarter of all emissions accumulated in the atmosphere. So,
we have to have a balance between historical responsibility and current and
future responsibility. And I think the United
States government is totally wrong in trying to blame China for—you
know, as the biggest polluter. It is indeed today the biggest emitter, but the United States
was the biggest emitter for 150 years.”
– Indian writer Praful
Bidwai, author of The Politics of Climate Change and The Global
Crisis: Mortgaging Our Future.
| On the false promise of the neoliberal “Green” Economy, and spurious decarbonization schemes such as Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Reduction in Deforestation and Degradation (REDD/REDD+): |
“Instead of cutting greenhouse gas emissions 80% like we
need, the UN is promoting false solutions to climate change like carbon trading
and offsets through the Clean Development Mechanism and the proposed REDD+,
which provide pollut ers with permits to pollute. The UN climate negotiation is
not about saving the climate, it is about privatization of forests, agriculture
and the air.”
“We are here to
express our concern about the false solutions that have made a business out of
climate change. For indigenous peoples, the way of life we maintain in our
territories is sacred. Therefore, we see carbon markets as a hypocrisy that
will not detain global warming. With this moratorium, we alert our peoples
about the risks that come with REDD+: threats against our rights and those of
our Mother Earth, with the attempts to turn our lands and our forests into a
waste-basket for carbon, while those responsible for the crisis continue
reaping the benefits.”
| And finally, most poignantly, Nnimmo Bassey on the bureaucratic foot-dragging and obstruction that the US heroically engaged in at Durban, exhibiting itself in the guise of chief UN climate negotiator Todd Stern who “categorically” rejects “the sense of guilt, or culpability, or reparations” on behalf of the US and talks about committing to sign an agreement in 2015 to come into force in 2020, a language that implies eight years of inaction: |
Saptarshi is a graduate student at SUNY-ESF finishing his
Masters thesis. He serves on the PNL
Editorial Committee and the SPC Steering Committee.
