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Bio­di­ver­sity Counts!
Obser­va­tions and opin­ions con­cern­ing zoos, evo­lu­tion, nature con­ser­va­tion and the way we treat/​support the ecosys­tems which are sup­posed to serve us.


201209Dec10:12

Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence: does it change anything?

Infor­ma­tion
pub­lished 09 Decem­ber 2012 | mod­i­fied 18 July 2015

This blog is not intended to pro­vide or spread any other opin­ion than, “be sen­si­ble about what you read and who wrote it.”

It is just that I am very aware about what is hap­pen­ing to our Planet that I pro­vide you with a few quotes from dif­fer­ent organ­i­sa­tions on the results of the nego­ti­a­tions at the United Nations Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence in Doha, Qatar (COP18). The con­fer­ence ended yes­ter­day, one day later than fore­seen, because the Par­ties (UN mem­ber states) had some prob­lems to agree upon a final out­come text.

Saman­tha Smith, leader of WWF’s Global Cli­mate and Energy Ini­tia­tive:

Some devel­oped coun­tries have made a mock­ery of the nego­ti­a­tions by back­ing away from their past com­mit­ments and refus­ing to take on new ones. And to make mat­ters worse, it was only a hand­ful of coun­tries — such as Poland, Rus­sia, Canada, the US and Japan — who held the nego­ti­a­tions to ransom.
The acid test for these nego­ti­a­tions was real emis­sions cuts; real and con­crete finan­cial com­mit­ments for cli­mate change; and the basis for a new global deal by 2015 that is both ambi­tious and equi­table. But instead we got a shame­fully weak deal, one that is so far away from the sci­ence that it should raise eth­i­cal issues for those responsible.

Read the press release of World Wildlife Fund (WWF Global) here.


Kumi Naidoo, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Green­peace Inter­na­tional:

Where is the urgency? The pace of progress is glacial. The inabil­ity of gov­ern­ments to find com­mon ground to com­bat a com­mon threat is inex­plic­a­ble and unac­cept­able. It appears gov­ern­ments are putting national short term inter­est ahead of long term global survival.
The US remains out­side the Kyoto Pro­to­col, and its del­e­ga­tion came to Doha and imme­di­ately launched into block­ing progress on nearly every front. Despite the dev­as­ta­tion of Super­storm Sandy and polls show­ing major­ity sup­port for cli­mate pol­icy, Obama’s team exhibits no improve­ment from pre­vi­ous COPs. With his administration’s sub­si­dies of fos­sil fuel export that could negate domes­tic car­bon pol­lu­tion reduc­tion, Pres­i­dent Obama’s legacy could turn out to be no bet­ter than his predecessor’s.

Read the press release of Green­peace Inter­na­tional here.

Abdul­lah bin Hamad Al-​Attiyah, Pres­i­dent of the Con­fer­ence of Par­ties (COP):

Doha has opened up a new gate­way to big­ger ambi­tion and to greater action — the Doha Cli­mate Gate­way. Qatar is proud to have been able to bring gov­ern­ments here to achieve this his­toric task. I thank all gov­ern­ments and min­is­ters for their work to achieve this suc­cess. Now gov­ern­ments must move quickly through the Doha Cli­mate Gate­way to push for­ward with the solu­tions to cli­mate change.
Chris­tiana Figueres, Exec­u­tive Sec­re­tary of the UN Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change (UNFCCC):

I con­grat­u­late the Qatar Pres­i­dency for man­ag­ing a com­plex and chal­leng­ing con­fer­ence. Now, there is much work to do. Doha is another step in the right direc­tion, but we still have a long road ahead. The door to stay below two degrees remains barely open. The sci­ence shows it, the data proves it.

Read the press release of United Nations Envi­ron­ment Pro­gramme here.

A more objec­tive view should be pro­vided by Reuters. So, let’s have a look at some quotes from a recent arti­cle pub­lished on Reuters’ website:

Kieren Keke, for­eign min­is­ter of Nauru, who fears his Pacific island state could become unin­hab­it­able:

Much much more is needed if we are to save this process from being sim­ply a process for the sake of process, a process that sim­ply pro­vides for talk and no action, a process that locks in the death of our nations, our peo­ple, and our children.
Denmark’s Energy Min­is­ter Mar­tin Lide­gaard:

It’s clear to me that this process is the only global frame­work we have and since this is a global prob­lem, it has to be addressed glob­ally. But obvi­ously, this can’t stand alone. Nations can’t con­tinue to hide behind the process. There’s a direct link between what we deliver at home and here. We des­per­ately need to com­bine action by regions, munic­i­pal­i­ties, cit­i­zens with this global approach. That is becom­ing more and more evident.

Read the Reuters arti­cle from Decem­ber 9 here.

So, draw your own con­clu­sion on what really has been achieved there in Doha!


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