WWF: Failure not an option for world negotiators at climate meeting in Bangkok
With the world’s only treaty regulating carbon emissions expiring in just four months, government negotiators at a UN climate meeting in Bangkok this week are under enormous pressure to deliver new commitments.
Melting sea ice and icebergs in the Arctic. NASA recently announced record ice loss in the Arctic.
The treaty, known as the Kyoto Protocol, commits industrialised nations to legally binding targets and timeframes for cutting carbon emissions.
These targets expire December 2012 and Bangkok is the last chance for negotiations before the UNFCCC Conference of Parties COP18, to be held in Doha, Qatar, in three months, the deadline for the renewal of the Kyoto Protocol.
Though time is running out, the EU is the only party that has already made new commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.
The challenge for negotiators at COP18 will be to ensure that these pledges, and pledges from other countries are enough to keep global warming below 2° C, a target agreed by all parties to the UNFCCC.
WWF climate advocate Tasneem Essop said, “this year, we’ve seen record droughts in the United States; record high prices for food commodities affected by drought; a record low of Arctic sea ice; and many other extreme weather events. Scientists tell us this is linked to climate change."
"What does it take before governments act? Agreeing new commitments under the Kyoto Protocol is a critical part of fighting climate change, and WWF expects governments to make it happen,” she added.
According to most scientists, we can only avoid dangerous climate change if global carbon emissions peak in just 36 months and drop drastically after that.
The meetings in Bangkok and Doha must produce agreements that will deal with both short-term cuts and finance for developing countries, and a roadmap to a new global agreement in 2015.
These include:
● Closing the gap on both mitigation and finance in the short-term (pre-2020)
● Laying a solid foundation for negotiations towards a fair, ambitious and binding global agreement to be adopted by 2015
● Providing a clear process top develop the principles for an equitable final agreement
“We have very little time left to act on climate change. The longer we wait, the more drastic the measures that will be required. This is not exaggeration – it is science and increasingly the daily reality of millions of people in the form of heat waves, droughts and floods,” says Essop.
Source:World Wildlife Fund
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