Tag: Review

Executive Summary

Through a series of decisions adopted at COP 17 in Durban, South Africa, countries reaffirmed their resolve to tackle climate change. They further built on those decisions at COP 18 in Doha, Qatar. This resolve is yet to be put into action as global emissions continue to push the world towards warming of 4 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century.

However, the Earth's planetary limits and thus tipping points of its ecosystem have almost been reached. There have been devastating impacts of climate change across the world in the form of super storms, floods, droughts and enhanced extreme weather events. Climate change impacts are costing countries scarce financial resources while the global economy continues facing a major downturn. Impacts are addressed temporarily as the root cause remains unaddressed.

Lack of political will continues to be the key impediment crippling progress in the UNFCCC. Inadequacy of financial resources has hampered ambitious mitigation actions. It has also slowed down effective operationalization of mechanisms meant to help the world cope with impacts of climate change. Key issues such as equity as well as loss and damage wait to be addressed adequately.

It is time that countries catch up with the reality of climate change. Displaying leadership and courage to take difficult decisions is the need of the hour. Lack of political will should not continue to impede ambitious action to tackle climate change.

CAN wishes to remind parties that a climate safe pathway for 2/1.5°C is still feasible and nations must strive for it at COP 19 in Warsaw. They only have the luxury of two more COPs to commit to a climate agreement in 2015. Time is of essence and there are still many unresolved issues - lack of trust between countries being the prominent one.

COP 19 should be used to start working towards a fair, ambitious and legally binding climate plan for the world. CAN suggests that COP 19, as a priority, should address short-term mitigation ambition and the financial gap. This will help build trust amongst parties and create a positive momentum towards a post 2015 climate regime.

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Thank you Co-Chairs,

My name is Kaisa Kosonen, and I’m speaking here on behalf of CAN.

I want to thank the co-chairs and the secretariat for recognizing the importance of bringing civil society voices into this review – including through twitter! We expect the spirit and format of transparency and participation to continue throughout the review.

There are three other key points we want to make at this stage.

Firstly, CAN expects the review to assess the scale and nature of irreversible damage, human misery, ecosystem losses and risks related to tipping points, that could be avoided if warming was limited to 1.5 degrees instead of 2 degrees. The process and inputs must serve this key question, with special focus on the most vulnerable.

Secondly, the main task of the review is to help bring us on track in preventing climate chaos. This is not just another technical exercise. This is our opportunity to finally get it right, and to learn from past mistakes in target setting and delivering on commitments.

The long-term goal, targets and commitments in the 2015 agreement must be based on the review findings. But the review must also guide enhanced short-term action, with decisions taken already in 2013 and 2014. An iterative nature of the review and the workplans of both the Joint Contact Group and Expert Dialogue should allow for this.

Finally, in terms of the input this review should include, CAN likes to remind Parties, that in reviewing how governments are doing in meeting their goals, NGOs are the experts. In doing value judgment of adequacy, civil society engagement is fundamental. Therefore, we look forward to bringing our expertise from around the world to this process.

Thank you!

Photo Credit: Naoyuki Yamagishi