Bolivia stands firm as Europe/US abandon climate targets

Bolivia is leading a last-ditch stand to achieve a binding agreement on climate change through the United Nations Framework Convention in the teeth of opposition from the US and Europe.

Through a mobilisation of global public opinion, including a world referendum on climate change, and with support from some other countries, Bolivia hopes to force the issue of binding limits on emissions and “climate justice” back on the agenda of the next round of talks in Mexico in December.

But more than 100 countries have signed up to the charade of the Copenhagen Accord, which abandons binding targets in favour of countries declaring their “intentions”. The argument is that the Accord and not documents drafted through the UN process, should form the basis for future negotiations.

New Zealand has suggested the Kyoto Protocol Working Group should cease to exist while the European Union’s latest proposal is for emissions reductions of between 30-70% from 1990 levels. European governments have, in effect, abandoned the fight against climate change in favour of growth at any cost.

Speaking in New York this week, Bolivia’s UN Ambassador Pablo Solon said the fight to keep warming below 2 degrees has been discarded by the developed world, and that these countries seem to be ready to countenance even higher temperatures.

What is happening is that the developed economies are trying to push any substantive talks even further into the future, arguing that Mexico is too soon for agreement and that perhaps South Africa in 2011 is the place to make a deal.

Mexico should only address issues of mitigation, they say, and their desired outcome for the talks is that developing countries should sign up to emissions reductions. In return, a bit of money will be thrown at those most vulnerable to the impact of climate change. But this money will be guaranteed only through the carbon market.

There is huge pressure on small countries on the basis that if they agree, the paltry money pledged at Copenhagen will be handed over more quickly. It is like facing a robber who puts a gun to your head and stuffs a few dollars into your wallet at the same time. And when you take the dollars out later, you find they are fake.

A meeting in Bonn in April will set the basis for the Mexico talks, and the “77 plus China” group will continue to call for the UN process interrupted in Copenhagen, to be restarted. In reality there are big differences inside the G77, with India, China, Brazil and South Africa accepting that the substance of Copenhagen Accord should be brought into the talks.

Bolivia has set itself the goal of reaching two billion people with its global referendum, says Pablo Solon. It will probably contain a clause calling for an end to “capitalist consumer culture” to save the planet. Thousands of people are expected to attend the People's World Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth Rights from in Cochabamba, Bolivia, from April 20-22. Organisers say it is intended to "give a voice to the people" on climate change after the failure of Copenhagen. The results will be presented by Bolivia at the talks in Mexico.

"The only thing that can save mankind from a tragedy is the exercise of global democracy," insists Solon. Quite right, but the reality is that nothing can restart the UN Framework Convention process. The rich countries have definitively abandoned it.

However, we do have an opportunity to start building democratic structures in every country, and through co-operation globally, to challenge the right of the corporations to continue to call the shots for people, planet and production. We can confront not only capitalist consumer culture, but capitalism itself.

With our call for people in Britain to “hang on to their vote” at the General Election and instead focus on building People’s Assemblies, A World to Win is putting forward a model for setting out on this revolutionary road.

Penny Cole
Environment editor

A people's alternative to the Copenhagen cop-out

The collapse of the Copenhagen conference just before Christmas exploded the myth that somewhere down the road is a multinational agreement on climate change, negotiated through the UN and leading to serious reductions in emissions.

UN Climate Negotiator Yves De Boer yesterday admitted that future negotiations will consist of the powerful nations carving out a deal to be imposed on the rest. De Boer has cynically taken the new reality imposed at Copenhagen and adopted it as policy.

“You cannot have 192 countries involved in discussing all the details ...You do have to safeguard transparency by allowing countries to decide if they want to be represented by others, and that if a debate is advanced then the conclusion is brought back to the larger community," he said.

So people spent years of their lives carefully preparing documents to form a successor binding treaty to Kyoto, and then arrived on the last day to have a 13-paragraph stitch-up thrust at them with two hours to discuss it and sign. It had been prepared by 26 government leaders led by Obama with no reference to anyone.

And now this wretched document is now contemptuously ignored by the very people who wrote it. It included a deadline of 31 January for countries to register the level of emissions reductions they would set out to achieve. With 10 days, to go only 20 of 192 countries have bothered. So now the deadline has been dropped. This is how De Boer explained what happened:

“I do not expect everyone to meet the deadline. Countries are not being asked if they want to adhere… but to indicate if they want to be associated [with the Copenhagen accord]. It's a soft deadline. Countries are not being asked to sign the accord to take on legally binding targets, only to indicate their intention.”

Bolivia distinguished itself at Copenhagen by disassociating itself from the deal and yesterday proposed an entirely different approach to global action on climate change.

Speaking at the UN in New York, Pablo Solon-Romero, deputy permanent representative of Bolivia, said the only effective way to stave off the life-threatening effects of climate change is “to build a true consensus in favour of structural change in global consumption patterns with the participation of all the world’s peoples”.

Speaking at press conference to launch the People’s World Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth Rights to be held in Cochabamba, Bolivia, in April, he said greenhouse gas emissions were effects of a “wasteful, unequal system of economics and consumption” He added that the upcoming event would discuss what changes must be made to that model in order to reduce greenhouse gases in a way that was fair to all countries and peoples, and to protect the “rights of Mother Earth”.

The Cochabamba conference aims at developing a set of ideas that will allow the participation of all humankind in ecological policy, including a global referendum on climate change.

Of course, the big NGOs will treat the Bolivian initiative as just another opportunity to put pressure on the “real” negotiating process. Already they are packing their suitcases and preparing their caravans for Mexico next year, for yet another expensive waste of time.

A World to Win sees Cochabamba very differently, as an opportunity to begin to develop the replacement for the process that failed at Copenhagen. We urgently need a new kind of international co-operation to replace one which simply imposes the will of the corporations and their client governments.

It would bring together the peoples of the planet in a democratic forum to plan together to halt the growth in emissions and to mitigate the impacts that are now inevitable. They would draw on all the great expertise represented by climate scientists, world food and health experts and support each others’ development towards self-government and independence. The conference in Bolivia is an important step in this direction and should be supported.

Penny Cole
Environment editor