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| Protests at COP 17 |
Global
climate movement on course of real solutions — Michael Dorsey
Editing by
Carolyn Bennett
Representing youth delegates, Anjali Appadurai, a student at the
College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, spoke today [Democracy Now
rebroadcast] at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban.
“I speak for more than half the world’s population,” she said. “We are
the silent majority. You’ve given us a seat in this hall but our interests are
not on the table.  |
| Anjali Appadurai Democracy Now image |
“We are in Africa, home to communities on the front line of climate
change. The world’s poorest countries need funding for adaptation now. The Horn
of Africa and those nearby in KwaMashu needed it yesterday.
“But as 2012 dawns, our Green Climate Fund remains empty. The
International Energy Agency tells us we have five years until the window to
avoid irreversible climate change closes. The science tells us that we have
five years maximum. You are saying, ‘Give us 10.’”
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| Youth protest at Durban |
Betrayal
The starkest betrayal of your generation’s responsibility to ours is
that you call this ‘ambition.’
Where is the courage in these rooms? Now is not the time for
incremental action. In the long run, these moments will be seen as the defining
moments of an era in which narrow self-interest prevailed over science, reason
and common compassion.
There is
real ambition in this room, but it has been dismissed as radical, deemed not
politically possible.
Stand with Africa. Long-term thinking is not radical. What is radical
is to completely alter the planet’s climate, to betray the future of my
generation, and to condemn millions to death by climate change. What is radical
is to write off the fact that change is within our reach.”
Movement Now
“Two thousand eleven [is] the year in which the silent majority found
their voice, the year when the bottom shook the top.
“Two thousand eleven [is] the year when the radical became reality.
Common but
differentiated and historical responsibilities are not up for debate.
Respect the foundational
principles of this convention.
Respect the integral
values of humanity.
Respect the future
of your descendants.
“‘It always seems impossible,’ Mandela
said, “until it’s done.’
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| Protests at Durban |
Distinguished delegates and governments around the world, governments
of the developed world — deep cuts now. Get it done!
Mic check!
ANJALI APPADURAI: Mic check!
ANJALI APPADURAI: Equity now!
HUMAN MICROPHONE: Equity now!
ANJALI APPADURAI: Equity now!
HUMAN MICROPHONE: Equity now!
ANJALI APPADURAI: You’ve run out of excuses!
HUMAN MICROPHONE: You’ve run out of excuses!
ANJALI APPADURAI: We’re running out of time!
 |
| Protests at Durban |
ANJALI APPADURAI: Get it done!
HUMAN MICROPHONE: Get it done!
ANJALI APPADURAI: Get it done!
HUMAN MICROPHONE: Get it done!
ANJALI APPADURAI: Get it done!
HUMAN MICROPHONE: Get it done!
 |
| Kumi Naidoo |
“Here in Durban, the U.S. is once
again trying to kill off the global climate talks by eviscerating the mid-summit
draft agreement. On Saturday, the U.S. axed a whole section of the draft
agreement that would have offered real protection to those who are being hardest
and fastest hit by global warming.
“During the talks, the U.S. is fond of insisting that they
want to be involved [and] at the same time makes derailing demands and
announces commitments that barely survive the plane trip home.
“All of this wastes valuable time we can ill afford to waste
as the most vulnerable citizens, economies, and habitats reel under the
increasing impact of global warming.”
Before
“It has not always been so.
“With the signing of the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change at the first Earth Summit in 1992, the
world agreed that human-caused climate change was an important enough global
issue that it deserved its own international law, like issues such as trade,
war crimes, and human rights.
“The U.S. signed and ratified that treaty, which
also included a plan for later Protocols and legally-binding targets to reduce
climate pollution.
“Over the next several years, the U.S. delegation pushed
aggressively for a treaty that included a pollution-reduction regime on greenhouse
gases and a compliance mechanism ... and then it hit them — if the U.S.
ratified Kyoto Protocol, they would have to deal with being the largest climate
polluter!”
Bush to Obama governments trend backward
“It is deeply depressing that signing the Kyoto Protocol in
1998 was the beginning of U.S. climate treaty obstructionism, although U.S. neglect
of treaties is par for the course. It’s been downhill ever since. The next step
in bludgeoning any progress was when the U.S. ‘unsigned’ the Kyoto Protocol.“
U.S. President George W. Bush
“President George W. Bush made history by being the first to
un-sign a treaty, which is possibly unprecedented in international law. Before
Bush left office, his delegation at the Bali climate talks agreed to negotiate
on the main issues that needed global cooperation, culminating in a
controversial outcome two years later, in 2009, in Copenhagen. But, in
Copenhagen they went on to play a huge part in making that conference possibly
the most disappointing and controversial out of all 15 up to that point.“
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| Protests at Durban |
U.S. President Barack Obama
“Team Obama picked up where Bush left off, introducing words
and concepts into the negotiations in an attempt to mask that the U.S. was not
prioritizing the climate. One of the first bombs was announcing that 2005 would
be the new base year for a U.S. pollution target, and to speak as if any
increase in emissions since 1990 was irrelevant. At the time, 2005 was the year
of highest recorded U.S. climate pollution.
“The U.S. implied that EU efforts to reduce emissions between
1990 and 2005 were no longer a factor of the negotiations. This allowed the
U.S. to argue that ‘comparability’ demonstrated the U.S. was as tough on
climate pollution as the EU. The nearly business-as-usual U.S. target was 17
percent under 2005 levels by 2020. It would be 32 percent by 2020 if they were in compliance with the U.S.
Kyoto commitment.
“Obama’s team was now disparaging Kyoto as a method of
shirking fair and equitable commitments.
“Anyone can have an ambitious goal for 2050, forty years
away. In Copenhagen the U.S. delegation did everything they could to undermine
the importance of a legally binding agreement. They rolled out phrases such as ‘politically
binding’ (meaning not legally binding) and ‘pledge and review’ (meaning not
legally binding).
“We also know, because of Wikileaks, that the U.S. was
strong-arming countries behind the scenes, with undiplomatic threats and tactics
to bolster their bargaining power in the climate talks.“
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| COP17 protests |
“Durban is not seeing any change in the carnage caused by the
U.S.’s participation in these talks.
The negotiating position of the
largest historical polluter has reached a new low in refuting that scientific
consensus demands urgent and rapid pollution reduction. Leading up to Cancun, a
year later, the U.S. was already backing away from weak commitments made in the
Copenhagen Accord. It contained an agreement by the U.S. to contribute long-term
finance, some portion of $100 billion per year by 2020.
The U.S. had also agreed to the
Green Climate Fund (GCF), the entity with intended responsibility for this long-term
finance — No longer for the U.S. Some of their contribution would go to GCF —
maybe; some of it would be public finance.
The U.S. raves about ‘leveraging
private finance’ and includes loan guarantees and funding to U.S. companies as
part of their contribution.
Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private
Investment Corporation together are the largest sources of its ‘fast-start
finance,’ or $1.5 billion.
Meanwhile, Export-Import provided
over $4 billion to fossil fuel projects last year alone.
“While it is true that the personalities, egos, and IDs of
individual delegates affect overall progress, for the United States, it is the
basic negotiating position that is tarnishing the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change [UNFCCC] process now and for the last thirteen years.“
Therefore, Naidoo concludes —
“The time has come for the U.S. to stand aside. If it is not
willing to save lives, save jobs and save whole ecosystems then it should get
out of the way and let those who are willing move on. Any failure to move
beyond U.S. obstructionism will be measured in lives.“
Politics, U.S.-led Regression
Friends of the Earth policy analyst Kate Horner today with Democracy
Now spoke about the U.S. killing the only legally binding instrument that we
have to address climate change: the Kyoto Protocol.
 |
| Horner and Dorsey Durban DN discussion |
The United States, she said, “has a long history in
multilateral affairs of weakening and delaying international deals where they
don’t have domestic legislation in place.” The U.S. position at COP 17 is shaped
substantially by polarized politics and its failure to secure legislation at
home. “First they refused to commit to the Kyoto Protocol; then they led [and
continue to lead] an exit strategy from the Kyoto Protocol.
“They are proposing a far weaker system called a pledge and review
wherein pledges countries submit are determined merely by their domestic action
— not by the global community’s determination of what will keep the world safe.”
Solutions rising not from State but from Global Justice Movement
Michael Dorsey, a professor in environmental studies at Dartmouth
College, hears the loud-mouthed climate change-denying politicians and focuses on the real
movement. He suggests voting out the irrational climate change deniers.
“The American people,” Dorsey
said in that Democracy Now interview, “are sick and tired of sinister, mindless
[denial of climate change] talk. The fact is that what is going on is a global
climate movement, now grown beyond itself into a movement about climate
justice.”
It is a “global outreach — putting
people together to collaborate around the world on tackling this problem. Unlike
the delayed diplomacy that we see coming out of the State, it is a global
climate movement taking us on the course of real solutions.”
Sources and notes
“‘Get it done’: Urging Climate
Justice, Youth Delegate Anjali Appadurai Mic Checks U.N. Summit,” Democracy Now,
November 9, 2011, http://www.democracynow.org/2011/12/9/get_it_done_urging_climate_justice
“U.S. Obstructionism Is Hurting Climate Talks” [Kumi Naidoo,
published on Thursday, December 8, 2011 by The Huffington Post]; also at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/08-6
Kumi Naidoo is Executive Director of Greenpeace
International,
“Obama Admin Denounced for ‘Startling Level of Obstructionism and
Defeatism’ on U.N. Climate Deal,” December 9, 2011, http://www.democracynow.org/2011/12/9/obama_admin_denounced_for_startling_level
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