Afronline – The Voice Of Africa

Time has finally come. No more hesitation, no more pledges. What the world is expecting from the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference beginning today in Copenhagen is a concrete and frank agreement on emissions cut and on the fight against climate change.

Until 18 December, 192 countries with its respective delegations are expected to discuss about the future measures to be taken to reach a final common position on climate.

According to the news agencies, the UN climate chief Yvo de Boer on Sunday said time was up to agree on the framework of a tougher climate deal after troubled negotiations have deepened a rift between rich and poor nations.

“I believe that negotiators now have the clearest signal ever from world leaders to draft a solid set of proposals to implement rapid action,” de Boer told reporters, according to Reuters.

“Never in the 17 years of climate change negotiations have so many different nations made so many firm pledges together. Almost every day countries announce new targets or plans of action to cut emissions,” he said.

The reasons lying behind the decision of this summit go back to the negotiations which took place in Bali two years ago. In that occasion, governments decided to work together on a new deal for the period from 2012.

Based on scientific evidences, climate change issue has become central in the talks among governments who have realised the importance of the problem because of the severe impact of recent changes.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, climate change has affected more than ever the world’s ecosystem because of human actions, that with fossil fuels’ combustion, carbon, oil and gas emissions have speed up to 90% its involvement in the environmental change process.

But the fight against climate change needs to be made by all the countries – China and the US too – from the developed world and from developing countries, among which a particular attention will be paid to India and South Africa.

South Africa on Sunday announced an emissions target. It said over the next 10 years it would reduce emissions by 34 percent from “business as usual,” the level they would reach under ordinary circumstances, AP reports. By 2025 that figure would peak at 42 percent, effectively levelling off and thereafter begin to decline.

A call for compensation

However, Africa’s position in the climate talks will be characterized by the common position expressed during the recent African government’s meetings.

African Union’s request to all rich nations is clear: $67 billion per year from 2020 to cushion the impact of global warming on the world’s poorest continent, as Afronline.org underlined in this article.

Jean Ping, Chairperson of the African Union Commission, said that “although Africa is least responsible for global warming, it is however suffering from the impacts of climate change. Therefore, Africa suffers most from the problem that it has not created.”

This position – that will be carried on by Ethiopia and Algeria on behalf of African countries – is not shared with all the representatives of the continent.

In a recent interview with Afronline.org, Richard Odingo, Professor of Hydrology specialising in Climatology at the University of Nairobi and former Vice Chair of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, underlined that “it is true that European populations are not aware of the pollution that their lifestyle is causing and of the consequences in other countries of the world. Africa is the victim. However, the problem won’t be solved by an amount of money. I do not agree with this idea of compensation”.

The topic is still controversial and two weeks are needed to decide what will come.

The whole world is waiting for governments to take a decisive action, while the voice of NGOs and civil society will be expressed through the parallel summit to be held in the Danish capital, “Klimaforum 09”. According to its website declaration, “our fear is that the official climate deal likely to come out the UN conference in Copenhagen will be focused on ‘technological fixes’ and biased towards the interests of the corporate lobby and the rich and powerful nations. In contrast, our declaration will put forth a vision of a more socially just world society and it will emphasize the need to create substantial changes in the social and economic structures of society in order to meet the challenges of global warming and food sovereignty.”

By Staff – Afronline.org