15.12.2010
Enjoy!
If one was to carry out a cost-benefit analysis of COP 16 (and all those that preceded it) the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) would have been insolvent a long time ago. The deliverables simply wouldn’t measure up.
Yet what emerged from Cancun was, for better or worse, a small step in the right direction. The agreement asserts the need for “urgent action” to combat climate change. To this end, it reaffirms the commitment to raise and disburse $100 billion a year (through a Green Climate Fund) to support developing countries and includes measures to prevent deforestation.
There are, however, two notable caveats. A post Kyoto agreement to set legally binding emission targets was postponed until 2012 and the World Bank (read USA) – to many delegates dismay – secured the mandate to run the new Fund.
Looking beyond the details and the true value of COP 16 will be determined next year. If a post-Kyoto agreement is not reached in South Africa, the US and other global powers might call time on the UNFCCC. A more optimistic scenario would see Cancun as the first pathway to a green economy, maybe even the catalyst to a low carbon future.
The failures of Copenhagen were compounded by ‘climate gate’, an event which undermined the credibility of the IPCC and the wider scientific community. COP 16 has provided an anchor to the weather this storm, restoring trust in the UNFCCC mandate and recasting the debate in the right direction. Most important, it has shown that the value of the UN process extends beyond our political conventions and beyond conventional economic thinking.
Yet the practical implications cannot be ignored for climate change will not be cheap to address. Nor will it be tackled through unilateral action. It requires a global response specifically because its geopolitical consequences extend beyond national jurisdictions.
So if we are to respond we have to shelve our conventional ideas of citizenship and embrace a universal sense of purpose. For the heart of the matter is not within the footnotes of the text nor in the size of the financial envelope. It is in our worldviews where future generations will not judge us by the extent to which we use nature for own ends, but by our ability to preserve its integrity.
By Rory Moody
see all of Rorys blogposts here: http://challengeeurope.britishcouncil.org/index.php/blogs
And for an extra treat, on the same subject, check out this page, http://itsonehumanity.org/GVPP.html founded by another friend of mine, Elliot Verrault, that I met in Cancun.
Listen to a short interview with Elliot, at oneclimate.net: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi7hsEmWUOo&feature=player_embedded
Toward a universal sense of purpose
My friend and a climate advocate from the UK, Rory Moody, wrote this excellent blogpost about the results of COP16. I couldn´t have said it better myself, so I´ll just post it here aswell Enjoy!If one was to carry out a cost-benefit analysis of COP 16 (and all those that preceded it) the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) would have been insolvent a long time ago. The deliverables simply wouldn’t measure up.
Yet what emerged from Cancun was, for better or worse, a small step in the right direction. The agreement asserts the need for “urgent action” to combat climate change. To this end, it reaffirms the commitment to raise and disburse $100 billion a year (through a Green Climate Fund) to support developing countries and includes measures to prevent deforestation.
There are, however, two notable caveats. A post Kyoto agreement to set legally binding emission targets was postponed until 2012 and the World Bank (read USA) – to many delegates dismay – secured the mandate to run the new Fund.
Looking beyond the details and the true value of COP 16 will be determined next year. If a post-Kyoto agreement is not reached in South Africa, the US and other global powers might call time on the UNFCCC. A more optimistic scenario would see Cancun as the first pathway to a green economy, maybe even the catalyst to a low carbon future.
The failures of Copenhagen were compounded by ‘climate gate’, an event which undermined the credibility of the IPCC and the wider scientific community. COP 16 has provided an anchor to the weather this storm, restoring trust in the UNFCCC mandate and recasting the debate in the right direction. Most important, it has shown that the value of the UN process extends beyond our political conventions and beyond conventional economic thinking.
Yet the practical implications cannot be ignored for climate change will not be cheap to address. Nor will it be tackled through unilateral action. It requires a global response specifically because its geopolitical consequences extend beyond national jurisdictions.
So if we are to respond we have to shelve our conventional ideas of citizenship and embrace a universal sense of purpose. For the heart of the matter is not within the footnotes of the text nor in the size of the financial envelope. It is in our worldviews where future generations will not judge us by the extent to which we use nature for own ends, but by our ability to preserve its integrity.
By Rory Moody
see all of Rorys blogposts here: http://challengeeurope.britishcouncil.org/index.php/blogs
And for an extra treat, on the same subject, check out this page, http://itsonehumanity.org/GVPP.html founded by another friend of mine, Elliot Verrault, that I met in Cancun.
Listen to a short interview with Elliot, at oneclimate.net: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi7hsEmWUOo&feature=player_embedded
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