The European Commission's Communication "Towards a comprehensive climate change agreement in Copenhagen", which was published on 28 January, has been criticised by the international Catholic organisations Caritas and CIDSE as not being strong enough.
In a joint analysis and critique of the Commission’s communication they conclude the communication is “not strong enough to move international negotiations forward towards an effective agreement in Copenhagen”. The two organisations urge EU leaders to show greater ambition and leadership by sending a clear message to the world that the EU is ready to take its responsibilities “as a major historical polluter, a previous climate champion and a global leader in development cooperation.”
In the view of Caritas and CIDSE, this is a critical moment. If the EU wants to avoid the creation of a major division between developed and developing countries, then it will need to show the same political will and conviction as shown when trillions of euro were mobilised to bail out financial institutions. This time it is about protecting millions of people from the devastating and lethal effects of global warming.
Attached to their analysis Caritas and CIDSE make the following eight recommendations to the next EU Spring Summit:
- Commit to paying its fair share of the levels of financing necessary for climate action, by committing to financing mechanisms that will ensure secure, sufficient, accessible additional financing for climate action in developing countries, and by indicating concrete figures the EU will provide.
- Commit to ensuring that climate financing will be new and additional money, and will not result in the diversion of existing and committed ODA flows.
- Commit to releasing all funds already pledged for climate action, and to providing incremental increases in financing between 2009 and 2012 after which the new framework should be in place.
- Commit to enhancing the UN process and to ensuring that the COP remains the primary intergovernmental decision-making and governing forum on climate change.
- Recognise the importance of the further development, enhancement and dissemination of adaptation technologies and measures that benefit and are accessible to those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, and to commit to ensuring these are supported in the post 2012 agreement.
- Commit to reductions at the top end of 30-40% by 2020 compared to 1990 levels and the top end of 80-95% by 2050, and to reach out to all developed countries to adopt commensurate targets in order to limit a further rise in global surface temperatures to as far below 2°C as possible.
- Ensure the environmental integrity of domestic and developed country targets by committing to achieving the vast majority of the 30-40% reductions domestically.
- Disregard the conditional sequencing implied by the Facilitative Mechanism for Mitigation Support, and to adopt a position that states clearly that developing country mitigation actions will be supported and enabled by developed countries through measurable, reportable and verifiable financial and technical support and capacity building.
Read the CIDSE-CARITAS analysis of the European Commission Communication ‘Towards a comprehensive climate change agreement in Copenhagen’ - published on March 9th, 2009
Read the European Commission’s document |