Envi activists on draft climate pact: It’s not good enough

PARIS — Environmental groups are still not content with the latest draft of the proposed agreement on climate change, saying it is not ambitious enough to make a difference.

“This thing isn’t over until the conference closes, but what’s on the table just isn’t good enough,” Martin Kaiser of Greenpeace said in a statement.

“It’s a very big problem that the emissions targets on the table will not keep us below 1.5 degrees of warming and this draft deal does absolutely nothing to change that. Right now we’re witnessing a display of international impotence,” he said, referring to the ongoing negotiations of the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) in this city.

Countries like the Philippines have been pushing for the capping on the rise of global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius below pre-industrial levels, as opposed to the current two degrees Celsius goal.

Kaiser also criticized the parties for not gunning for an early review of climate commitments or measures to be implemented by each participating country in order to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and to promote clean energy, among other things.

“This text should say that countries have to come back soon with better numbers but instead it kicks that can down the road, saying we’ll sort it in ten or fifteen years,” he said of the 12-page agreement. “That’s too late, they’re closing the door on our best chance to dodge dangerous warming.”

“Right now, if you were planning on investing in a new coal mine this deal might not be enough to make you put your chequebook away. The negotiators have got twenty-four hours to change that simple fact,” Kaiser said.

“Why can’t this conference just say it like it is, that we need to quit oil, coal and gas by 2050 at the latest? And why is there only one mention of the word renewables, and only in relation to Africa, when renewables will clearly come to dominate this century?” he pointed out.

There are high expectations for COP21 as more countries feel the impact of the climate crisis. Participants hope to limit the increase in global temperature by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, the parties still disagree on several issues, including holding large emitters accountable through loss and damage mechanisms.

Earlier, Filipino climate activist Yeb Saño and other civil society leaders led a protest inside the COP21 venue in Le Bourget.

“What we see now as a text that has come out is a text against the interest of the poor and climate justice demand us to speak up, speak up for the poorest people on earth who are gonna be suffering from the ravages of climate change,” he said of the text released on Wednesday.

Saño said the text “continues to bring us to a trajectory on development that relies on the fossil fuel industry.”

“The draft text that we see is very far away from what we need and what the world deserves. Every single part of it is an illustration of how weak governments have been responding to the climate crisis,” he said.