Durban climate deal leaves poorest countries still in danger

Climate negotiators agreed a pact yesterday that would for the first time force all the biggest polluters to take action on greenhouse gas emissions. But critics said the action plan was not aggressive enough to slow the pace of global warming.

The package of accords extended the Kyoto Protocol, the only global pact that enforces carbon cuts.

It also agreed the format of a fund to help poor countries tackle climate change and mapped out a path to a legally binding agreement on emissions reductions.

CAFOD's climate analyst Dr Sarah Wykes: "These talks in Durban have ended in extra time with a compromise deal that has seen the greater and common good subsumed by ferocious politicking. More than 24 hours over the scheduled end to the COP17 meeting and with negotiators exhausted, Durban delivered an agreement that leaves the world still facing a 4C increase in average global temperatures."

She said: "It is significant that Durban has agreed steps towards a legal treaty that will bind all countries on emissions reduction, but make no mistake - the timetable and lack of clarity of the agreement is an insult to the urgency of this crisis for the poorest and all our futures.

"We have a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol but will it be ready for ratification by next year in Qatar, and where are the ambitious emissions reductions and closing of loopholes that currently undermine the Kyoto Protocol? The talks did deliver the Green Climate Fund poorer countries desperately need but where is the finance coming from to fill the fund? Little from Durban removes the threat of a 4C increase in average global temperatures. We are still sleep-walking into catastrophic climate change.

"These talks have been marred by the pernicious and cynical reactionary politicking of the US and its allies but from this morally bankrupt sideshow has emerged a new progressive majority bloc of countries led by the EU that accepts the need for urgent and long-term action on climate change. This has been a warming ray of light.
"The gains made here in South Africa, although not nearly enough to protect poor countries and steer us all safely away from devastating climate impacts, are in no small part down to this alliance of developed and developing countries: this is the new driving force in climate change action.

"They must now return home to start demonstrating that a significant increase in ambition is possible; they must work hard together to form a fail-safe strategy that can politically and diplomatically isolate and neuter the nay-sayers, and they must be honest and brave in raising their voices against those responsible for putting the rest of us at risk.

"It is time for these climate-progressive countries to amass their arsenal for future battles in the UNFCCC and other fora like the G20. In 2012 the message must be that we have carried the US and its cronies for too long, it is now game on towards delivering a step-change in climate action."

Mohamed Adow, from Christian Aid, said: "this outcome is a compromise which saves the climate talks but endangers people living in poverty."

He said: "It is a disastrous, profoundly distressing outcome - the worst I have ever seen from such a process. At a time when scientists are queuing up to warn about terrifying consequences if emissions keep rising, what we have here in Durban is a betrayal of people across the world. By giving themselves until 2015 to agree a new deal which only takes effect in 2020, governments are delaying desperately needed action and condeming us all to dangerous warming of much more than 2 degrees.

"Action against climate change in 2020 will come a decade too late for poor people on the frontline - they urgently need it now. Their lives are already ravaged by floods, droughts, failed rains, deadly storms, hunger and disease and we know that these disasters will get worse and more frequent as climate change bites.

"This Durban failure also perpetuates the hideous injustice of climate change, in which the poor people who bear least blame for it are the worst affected."

Source: CAFOD/Christian Aid