Climate Change: Who negotiates for our common future?
By atm.admin - Posted on December 4th, 2009
PRESS RELEASE
4 December 2009
Who negotiates for our common future?
Who will be negotiating on behalf of the Filipino people in the coming climate negotiations in Copenhagen on December 7-18, 2009?
News are circulating that the list of the Philippine delegation to the Conference of Parties (COP 15) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) excludes veteran and uncompromising negotiators. Taking them out of the delegation at this crucial point will be inimical to the interests of the country and will cause a serious embarrassment for the Philippines and the rest of the developing world.
“We demand from President Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo to make the official list of the Philippine delegation to Copenhagen, transparent and inclusive of highly qualified and trained negotiators,“ asserts Chito Tionko of the CSO Working Group on Climate Change and Development and member of the Philippine Delegation to Bangkok.
He says,” we are deeply bothered with the reluctance of the President and some high-level government officials to recognize and involve the seasoned and competent members of previous negotiating teams that represented our country in the preparatory meetings for the Copenhagen talks.”
Milo Tanchuling of Freedom from Debt Coalition hopes that “the exclusion of Ms. Bernarditas Muller, a long time diplomat who has represented the country in various multi-lateral environmental negotiations, and other members of civil societies is not a cowardly acquiescence to the US, EU, Japan, Canada, Australia pressures to eliminate from the negotiations vocal defenders of developing countries’ interests.”
The visit of US Sec. of State Hilary Clinton has notably influenced the recent pronouncements of President Arroyo, who have since avowed "we need not insist on deep and early cuts in carbon emission, but we should require countries to make a commitment.”
Annex 1 or the developed countries led by the US are maliciously resolute in neutralizing Ms. Muller and other outspoken critics from developing countries. So-called “Climate Ambassadors” have been making the rounds in developing countries pitching vague promises of financial support for climate change adaptation programs. Has our President succumbed to these apparent buy-offs?
Clearly, this administration doesn't have a clear understanding of COP-15's moral, scientific, and political deadline.
Any compliance to pressures from US and EU countries is a serious challenge to Philippine sovereignty. We will not surrender our national liberties to the political maneuverings of the US and its allies in derailing the negotiations by preventing the staunch advocates of poor developing nations in coming to Copenhagen.
"The Philippine positions are very progressive, and carry not just our national interests, but also the interests of vulnerable developing countries. But in order for our progressive positions to get through, they have to be effectively negotiated. Our chief negotiators and technical advisers play a strategic role in the negotiations; without them, the most progressive positions become meaningless " Kala Constantino, Advocacy Coordinator of Oxfam in the Philippines said.
"We therefore urge the President to keep the integrity of the Philippine positions, as well as the composition of the Philippine delegation, to include the country's key negotiators and technical advisers," she added.
Rowena Bolinas, Coordinator of the CSO Working Group on Climate Change and Development adds, “we believe the Filipino people deserve to be represented by negotiators who will not be coerced into agreeing to any worthless deal that will compromise our common future.
She urges the national government, particularly the Office of the President, “TO BE ACCOUNTABLE. By law, they are bound to secure NATIONAL INTERESTS --- in particular, the interests of the Filipino people who are suffering severely from climate-related impacts. To deny the Filipino people of this opportunity, via the negotiations, and to claim the right for survival because of political-economic interests of a few, is tantamount to a GROSS NEGLIGENCE of DUTY and a GROSS VIOLATION of our RIGHTS to survival, development, environment, and livelihoods.”
-end-
Reference:
Weng Bolinas, Coordinator
CSO Working Group on Climate Change and Development
0927 696 5364
wbolinas@gmail.com
CSO Working Group on Climate Change and Development
AR Now, Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), Center for Community Journalism and Development (CCJD), Center for Environmental Concerns (CEC), Center for Empowerment and Resource Development (CERD), Christian Aid, Coastal Core Inc., Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC Group), Ecological Society of the Philippines (ESP), Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC), Foundation for the Philippine Environment (FPE), GAIA International, Greenpeace International, Haribon Foundation, Health Care Without Harm (HCWH), IDEALS, Jubilee South, Kalikasan-PNE, Legal Rights & Natural Resources Center (LRC), Marinduque Council for Environmental Concerns (MACEC), Mother Earth Foundation, NGO Forum on the ADB, NGOs for Fisheries Reform (NFR), Non-Timber Forest Products-Exchange Program (NTFP-EP), ODA Watch, Oxfam, Panay Rural Development Center, Inc. (PRDCI), Philippine Network on Climate Change (PNCC), Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM), Responsible Ilonggos for Sustainable Energy (RISE), Rice Watch & Action Network (RWAN), SEARICE, Tambuyog Development Center, Third World Network (TWN), World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Upholding Life and Nature (ULAN)
For related article on COP15 in Copenhagen kindly visit the link below:
Copenhagen Must not fail
http://www.manilatimes.net/index.php/component/content/article/86-special-reports/6838-copenhagen-must-not-fail
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Climate change is a hoax. Better to say change for food & water
Natural naman talaga na mayroong change ang climate. May malamig nga at mainit. May tag-ulan at tag-araw. Lahat ng itoy wala naman silbi pagdating ng Panginoon. Anong silbi niyang climate change na yan pagdating panginoon na siya rin ang may-ari ng lahat kasama na ang climate.
Climate Change is hoax. It is a movement to draw funds for nothing. Nanakawin din lang ninyo ang pera eh. Lahat magnanakaw pati simbahan sumali na. Climate is always changing cyclically. Oh say mo. Mag-aral ka nga ng history ng earth. You probably borrowed the idea from Al Gore who was tangent-responsible to the Twin Tower annihliation. Remember 9/11
What future are you thinking were in fact the Lord is coming? Magbasa ka nga ng bible upang hindi ka malito sa climate change na yan.
It is better to say human morale hunger and poverty change? It is beter to say food for the dogs? It is better to say nutrient for the malnourish? It is better to say let us share food?
Really???
Dear Maalam,
Your display of ignorance and use of fallacious statements is truly remarkable!
Not only are you accusing more than 4,000 scientists from the Inter-governmental Panel (who regularly issue their reports on climate change and its impacts) as incompetent and unreliable experts, but you are also using your amateur theology insight (obviously without the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) to support your twisted arguments.
We are indeed blessed that you are merely limited to posting these nonsense to public website.
You also have a nice touch of irony, with your alias.
Jaybee Garganera
National Coordinator, ATM
What? No.
What? you are blessed?. You are a fake? It is better to give than to receive. The church always receive and received and received. There was, there is, there will be no event of giving.
Isip Isip
Catholic Church's Charity
If what you said is true, try to click http://www3.caritas.org/upload/rep/report2007rev.pdf and read the the report.
brief history of climate change
The BBC just put this on its website: quite interesting!
http://news. bbc.co.uk/ 2/hi/science/ nature/8285247. stm
A brief history of climate change
As the UN climate summit in Copenhagen approaches, BBC News environment correspondent Richard Black traces key milestones, scientific discoveries, technical innovations and political action.
1712 - British ironmonger Thomas Newcomen invents the first widely used steam engine, paving the way for the Industrial Revolution and industrial scale use of coal.
1800 - world population reaches one billion.
1824 - French physicist Joseph Fourier describes the Earth's natural "greenhouse effect". He writes: "The temperature [of the Earth] can be augmented by the interposition of the atmosphere, because heat in the state of light finds less resistance in penetrating the air, than in re-passing into the air when converted into non-luminous heat."
1861 - Irish physicist John Tyndall shows that water vapour and certain other gases create the greenhouse effect. "This aqueous vapour is a blanket more necessary to the vegetable life of England than clothing is to man," he concludes. More than a century later, he is honoured by having a prominent UK climate research organisation - the Tyndall Centre - named after him.
1886 - Karl Benz unveils the Motorwagen, often regarded as the first true automobile.
1896 - Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius concludes that industrial-age coal burning will enhance the natural greenhouse effect. He suggests this might be beneficial for future generations. His conclusions on the likely size of the "man-made greenhouse" are in the same ballpark - a few degrees Celsius for a doubling of CO2 - as modern-day climate models.
1900 - another Swede, Knut Angstrom, discovers that even at the tiny concentrations found in the atmosphere, CO2 strongly absorbs parts of the infrared spectrum. Although he does not realise the significance, Angstrom has shown that a trace gas can produce greenhouse warming.
1927 - carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning and industry reach one billion tonnes per year.
1930 - human population reaches two billion.
1938 - using records from 147 weather stations around the world, British engineer Guy Callendar shows that temperatures had risen over the previous century. He also shows that CO2 concentrations had increased over the same period, and suggests this caused the warming. The "Callendar effect" is widely dismissed by meteorologists.
1955 - using a new generation of equipment including early computers, US researcher Gilbert Plass analyses in detail the infrared absorption of various gases. He concludes that doubling CO2 concentrations would increase temperatures by 3-4C.
1957 - US oceanographer Roger Revelle and chemist Hans Suess show that seawater will not absorb all the additional CO2 entering the atmosphere, as many had assumed. Revelle writes: "Human beings are now carrying out a large scale geophysical experiment.. ."
1958 - using equipment he had developed himself, Charles David (Dave) Keeling begins systematic measurements of atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa in Hawaii and in Antarctica. Within four years, the project - which continues today - provides the first unequivocal proof that CO2 concentrations are rising.
1960 - human population reaches three billion.
1965 - a US President's Advisory Committee panel warns that the greenhouse effect is a matter of "real concern".
1972 - first UN environment conference, in Stockholm. Climate change hardly registers on the agenda, which centres on issues such as chemical pollution, atomic bomb testing and whaling. The United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) is formed as a result.
1975 - human population reaches four billion.
1975 - US scientist Wallace Broecker puts the term "global warming" into the public domain in the title of a scientific paper.
1987 - human population reaches five billion
1987 - Montreal Protocol agreed, restricting chemicals that damage the ozone layer. Although not established with climate change in mind, it has had a greater impact on greenhouse gas emissions than the Kyoto Protocol.
1988 - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) formed to collate and assess evidence on climate change.
1989 - UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - possessor of a chemistry degree - warns in a speech to the UN that "We are seeing a vast increase in the amount of carbon dioxide reaching the atmosphere.. . The result is that change in future is likely to be more fundamental and more widespread than anything we have known hitherto." She calls for a global treaty on climate change.
1989 - carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning and industry reach six billion tonnes per year.
1990 - IPCC produces First Assessment Report. It concludes that temperatures have risen by 0.3-0.6C over the last century, that humanity's emissions are adding to the atmosphere's natural complement of greenhouse gases, and that the addition would be expected to result in warming.
1992 - at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, governments agree the United Framework Convention on Climate Change. Its key objective is "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system". Developed countries agree to return their emissions to 1990 levels.
1995 - IPCC Second Assessment Report concludes that the balance of evidence suggests "a discernible human influence" on the Earth's climate. This has been called the first definitive statement that humans are responsible for climate change.
1997 - Kyoto Protocol agreed. Developed nations pledge to reduce emissions by an average of 5% by the period 2008-2012, with wide variations on targets for individual countries. US Senate immediately declares it will not ratify the treaty.
1998 - strong El Nino conditions combine with global warming to produce the warmest year on record. The average global temperature reached 0.52C above the mean for the period 1961-1990 (a commonly-used baseline).
1998 - publication of the controversial "hockey stick" graph indicating that modern-day temperature rise in the northern hemisphere is unusual compared with the last 1,000 years. The work would later be the subject of two enquiries instigated by the US Congress.
1999 - human population reaches six billion.
2001 - President George W Bush removes the US from the Kyoto process.
2001 - IPCC Third Assessment Report finds "new and stronger evidence" that humanity's emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause of the warming seen in the second half of the 20th Century.
2005 - the Kyoto Protocol becomes international law for those countries still inside it.
2005 - UK Prime Minister Tony Blair selects climate change as a priority for his terms as chair of the G8 and president of the EU.
2006 - the Stern Review concludes that climate change could damage global GDP by up to 20% if left unchecked - but curbing it would cost about 1% of global GDP.
2006 - carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning and industry reach eight billion tonnes per year.
2007 - the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report concludes it is more than 90% likely that humanity's emissions of greenhouse gases are responsible for modern-day climate change.
2007 - the IPCC and former US vice-president Al Gore receive the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change".
2007 - at UN negotiations in Bali, governments agree the two-year "Bali roadmap" aimed at hammering out a new global treaty by the end of 2009.
2008 - half a century after beginning observations at Mauna Loa, the Keeling project shows that CO2 concentrations have risen from 315 parts per million (ppm) in 1958 to 380ppm in 2008.
2008 - two months before taking office, incoming US president Barack Obama pledges to "engage vigorously" with the rest of the world on climate change.
2009 - China overtakes the US as the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter - although the US remains well ahead on a per-capita basis.
2009 - 192 governments convene for the UN climate summit in Copenhagen.
Roslyn Arayata
Policy Research & Advocacy Officer, ATM
Fake, Hoax?. Not Anyway. Think Twice Its Alright. Lacking things
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writers John Heilprin, Associated Press Writers – 34 mins ago
COPENHAGEN – Tens of thousands of protesters marched through the chilly Danish capital and 600 were detained Saturday in a mass rally to demand an ambitious global climate pact, just as talks hit a snag over rich nations' demands on China and other emerging economies.
The mostly peaceful demonstrations in Copenhagen provided the centerpiece of a day of global climate activism stretching from Europe to Asia. Police assigned extra officers to watch protesters marching toward the suburban conference center to demand that leaders act now to fight climate change.
Police estimated their numbers at 40,000, while organizers said as many as 100,000 had joined the march from downtown Copenhagen. It ended with protesters holding aloft candles and torches as they swarmed by night outside the Bella Center where the 192-nation U.N. climate conference is being held.
There have been a couple of minor protests over the past week, but Saturday's was by far the largest.
Police said they rounded up between 600 and 700 people in a preventive action against a group of youth activists at the tail end of the demonstration. Officers in riot gear moved in when some of the activists, masking their faces, threw cobblestones through the windows of the former stock exchange and Foreign Ministry buildings.
A police officer received minor injuries when he was hit by a rock thrown from the group and one protester was injured by fireworks, police spokesman Flemming Steen Munch said.
Earlier, police said they had detained 19 people, mainly for breaking Denmark's strict laws against carrying pocket knives or wearing masks during demonstrations.
Inside the Bella Center, the European Union, Japan and Australia joined the U.S. in criticizing a draft global warming pact that says major developing nations must rein in greenhouse gases, but only if they have outside financing. Rich nations want to require developing nations to limit emissions, with or without financial help.
Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren, representing the 27-nation EU, told The Associated Press that "there has been a growing understanding that there must be commitments to actions by emerging economies as well."
He said those commitments "must be binding, in the sense that states are standing behind their commitments."
Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said his country — the world's No. 5 greenhouse gas polluter — will not offer more than its current pledge to slow its growth rate of emissions. It has offered to cut greenhouse gases measured against production by 20 to 25 percent by 2020.
"National interest trumps everything else," Ramesh told the AP. "Whatever I have to do, I've said in my Parliament. We'll engage them (the U.S. and China). I'm not here to make new offers."
China has made voluntary commitments to rein in its carbon emissions but doesn't want to be bound by international law to do so. In China's view, the U.S. and other rich countries have a heavy historical responsibility to cut emissions and any climate deal in Copenhagen should take into account a country's level of development.
Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists told the AP that rich nations are trying to re-negotiate the deal they reached two years ago on the island of Bali, calling on developing nations to limit emissions with financial help.
"It's going to blow up in their faces," he said. "The rich countries are trying to move the goal posts. And developing countries are not going to agree to that, no matter how loudly the rich countries demand it."
The tightly focused negotiating text was meant to lay out the crunch themes for environment ministers to wrestle with as they prepare for a summit of some 110 heads of state and government at the end of next week.
U.S. delegate Jonathan Pershing said the draft failed to address the contentious issue of carbon emissions by emerging economies.
"The current draft didn't work in terms of where it is headed," Pershing said in the plenary, supported by the European Union, Japan and Norway.
But the EU also directed criticism at the U.S., insisting it could make greater commitments to push the talks forward without stretching the legislation pending in Congress. Both the U.S. and China should be legally bound to keep whatever promises they make, Carlgren said.
Thousands also marched in a "Walk Against Warming" in major cities across Australia and about 200 Filipino activists staged a festive rally in Manila to mark the Global Day of Action on climate change. Dozens of Indonesian environmental activists rallied in front of the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta.
Environmentalists staged stunts and protests in 100 piazzas across Italy, from Venice's St. Mark's Square to a historical piazza in downtown Rome. They carried banners that read "stop the planet's fever" and asked passers-by to sign a petition calling on world leaders to reach a deal to reduce emissions.
In Copenhagen, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace laureate, and Greenpeace leader Kumi Naidoo were among those ratcheting up the pressure for a fair, ambitious and binding treaty.
Naidoo exhorted politicians to act bravely by crafting a fair, ambitious and binding treaty, so they can later "look their children and grandchildren in the eyes" and tell them they did the right thing. "Failure to do so will be the worst political crime that they would have committed," he said.
At a candlelight vigil on the conference grounds, Tutu compared the mass demonstrations outside to other popular movements that made a mark in history.
"We want to remind you that they marched in Berlin and the wall fell," Tutu said. "They marched in Cape Town and apartheid fell. They marched in Copenhagen and we are going to get a real deal."
Demonstrators chanted and carried banners reading "Demand Climate Justice," "The World Wants A Real Deal" and "There Is No Planet B," navigating for miles along city streets and over bridges past officers in riot gear, police dogs and the flashing lights of dozens of police vans.
Inside the Bella Center, delegates gathered around flat-screen TVs showing both the larger peaceful rally and the police crackdown on the young activists. Riot police tied them up with plastic cuffs and made them sit down on a closed-off street before busing them to a detention center set up for the climate conference.
Britain's Ed Miliband, the climate change secretary, said dealmakers have a long ways to go. "There are difficult issues to overcome," he said, "around emissions, around finance, and around transparency and they are all issues we need to tackle in the coming days."
But conference president Connie Hedegaard sought to reassure people that world leaders have come to seriously confront climate change.
"It has taken years to build up the pressure ... that we're also seeing unfolding today in many capitals around the world," Hedegaard said. "And I believe that that has contributed to making the political price for not delivering in Copenhagen so high."
Pa al ma
Oh lacking.
Oh Climate Change. Who will Negotiate for our common failure? No pledges.
You should act by your own before you display for help. Study, prepare, and display your inititiative, before you ask external help. You have things in common: enhaling oxygen, exhaling carbon dioxide. and you do it individually and you do it to have life. You both use products that relates to carbon dioxide emmision and you enjoyed them, so happy. So whats the issue at all.
Isip Isip
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