25 September 2007 - New
York, United States — The good news: The
biggest environmental gathering of government
leaders in many years showed the world is
finally waking up to the urgency of climate
change. The bad news: Time is running out.
Yesterday, world leaders gathered in New
York City for the largest United Nations
meeting on climate change since the Rio
Earth Summit in 1992. Top officials from
150 countries (including 80 heads of state)
plus big names like Al Gore and Arnold Schwarzenegger
were in attendance - and so were we.
"The time for doubt has passed,"
as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said
in his opening address. Ban sees the world's
response to global warming as something
that, "will define us, our era, and
ultimately the global legacy we leave for
future generations"
Gore told the world leaders, "We have
to overcome the paralysis that has prevented
us from acting". Governor Schwarzenegger
called for, "action, action, action".
One by one, heads of state stood up and
essentially echoed their sentiments. Our
own Lo Sze Ping, from Greenpeace China,
told the attendees that the world's worst
per capita emitting countries need to stop
using developing countries as an excuse
not to act.
Lo went on to call for an energy revolution
with massive uptake in energy saving and
renewable energy technology world wide,
and real action by world leaders rather
than more talk.
"At the climate negotiations in December,
you must therefore agree to nothing short
of a Bali Mandate," he said. "Not
a road map to nowhere, not a wish list."
Bali Mandate
The next meeting on climate change negotiations
under the Kyoto Protocol will take place
on the island of Bali in December. Greenpeace
is pushing for world leaders to strengthen
the Kyoto Protocol at these meetings. Industrialized
countries must begin the process of negotiating
emissions reductions of 30 percent by 2020,
and at least 80 percent by 2050 in order
to prevent climate chaos. This is what the
best and latest science tells us is needed
now to prevent the worst impacts of climate
change.
The meetings in Bali must advance a negotiating
agenda, a Bali Mandate, to combat climate
change on all fronts, including adaptation,
mitigation, clean technologies, deforestation
and resource mobilization. All countries
must do what they can to reach agreement
by 2009, and to have it in force at the
end of the current Kyoto Protocol commitment
period at the end of 2012.
US remains isolated
US President George W. Bush was not among
the heads of state at the high level UN
climate change meeting. He only showed up
late at the end of the day to dine with
a select group.
Instead, Bush has scheduled his own meeting
for this Thursday and Friday in Washington,
DC, limited to the countries with the largest
global warming emissions. Bush's meeting,
imaginatively dubbed the "Major Emitters
Meeting", is widely seen as part of
his strategy to avoid legally binding caps
on greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, Bush
is pushing for voluntary, "aspirational"
targets with no weight behind them. Bush
is just pretending to care. The world must
not be fooled.
At our meeting with Ban, last Wednesday,
Greenpeace USA executive director, John
Passacantando, reassured the UN Secretary
General that people in the US are ready
to tackle climate change, and dismissed
the Big Emitters Meeting as a diversion
tactic from a president no one is listening
to anymore.
+ More
UN Secretary General to Greenpeace: "We
need you to mobilize public opinion"
20 September 2007 - New York, United States
— Ban Ki-Moon knows a thing or two about
climate change and, as head of the UN, the
world’s top diplomat knows a thing or two
about politics. When our own executive director,
Dr. Gerd Leipold, got in the lift at the
UN bound for the 38th floor, he came to
ask Ban for strong leadership at the UN
climate change meeting on Monday (24th).
The UN Secretary General has real moral
authority. We hope that Ban Ki-moon will
use it to call for a "Bali Mandate".
What’s that? It's what we need to get out
of the biggest climate negotiations in over
a decade that will take place in Bali, Indonesia
at the end of the year. It's a rescue plan
for planet earth, which will result in a
strengthened Kyoto Protocol.
Ban and Leipold discussed climate change
- both agreeing about the urgency of the
situation and moral imperative of taking
concrete action based upon equity to protect
people and the planet from runaway climate
change.
Then the Secretary General laid it out
for us: "We need you, Greenpeace, to
mobilize public opinion and enable politicians
to do the right thing." Putting the
ball squarely in our court and that of our
supporters. Strong leadership is only half
of the equation; public pressure is the
other half.
The Greenpeace delegation
A number of Greenpeace staff joined in
the meeting. To show our diversity, and
to deliver their own messages:
John Passacantando, Executive Director
of Greenpeace USA, ably represented those
in the US that do not endorse the position
and intransigence of the Bush administration.
Passacantando told how people in the US
are already addressing the climate emergency.
He also urged the Secretary General to ignore
Bush's "big emitters" conference
next week, dismissing it as a diversion
tactic from a president no one is listening
to anymore.
Jamie Choi, a young Korean activist working
for Greenpeace China, described how the
energy revolution is already underway in
Asia. Adding that many young people have
grown impatient with slow moving governments.
Athena Ronquillo and Daniel Mittler, two
of our policy experts, who've been first
hand participants through years of climate
change political meetings, were also there.
Ronquillo gave a quick outline of what we'll
be doing in the next few months to ramp
up the pressure on politicians on the Road
to Bali and how we will push for a meaningful
mandate to tackle climate change.
Two climate meetings
Our meeting with the General Secretary
is a prelude to the UN 'informal' Climate
Summit on Monday, September 24th, in New
York, with some 80 heads of state.
At this meeting next week, we are again
among the speakers addressing delegates
and heads of state. Greenpeace China campaign
director Sze Ping will talk about our work
there, and how China can be part of the
solution to climate change. And he will
deliver the message of our energy revolution:
We have to technology we need. We just need
to use energy smarter and ensure a massive
uptake of renewable energies and we can
still avert climate chaos.
Later next week, the Bush administration
will host its own climate change meeting,
scheduled to start September 27th in Washington,
DC. This is the so-called "big emitters"
meeting since it's for the 16 countries
that account for 90 percent of global warming
emissions.
Bush is expected to keep pushing the idea
of "aspirational targets". They
are nothing legally binding or meaningful.
At best, they are a random wish list - that
will still result in a cooked planet.
Greenpeace will be at the meeting too,
providing analysis, comment and opposition
to this distraction from the real task.
We need real commitment at the next climate
talks. Not more fluff. "The clock is
ticking", Ban Ki-moon told us yesterday.
There truly is no time to waste.
You might not have an invitation to the
UN, but you've got an invitation from us.
Join the 7 steps programme. We'll send you
seven emails over seven weeks with simple
ways you can put the heat on politicians
and business leaders. We need your help
over the next few months to increase political
pressure on the road to Bali.
