Posted on 23 November
2013 - Warsaw – WWF issued the following
statement today from Samantha Smith, Leader
of WWF’s Global Climate and Energy Initiative,
as the UN climate talks drew to a conclusion:
“The climate change
threat has given us a clear choice – a future
where destructive weather events like Typhoon
Haiyan become the norm, or a world powered
by clean renewable energy.
“Negotiators in Warsaw
were clearly unprepared or unable to take
us towards a better future.
“They showed up unprepared
to negotiate in good faith, particularly
on issues affecting the most vulnerable
people. The Japanese government backtracked
on its previous commitments to cut emissions,
and the new government in Australia is moving
to water-down domestic climate legislation
and being cheered on by the Canadian government.
“The issue of carbon
emissions from forest loss will be critical
for the negotiations in Lima next year and
negotiators have a strong basis to build
from the positive agreements and framework
reached on this issue here. Most importantly,
those talks will have to deal with the issue
of financing to fight forest loss.
“The lack of urgency shown by governments
in this process has been sickening. And
that’s why we walked out of these climate
talks in Warsaw earlier this week.
“Negotiators in Warsaw
should have used this meeting to take a
big and critical step towards global, just
action on climate change. That didn’t happen.
This has placed the negotiations towards
a global agreement in 2015 at risk.
“A repeat performance
next year would be disastrous, not just
for the progress of these negotiations,
but more importantly for vulnerable communities
everywhere and the natural world on which
we all depend.
“The most polluting
industries cast a long shadow over these
talks, and governments put their own interests
ahead of global citizens. That needs to
change – there’s no way we can get a strong
climate change deal in 2015 until governments
reflect the concerns of the people, and
not the interests of the fossil fuel industry.
“Allowing fossil fuel
interests so much influence over the talks
is deeply unacceptable. That dynamic needs
to change if governments want their citizens
to trust that they are doing as much as
possible in these talks to address climate
change.
“By the time we get
to next year’s meeting in Lima, we urgently
need to have political will, real commitments,
and a clear path to a comprehensive and
fair agreement in Paris 2015, where a new
global agreement on climate change has to
be signed. Heads of state will need to come
to the UN Leaders’ Summit called by the
Secretary General next September with new
commitments that match the scientific evidence
of climate change. Heads of state also will
need to engage directly in the negotiation
process going forward, especially in Lima
and Paris, if that’s what it takes.”
Tasneem Essop, WWF’s
head of delegation at COP19 said:
“In Warsaw, WWF joined
a broad front of civil society organizations,
social movements and trade unions to say,
‘Enough is enough.’ We are committed to
mobilizing our members and supporters to
put pressure on governments to take more
concrete actions on climate change. And
we look forward to building a direct link
between the outcomes of the 'Social COP'
in Venezuela and the Peruvian and French
COP.”
As COP19 comes to a
close, we are joining our civil society
colleagues in making the following requests
to the incoming COP Presidents, Peru and
France:
- Concrete steps to address pre 2020 ambition
and an equitable agreement for 2015.
- An end to all dirty corporate sponsorship
of UNFCCC climate talks.
- A guarantee of the right to freedom of
expression and active participation by civil
society organisations in the climate talks.
+ More
Governments must seize
the opportunity to tackle climate change
Posted on 07 November
2013 - Gland, Switzerland: With only 50
days of negotiations left for world leaders
to produce a new global climate agreement
in 2015, they need to make every day count,
WWF said ahead of the United Nations climate
talks in Warsaw, Poland which start on Monday.
The meeting in Warsaw
is important because it paves the way to
a critical meeting in Lima next year and
then in Paris in 2015, where a new global
climate deal is to be agreed.
“The Polish government
has unfortunately shown us how not to handle
these important negotiations by having embarrassingly
low ambitions for this meeting and by trying
to package their pro-coal stance as ‘clean
coal’ – something that simply doesn’t exist,”
says Tasneem Essop, WWF’s head of delegation
for the upcoming climate talks in Warsaw.
“We are clear that we
have little time left to act, and governments,
including Poland, aren't doing enough to
address the problem. The world is alarmingly
far from an emissions reductions pathway
that would limit dangerous climate change,”
she says.
Climate and energy policy
is currently driven almost entirely by the
vested interests of fossil fuel companies
and not by what is good for the planet and
good for humanity, she says.
“We need to change this
approach in Warsaw. We are calling on governments
to make significant progress and agree to
concrete actions to bring down emissions
before 2020. Scaling up investments in renewable
energy and energy efficiency provides such
an opportunity, especially since the technologies
are becoming increasingly competitive and
affordable.”.
Samantha Smith, WWF
leader of the Global Climate & Energy
Initiative said: “When the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change delivered their
recent report, they couldn’t have been clearer
- climate change is still happening, the
main source of climate pollution is burning
fossil fuels, and the window of opportunity
for tackling the problem is rapidly closing.”
In short, says Smith,
we need to close the ambition gap now and
Warsaw is the place for governments to start
doing this. “We know that most of the pollution
that causes climate change comes from burning
fossil fuels. We must quit fossil fuels
and have a just transition to clean renewable
energy. It won’t happen fast enough without
governments, who need to send clear policy
signals to investors.”
WWF is calling on investors
and financiers around the world to end their
support for coal, oil and gas and to increase
investments in sustainable, renewable energy,
including energy access for the poor.
