COP-17: Majority of nations agree with each other, Unep says
NEGATIVITY over the slow progress of United Nations climate change talks often discounted the fact that, amid the conflict between a few nations, the majority generally agreed with each other, United Nations Environmental Programme (Unep) executive director Achim Steiner said in Durban on Tuesday.
Mr Steiner is in SA’s major port city to attend COP-17 at which heads of state, including President Jacob Zuma and European Union climate action commissioner Connie Hedegaard, are expected to speak in a plenary session on Tuesday afternoon.
“Just because a few countries are not able to agree, does not mean most don’t …In a sense we are trying to construct an unprecedented thing. More than 190 countries must agree (by international treaty) …to fundamentally change their economies,” said Mr Steiner, who is also UN under-secretary general, in an interview with Business Day.
The world still had to grow confidence in its ability to ensure economic development within a “low-carbon” paradigm, Mr Steiner said.
According to research Unep released in November the world was facing a 44gigatonne gap between what has been pledged by the almost 200 nations taking part in the negotiations in Durban, and what is needed to hold at bay the damaging effects of climate change.
Mr Steiner said while nongovernmental groups and activists were pressing for a reduction in the emission of gases linked to average global warming that would maintain global warming at a maximum of 1,5C instead of the accepted 2C, the latter average rise was already a big ask.
“The (2009) Copenhagen (climate change talks) for the first time affirmed a scientific target, a floor or minimum – the 2C – and that will evolve over time …According to the IPCC’s (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s) work, we probably do need to raise ambition, but 2C is already a major milestone,” he said.
Climate Action Network, a collaboration between approximately 700 nongovernmental organisations, said in a newsletter distributed in Durban’s International Convention Centre on Tuesday, that the “gigatonne gap” had to be closed, or the average global temperature would rise 4C or more.
This could be done by increasing developed country emissions reduction targets, and by providing timelines and guides for developing countries’ national mitigation and adaptation plans.
Mr Steiner said it was no mistake that adaptation had received greater attention at this year’s talks.
“The (talks are) in Africa and so there is greater attention to adaptation. Except for SA, Nigeria and perhaps Egypt, Africa’s infrastructure is small and its emissions are relatively low. Adaptation is critical for Africa, small island states and the least-developed countries,” he said.
Mitigation is actions to diminish the negative effect on the climate of conventional economic activity, much of which is reliant on fossil fuels; adaptation refers to technologies and production methods that reduce the greenhouse gas emitted in manufacturing, energy production and other economic activity.
Mr Steiner said moving towards a “low-carbon economy” – carbon, the most ubiquitous gas linked to climate change has become a catchword for all greenhouse gases – would not limit economic growth. Instead the contrary was true.
“It is an investment in the future,” he said.
Fonte: businessday.co.za
