Ambitions lowered, not increased real game starts next week英文资料.pdfVIP

Ambitions lowered, not increased - real game starts next week Greenpeace briefing. Wrapping up the 1st week of COP19. martin.kaiser@ The first week of the Warsaw climate conference has produced a lot of talk but little action. No country has announced to increase its emission cuts, but two countries have announced serious backtracking from their earlier targets and policies. Brazil announced that its deforestation rates increased by 28% last year and Europe is divided on future climate action and renewable energy due to the ongoing pressure from coal and nuclear industries. As ministers arrive next week, they will have to deliver on expectations for finance, loss and damage and increased short term emission cuts, and announce 2014 as the year of pledging new targets. First and foremost, major polluters need to show leadership, as currently the process is simply drifting. Emotional start with reality and science The week opened with strong emotions, when the Philippines’ lead negotiator, whose country had been hit by the monster typhoon Haiyan, gave a touching speech that ended in tears. A feeling of urgency remained for the first days, when the IPCC scientists were presenting their latest findings in several sessions, and the World Meteorological Organisation issued an alarming statement on the state of climate. It is great to see science injected back to the negotiations, and the IPCC message was clear: to reach the agreed goal of staying below 2 degrees C (or even 1.5C but with less certainty), emissions will have to peak and start declining soon towards zero emissions in the coming decades. However some countries don’t seem to be getting the message. Incredible backtracking by some rich countries Japan announced a massive downgrading of their 2020 target this Friday, from -25% below 1990 levels to +3%, which is way worse than Japan’s Kyoto target for 2008-2012 and suggests that Japan plans to do nothing on climate in the next 7 years. Down