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Lima’s Call for Climate Action is Exactly What It Is

Lima’s Call for Climate Action is Exactly What It Is

The Lima Call for Climate Action just adopted is simply that – a call for future action, says the Green party.

The agreement reached on climate change by the 20th UN conference on climate change was described by the Peruvian chair as a ‘good document’ that ‘moves us forward’.

But Green Party spokesperson, Kennedy Graham, said it is ‘almost certain’ that the actions identified in the agreement would not result in the world staying under the 2C threshold for preventing dangerous climate change.

“The Lima deal is a milestone in agreeing on the principle that every country will reduce greenhouse gas emissions in due course” said Dr Graham. “But let’s recognise this was always envisaged in the original 1992 treaty, and was almost inevitable here in Lima.

“The real challenge is whether the combined effect of what are now simply ‘voluntary contributions’ for such reductions, rather than binding commitments, will result in a global reduction that stays within the threshold,” he said.

“When the UN conference opened two weeks ago, the IPCC chair advised that remaining below the 2°C threshold will require global emissions to decline by 40% to 70% by 2050 off 2010 levels. The chances of Lima’s agreement, and the voluntary contributions being entered between now and Paris next December are remote”.

“At present, we are on course for a 4°C rise, which is described by leading experts as ‘catastrophic climate change,”, says Dr Graham.

Until all developed countries follow the European lead and commit close a 40% reduction by 2030 or close to it, we shall not reach our stated global goal,” he says.

“Meanwhile, the New Zealand Government continues to rest on its paltry target of 5% by 2020. And as a result it has been panned at Lima, and rightfully so,” says Dr Graham.

ends

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