Climate Talks: FoEI Blames US, Others For 'Failure'

A GLOBAL federation of environmental rights advocacy groups, Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) has raised an alarm that the world is heading for environmental pandemic that will be worse than the HIV/AIDS scourge.

Chair of the global federation and Nigeria's Nnimmo Bassey, told AkanimoReports on telephone on Thursday, that the world should should hold the United States of America responsible if the current climate talks failed to yield any good results.

He spoke even as the FoEI issued strong warnings against climate inaction at the UN climate talks in Durban, and blamed industrialised countries like the US, Canada, Japan and Europe for seeking to unravel existing agreements under the guise of a “new mandate” for the climate negotiations.

This came as global leaders arrived on Wednesday, for the final three days of talks, the international grassroots environmental organisation has pointed to the highly destructive agenda of developed countries, including the EU, which have so far failed in Durban to propose any ambitious emission reductions and any suitable finance and technology support to developing countries.

Bassey, who is also the Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action (ERA) in Nigeria, said FoEI is calling on developing countries to resist the push from the rich industrialised world to tear up existing commitments. A new mandate - which means not implementing existing obligations – would lock in ten years of inaction and set the world squarely on a course for climate catastrophe.

According to him, ''rich countries must hear loud and clear that Africa won’t pay for their crisis. Developed countries are trying to kill the Kyoto Protocol. They want to turn back the clock to 1997 and shift responsibility for the climate crisis they created onto the developing countries already bearing the brunt of climate change. Anything less than strong legally-binding emissions reductions for developed countries under a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol must be understood for what it is – a mandate to burn Africa and our people''.

“This talk of a new treaty is a ruse to distract the world from the failure of developed countries to deliver on their existing commitments to cut emissions. We don’t need a new mandate, a mandate already exists. A new mandate will open the door to climate deregulation where polluters continue to pollute, speculators profit from pollution, and the rest of the world carries the burden of the climate crisis”, said Meena Raman of Friends of the Earth Malaysia.

The EU has driven the call for a new mandate but it is advancing a wider agenda of rich industrialised countries like the US, Japan and Canada to escape from the current system of legally-binding emissions reduction targets for those countries which have caused the climate crisis -- and shift responsibility onto developing countries. Meanwhile, countries are using the international climate negotiations to drive forward false and dangerous solutions to climate change like the expansion of carbon trading.

“It is clear what is driving this agenda. More and more countries are coming to the international climate talks with one objective in mind: to defend and advance the economic interests of their polluting industries and multinational corporations and resist the global effort for a strong and fair agreement to tackle climate change. Many civil society groups are calling Durban a conference of polluters. We cannot let the polluters win and lock in a decade of inaction on the climate crisis. Africa must stand strong on behalf of the people of Africa and the people of the world,” said Bobby Peek of Friends of the Earth South Africa.

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