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CAN Updates-Day 3

November 30th, 2011 | Add a Comment

Each day at 12:30, a group called Climate Action Network International (or CAN) holds press (and public) briefings on the state of the negotiations. Here are a few of their highlights:

Going into COP17, there are “big political problems that need to be resolved.” (Georgiana Woods, CAN Australia) These are mostly technical issues about how the negotiations will work and how to proceed with this COP. Unfortunately, it may be that the delegations cannot quite do this. Rather, next week, once many of the political leaders join the conference, they will be able to decide what is realistic for the negotiations, and how to move forward.

According to Woods, “This meeting is a turning point for negotiations. We’ve gone as far down the road of deferring action as we can.” This is the COP in which big action will be taken, or not. This is the time to decide: continue with the Kyoto Protocol (KP), or not? Create public and private financing, or not?

Hans Verolne of the Natioanl Wildlife Federation suggested that “all need to do their fair share, and all need to do more,” that is the task for durban. This week will lay the ground work for future COP and actions. This is the time for groups like the EU to decide: do they actually care about the KP, or are they trying to leave it behind?

Fossil fuel interests may be holding the negotiations back. According to Ferrial Adams of Greenpeace Africa, there are delegates on the United States’ team representing some of the major oil companies in America –Shell, Chevron, BP, and Exon Mobil. Who knows what their influence may be? She argues that the delegates need to “listen to the people, not the polluters.”

The challenge of representing fossil fuel interests as well as climate denial in the United States are large issues with moving the United States forward. Both US citizens and their representatives in Congress are climate deniers. How can the US make a deal here in Durban that Congress will actually approve? They can’t.

What is the future for the UNFCCC? Maybe nothing. Woods of CAN Australia repeated that “if the countries did what G20 has agreed to do, they could mitigate emissions by 6%” and close the gigaton gap.