From FAILURE20 to COP21
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- Published on Sunday, 24 May 2015 05:45
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1121 .... May 24, 2015
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From FAILURE20 to COP21
Asbjørn Wahl
Climate change is going on. Extreme weather conditions, storms, floodings, landslides, droughts and ice melting are reported ever more regularly from many parts of the world. Millions of people are losing their livelihood, their homes, their jobs -- and many also their lives. The successive reports of the United Nation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have increasingly called for urgent action in order to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases. However, after having negotiated for 20 years, our political leaders have failed to take necessary action. The result is that emissions are increasing rather than decreasing (61 per cent increase from 1990 to 2013). Temperature increase is on course for 4-6oC rather than maximum 1.5-2.0oC, something which will... mean climate catastrophe.
In Peru last December, a climate summit (COP20) once more ended without showing any ability to do what is necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change. COP20 in Lima therefore became FAILURE20. However, COP20 was not expected by anybody to bring a breakthrough. It was seen as an intermezzo, while we have been told that it is at the next summit, COP21 in Paris at the end of this year, that we will have an ambitious and binding global agreement. Given the track record of more than 20 years of government negotiations, we should not so easily count on that. Time is therefore ripe for a massive mobilization of social forces from below to put pressure on our political leaders. Trade unions will have to play a decisive role in such a mobilization. It is a question of what kind of society we want to develop. It is a question of having a just transition to a society based on clean and renewable energy.
