Eidtorial Warm streets, cold summits The United Nations Climate Summit 2014, held on September 23, can be considered as a study in two contrasts. On the one hand was the Peoples Climate March – an enormous gathering of concerned citizens in New York, USA, which may have seen a combined total of some 400,000 people. The marchers through their diversity and energy delivered one message in many creative ways. That message was: we citizens can and will rid the planet of fossil fuels and nuclear power, that such action will be demanding and difficult but we will do it at the grassroots and make a difference there. On the other hand was the Climate Summit. This, said the UN, would serve as a public platform for leaders at the highest level, by which is meant all UN Member States, as well as finance, business, civil society and local leaders from public and private sectors. The gathering, said the UN, would catalyse ambitious action on the ground to reduce emissions and strengthen climate resilience and mobilise political will for an ambitious global agreement by 2015 that limits the world to a less than 2-degree Celsius rise in global temperature. Did it succeed? No and yes. If there has been a gain from the events of September 23 (and, for many people around the world, for around a fortnight earlier) it is to strengthen their individual and community resolve to act locally in an effort to tackle both the effects and the causes of climate change. Where the Summit itself is concerned, against the background of 22 years of negotiations and conferences on climate change (the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change came about in 1992) it proved to be atypical. There were a number of promises and resolutions made to add to the mountain of such promises and resolutions but no significant response from the political establishment. This is not how the UN sees it for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon summed up the Summit as a great day, a historic day. Never before have so many leaders gathered to commit to action on climate change. Ban said that the Summit he called delivered because the many leaders attending reaffirmed determination to limit global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius by cutting emissions. Such announcements underline the contrast between the desire on the street and the cold comfort of summit announcements (now in their 22nd year). On 23 September the UN tip-toed around the large global and regional corporations (and their financier special interests) whose business practices have deepened environmental and socio-economic emergencies all over the world, and which are responsible for worsening – much less alleviating – the vulnerabilities of populations exposed to the risk of climate change. Instead of such expensive jamborees whose recycled announcements do little more than provide a false sense of security to citizens, the UN should emulate the example of the marchers and encourage small, local and meaningful action. (Courtesy Khaleej Times)
Posted on: Sat, 27 Sep 2014 05:50:02 +0000
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