Climate change will cause more devastating
natural disasters and at the same time undermine development efforts. This is
already occurring in many countries. Climate change may also cause more
political instability and trigger off mass migration and forced displacement to
an extent that is unknown so far. Long-term development and growth may also be
effected when the traditional growth through industrialisation isn’t possible
due to increased emissions.
ACT
Alliance, a global network of churches and church-related organizations engaged
in humanitarian assistance and long term development in over 140 countries, is
truly concerned by the effects of climate change on its efforts to support
eradication of poverty in marginalized communities across the world.
ACT
Alliance notes with great concern the slow pace with which the international
community is responding to the crisis of the whole human community and the global
ecosystem.
Members
of ACT Alliance together with other ecumenical organizations such as World
Council of Churches and Aprodev have been actively promoting and mobilizing
churches and citizens across the world to express their demand to the world
leaders to achieve a rapid and binding climate agreement as quickly as
possible. The Copenhagen Summit in December 2009 was a great disappointment to
us all, as has been the slow progress in negotiations during 2010.
The
next Conference of Parties, (COP 16), to be held in Cancun,
Mexico in December 2010,
must achieve a balanced and significant step toward reaching a full fair,
ambitious and binding deal at COP 17 in South Africa in 2011. This will
require parties to work together in good faith to create sufficient gains at
Cancun, and a clear roadmap to South
Africa. Without this signal, the UN
negotiations are deemed to have failed.
ACT Alliance
urges the international community to do its utmost to keep the momentum for a
fair, ambitious and legally binding agreement to ensure that global warming
does not exceed 1,5 degrees Celcius. It is of the opinion that developed
countries must take their historic responsibility both for mitigation and
finance, and that developing countries should have a right to develop along low
carbon and sustainable pathways.
Main recommendations to UNFCCC negotiations in Cancun by ACT Alliance are:
· Finding a fair, ambitious and legally binding
agreement on climate change is a matter of urgency for all human kind. Climate
change affects most the vulnerable and excluded people in developing countries
who have the least responsibility for climate change.
· Achieving significant steps towards such an
agreement in Cancun is a prerequisite for a successful outcome in South Africa
in December 2011.
· The agreement must ensure that global warming
does not exceed 1,5 degrees Celcius.
· It must allow and enable developing countries
the right to develop along low carbon and sustainable pathways.
· It ensures developed countries bear the burden
for mitigation of their own greenhouse gas emissions.
· It commits developed counties to helping
developing countries’ mitigation and adaption efforts by providing financial,
technological and capacity building support.
· It commits to substantial amounts of climate
finance, that is new and additional to the Official Development Assistance,
aimed for 0,7% of GDP.