"Climate Debt"? World Bank steps in

Thread Started on Dec 8, 2009

Leaking? Again?

These aren’t the CRUTape documents, but secret docs from “the Circle of Commitment” describing the way some manipulators wanted Copenhagen’s agreement to pan out. See it herehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/08/copenhagen-climate-change

This quote (from the Guardian article) sums it up pretty well:

“It is being done in secret. Clearly the intention is to get [Barack] Obama and the leaders of other rich countries to muscle it through when they arrive next week. It effectively is the end of the UN process,” said one diplomat, who asked to remain nameless.

At least one person had scruples, or we wouldn’t be hearing about it now.

From news.com.au

Copenhagen conference in ‘disarray’

TALKS at the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen have broken down over leaked documents indicating that wealthier nations would be given more power in future climate change negotiations.

The documents seem to allow a handful of rich countries to have larger emissions and more control over future talks within a “circle of commitment” and have enraged delegates from developing countries.

The US, UK, and Denmark are among the countries included in the so-called “Danish text.”

The document also sets unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.

The secret draft agreement worked on by a group of individuals known as “the circle of commitment” – understood to include the UK, US and Denmark - has only been shown to a handful of countries since it was finalised this week, The Guardian reports.

The agreement, leaked to the paper, is a departure from the Kyoto protocol’s principle that rich nations, which have emitted the bulk of the CO2, should take on firm and binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, while poorer nations were not compelled to act.

The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank; would abandon the Kyoto protocol – the only legally binding treaty that the world has on emissions reductions; and would make any money to help poor countries adapt to climate change dependent on them taking a range of actions.

The document was described last night by one senior diplomat as “a very dangerous document for developing countries. It is a fundamental reworking of the UN balance of obligations. It is to be superimposed without discussion on the talks”.