Press Release

13 May 2005
For immediate release
 

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Paying lip service to climate crisis: UN Talks avoid key issues
Bonn/Germany, 16 May 2005, at intergovernmental meeting: German Environment Minister Jürgen Trittin meets group of penguins demonstrating for climate action
(photo credit: BUND. Click on the photos to get high resolution)

Brussels/Bonn, 13 May 2005. Next weeks international "seminar of governmental experts" on climate change has been heavily criticised today by Friends of the Earth Europe, for failing to discuss how climate change will be addressed in the future. Instead, the conference, which is being held in Bonn, Germany, on 16-17 May 2005, will be packed with sixty presentations mostly on past climate protection policies.

Jan Kowalzig of Friends of the Earth Europe said:

"Climate change is the biggest threat our planet is facing. The government meeting must pave the way for the global climate talks later this year. Time is running out, alarm bells are ringing around the world, but the politicians are still dithering. Climate change is already happen now; it will not wait for us before it gets worse."

"The Bonn meeting should be the place where the European Union shows that they are ready to address their historic and ongoing role in causing the problem. Rich nations must demonstrate the greatest reduction in their own emissions, and help developing countries to adapt to the impacts and choose new greener technologies, for example through opening new grant schemes."

As agreed at the last UN climate conference in late 2004, at the insistence of the United States, the seminar has no mandate to open up negotiations or make recommendations to the next climate conference on future commitments to curb global warming after 2012, when the current provisions of the Kyoto Protocol end. [2]

The meeting is an opportunity for governments to discuss action outside of the formal negotiations - domestic measures to reduce emissions and strategies to cope with the impacts already being felt around the world.

However, Friends of the Earth believes the seminar must go beyond this simple stock-taking exercise. The provisions of the Kyoto Protocol are an important first step but are substantially inadequate in responding to the growing climate crisis. The seminar must lay the foundations for a formal process for post-2012 negotiations to be launched in Montreal in December. Future commitments must ensure average global temperatures do not rise above two degrees above pre-industrial levels if the world is to avoid catastrophic impacts. [3]

Jan Kowalzig concludes:

"The European Union must continue to show leadership both at the negotiation level for future commitments, but also by making Europe the most energy efficient economy in the world. That would not only avoid climate change but have benefits for innovation, employment and competition in a world that is slowly waking up to the challenge of climate change and needs increasingly to look for low-carbon, greener technologies."


CONTACTS

Jan Kowalzig, Friends of the Earth Europe
+49-162-942 0 952 (in Bonn 14-19 May)
+32-2-5426102 (in Brussels)

Catherine Pearce, Friends of the Earth International
+44 7811 283 641 (mobile)

Markus Steigenberger, Bund fuer Umwelt & Naturschutz
Deutschland (FoE Germany)
+49-173-923 4747 (mobile)


NOTES

[1] Friends of the Earth Germany, BUND, will demonstrate with a group of penguins for more ambitions action on climate change. The demonstration takes place outside the seminar at the entrance to the Maritim Hotel in Bonn, on Monday, 16 May from 09.00-12.00. The German Minister for the Environment, Jürgen Trittin will be visiting the demonstration between 11:40 and 12:00. Contact: Markus Steigenberger, +49-173-923 4747


[2] The "Seminar of Governmental Experts" will take place 16-17 May 2005 in Bonn in Germany, prior to the regular formal sessions of the technical bodies UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The next UN climate conference, which is also the first meeting after the Kyoto Protocol entered into force in February, will take place in Montreal, Canada, at the end of 2005. In Montreal, the negotiations for the time after 2012 will officially begin.

[3] Past emissions of greenhouse gases, largely from industrialised countries, mean that the world cannot avoid an increase of average global temperature to 1.3°C above pre-industrial levels. According to the Third Assessment Report IPCC report in 2001, the globally averaged surface temperature is projected to increase by 1.4 to 5.8°C over the period 1990 to 2100. We have already seen increases of 0.6°C. There is increasing scientific consensus that the global average temperature should not increase by more than 2°C by the end of the century. That would require industrialised countries to cut their emissions by at least 30% by 2020 and 80% by 2050, compared to 1990 levels. The Kyoto Protocol requires the European Union to cut its emissions by 8% by 2008/2012.

 

Friends of the Earth Europe campaigns for sustainable and fair societies and for the protection of the environment,
unites more than 30 national organisations with thousands of local groups
and is part of the world's largest grassroots environmental network, Friends of the Earth International.