Stuck in the shadow of death
At the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen the plea from small island states was heard but no-one came to the rescue.
The Cook Islands will not be agreeing to the “Copenhagen Accord.”
Prime Minister Hon Jim Marurai indicated this at a press conference last Friday after Cabinet had considered an information paper from the National Environment Service at last Tuesday’s Cabinet.
The Copenhagen Accord is a statement of 12 clauses of action finalized on 18 December 2009 following the 15th meeting of the COP- Conference of the Parties, on Climate Change which was held in Copenhagen, Denmark from 7-18 December 2009.
Countries were to indicate by 31 January 2010 whether they agreed with the provisions of the Accord.
The 12 provisions were printed in issue 495 of the Herald on 20 January 2010. The provisions are mostly very general, non-specific, voluntary, unenforceable and in some instances vague. New Zealand did not agree with the Accord.
In Copenhagen, the Cook Islands adopted the position of the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS) which the developed nations acknowledged but could not guarantee ensuring. Therefore the Cook Islands position is not incorporated into the Copenhagen Accord. Unless our position is incorporated, our survival is doomed. It’s as simple and as frightening as that.
The Copenhagen Accord cannot be formally adopted or rejected until the 16th meeting of the COP which will be held in Mexico in December 2010. The Cook Islands along with fellow members of AOSIS have until then to mount a concerted effort to have their concerns and conditions adopted.
The Cook Islands will continue to request for the following in the negotiations for climate change:
• Legally binding ratifiable outcome, to be concluded at COP 16;
• Long-term stabilization of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations at well below 350ppm CO2eq, levels;
• Global average surface temperature increases to be limited to well below 1.5° C above pre-industrial levels;
• Global greenhouse gas emissions to peak by 2015 and decline thereafter;
• Annex I (developed country) parties to the UNFCCC to reduce their collective GHG emissions by more than 45% below 1990 levels by 2020, and more than 95% below 1990 levels by 2050, given their historical responsibility;
• Funding is provided for adaptation with priority for Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries;
• Consideration of loss and damage through an insurance and rehabilitation/compensation mechanism;
• Scaled up, predicable, adequate, grant based funding under the Convention with expedited access for SIDS to address the challenge of adaptation to the increasing adverse effects of climate change, as well as for renewable energy and energy efficiency.
The Cook Islands and the Alliance of Small Islands States (AOSIS) drafted a Protocol and amendments to the Kyoto Protocol in Copenhagen to include all these requests. It is being proposed that the Cook Islands support initiatives by AOSIS to table these draft Protocol with the UNFCCC Secretariat to ensure that there is a legally binding agreement available to all parties to sign by the 16th COP in Cancun, Mexico in December 2010.
The Cook Islands is supporting a legally binding agreement because we want recourse to ensure that there is financial compliance with agreement.
Herald Issue 463 10 June
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