A year has passed since the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen, when they consumed a tear so far only partly been possible mend. Were complicit in this then the duplicity of the Danish Government, prone to the interests of the United States, the decisions of a Barack Obama still ahead in popularity polls, the low profile of the EU, and adopting a non-binding agreement pursued in a manner little inclusive and transparent.
Since then, the hardening of positions of the United States and China has in fact put up every possible step forward. The international media for weeks result we predict a low profile, mostly centered on concrete measures to the countries most vulnerable to climate change, putting all expectations for an agreement placed on emission reductions and the stabilization of global temperature to 2011 when governments will gather in Durban, South Africa.
And so the last preparatory meeting held in Tianjin in early October continued confrontation between the U.S. and China. China demands - also on behalf of the G77 - money and a clear commitment to meet the Kyoto constraints for countries that have ratified that agreement, extending the scheme also binding to the USA.
Washington - even more so after the electoral drubbing suffered by Obama's mid-term elections - will present a package of proposals slight, those already launched in Copenhagen for a 17% reduction in emissions from 2005 levels by 2020, (in a voluntary model that Kyoto would notice) to request a G77 and China by agreeing to reduce emissions controls on the use of funds for the climate.
To date the $ 30 billion announced in Copenhagen during the period 2010-2012 only 3 were actually allocated to programs adaptation, and about 5 for the protection of forests. To get an idea of \u200b\u200bproportion, it is estimated that by 2012 are needed for the meno100 billion dollars a year. Figures in the face of global military spending seem negligible: only in Italy for the purchase of a hundred fighter F35 is burn of € 29 billion while global military spending and go traveling around a trillion dollars.
The file "forest" may be the only possible step forward in Cancun. In truth about this almost everyone agrees that REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) could be the ideal solution: a few spending commitments, to support mechanisms of absorption of greenhouse gases, without necessarily reducing them in rich countries, and in return money to pay off their tropical countries for revenue which should move to protect their forests.
REDD is likely to be, however, the mice born from the mountain, waiting for better times to the forthcoming summit in Durban. What is certain is that without a recognition of the importance of protecting biodiversity is likely to support the replacement of forests to plantations, perhaps biofuel, without a constraint on human rights and indigenous peoples, it risks triggering a gold rush green to indigenous lands by governments and businesses. While
with permits REDD emissions from industrialized countries and companies can continue to pollute. REDD could also fall into the trap of vetoes. Until a few weeks ago we speculated that Cancun could produce a series of decisions to concrete actions, including those on forests, climate fund structure, technology transfer, adaptation and mitigation monitoring program.
Now is a trend towards a single balanced document, as requested by the United States. All or nothing that's at stake in Cancun. All this may be insufficient, nothing a blow to the seal of the United Nations and multilateralism already severely strained over a year ago in the cold Danish capital.
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